Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

As of a week ago, an estimated 374,000 people had fled Lebanon to Syria. That doesn't include the thousands that fled by plane over the last few weeks.

It is natural for people to want to flee a war zone. The Lebanese know how thoroughly their country had been hijacked by Hezbollah, how embedded Hezbollah is in many of their neighborhoods, how much Hezbollah has been using them as human shields in its quest to entrench and strengthen itself for the sole purpose of an eventual war to destroy Israel. The UNHCR is doing what it can to help the refugees in Syria.

Yet over the past year the exact same scenario occurred in Gaza. A similar terrorist group had taken over an entire area filled with civilians, hijacked it for the sole purpose of using it as a launching pad to destroy the Jewish state, and cynically used those civilians to be human shields.

Except in Gaza, there was no refugee agency helping those fleeing. Because except for a fortunate few who could pay exorbitant bribes to Egyptian middlemen, Gazans couldn't escape their war zone created by Hamas.

Arab states, instead of welcoming them, insisted that they did not want any Gazans to take refuge there. The world shrugged - they have the right to refuse who enters their borders, right? And besides, this was for the Palestinians' own good, because if they fled, who says they would ever be allowed to return?

No one asked the Palestinians what they wanted to do, and no one gave them a choice. Gazans were desperate to flee, tens of thousands of them turning to social media to raise money to bribe the Egyptians to allow them to enter.

When Egypt built a wall specifically to stop Gazans from having the option of fleeing a war zone, there was not one negative word from Amnesty or Human Rights Watch.

Egypt's refusal to allow Gazans into its country is almost certainly a direct violation of the 1969 Organization of African Unity Refugee Convention which Egypt had signed.


(full article online)

 
The Washington Post discusses how Hamas was able to successfully build itself up as much as it did before October 7 last year.

The article goes into detail about how Hamas built a "war machine" with extensive tunnels and home-grown weapons manufacturing. And it mentions, almost as an aside:

The group relied on outsiders for money and advice. It raised tens of millions of dollars, some of it from Iran, but much of it siphoned from aid money, charitable contributions, tax revenue and — after Oct. 7 — shareholder deposits stolen from Gazan banks.

Later in the article it adds:
Hamas is believed to have socked away hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and cryptocurrencies before Oct. 7, much of it from tax revenue collected from Gazans as well as financial aid given by Qatar — with the tacit approval of Israeli leaders — in recent years to keep the enclave’s economy from collapsing.

Aid money to Gaza comes from sources as diverse as UNRWA, the EU, Save the Children, Islamic Relief, IHH from Turkey, and Oxfam, besides Iran and Qatar. (Hamas also reportedly made hundreds of millions by selling Israeli stocks short before October 7.)

Cash found in Hamas home in Gaza
So where is the outrage from these donors? The article doesn't go into details but it makes it seem like everyone knows that Hamas has always taken part or all of incoming funds meant for aid to build its terror network, its tunnels, its weapons. October 7 was funded to a large extent by these international donors.

Yet we haven't seen any articles demanding answers, or better oversight, or investigations into exactly how Hamas stole these funds from aid agencies, from international donors, and from Gazans themselves.

And if no one is interested in finding out the truth, that means that they really don't mind funding Hamas.


 

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