WEEKEND READ: Why Israel Must Annihilate Hamas
On Oct. 7, the Palestinian government of the Gaza Strip, Hamas, perpetrated an act of genocide against the Israeli people. They intended to wipe out, in whole or part, the Israeli population. They specifically targeted young women, families, and elderly people. They attacked a music festival specifically in order to mass murder young Israelis. They used systematic rape as a method of torture and abuse, including driving nails into the genital areas of women, slicing them open, and shooting them in their groins. (This has been documented and reported even by the New York Times.) In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocity, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official and therefore senior Palestinian government official, celebrated the event and promised further terror attacks:
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth”.
Hamas not only perpetrated genocide, it openly spoke to the world about its intentions to continue committing acts of genocide as long as it were allowed to exist. The United Nations Charter, paragraph 138, speaks about genocide prevention and puts it this way:
138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.
Notice the phrase “appropriate and necessary means”. Oct. 7, together with Hamas’ stated intention to re-perpetrate this act of genocide, shows that the only appropriate and necessary means that the Israeli government could take to guarantee its population will not suffer another genocidal attack is an all-out assault on and complete annihilation of Hamas. It is important for the rest of this article to establish early on that Israel’s military campaign is not only in accordance with international and U.N. law, it is necessary: in other words, were Israel to accept anything less than the total destruction of Hamas, it would be failing in its “responsibility” to its citizens and to the broader international community, including the Palestinian population – more on that later.
The only other requirement that International law has regarding a military campaign such as Israel’s is that appropriate action be taken to minimize civilian casualties. This becomes especially daunting for Israel, since the Palestinian government of Gaza, Hamas, is happy to thrust hundreds of thousands of its own citizens in front of the combatants to protect their own lives and organization. Hamas uses hospitals, civilian structures, civilian resources, ambulances, and Mosques to house, transport, and shelter terrorists and terrorist weapons caches. The United States Military and Intelligence agencies as well as NATO have extensively documented this use of “human shields” by Hamas. Nevertheless, Israel engages a complex and sophisticated warning system; indeed, they go to such extreme lengths that they have, as an International Law Association Study Group writes, “ . . . elevated the discourse on this warnings precaution to unprecedented levels: some worry that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) created an unrealistically high bar on when and how to provide warnings”. Israel dedicates an entire unit to the warning of civilians; according to the Lieber Institute at West Point:
“To conduct the phone warnings, the IDF employs a specialized team of trained personnel who run a “phone bank” with the sole purpose of contacting individuals who might be affected by a strike. The calls are in some cases extremely precise. For instance, the warning may be that a strike will occur at a specified time. . . The personnel in the warning cell speak Arabic fluently, have received cultural training on the civilian population in the target area, and whenever feasible, use all-source fused intelligence to focus on specific individuals who might be at risk. For example, understanding Palestinian culture and family structures, the warning cell may try to contact the male head of a family in a particular apartment building, knowing that he will effectively disseminate the warning to other family members. If a minor or a female answers the phone call, the warning cell attempts to speak to the head of the family.”
As it turns out, we have just such an example of a detailed, fluent, informed IDF phone call from the current Hamas-Israel conflict, stemming from the Oct. 7 act of genocide. BBC reports on the story of Mahmoud Shaheed, a dentist living in the Gaza Strip in al-Zahra, a neighborhood which became a target of IDF aerial bombing. Shaheen received the phone call on Oct 19, at 6:30 am. The phone call would last over an hour, as the warning call whom Shaheen was in contact with walked him through what he needed to do to evacuate all civilians from the 3 structures which would be bombed later that morning. The warning came two full hours or more before the bombs began falling; furthermore, the fact that the warning cell remained for more than an hour on the phone shows the concern the IDF has to see all civilians are safely removed from target areas. Shaheen recounts how when he first heard the voice on the other end of the phone, he “could not believe it”. According to the BBC article: “Mahmoud asked the voice on the phone to fire a warning shot to prove this was real. If those still sleeping did not hear the screams from the streets then they would hear the shot, he thought. A warning shot seemingly from nowhere, but perhaps from a drone, hit one of the apartment blocks under threat, he says. “I asked him to ‘shoot another warning shot before you bomb’,” Mahmoud says. One more rang out.”
The IDF complied with a civilian request to fire warning shots, so that civilians would take the evacuation order seriously! Perhaps from this example we can begin to take seriously what the Lieber Institute meant when it suggested that Israel had set unrealistic standards in conducting civilian warnings. Shaheen recalls how the bombing orders were changed, and that the IDF official told him more buildings were going to be bombed than initially planned. Once again, the IDF warning cell gave the residents of al-Zahra two hours to evacuate the targeted buildings. The article continues:
“Despite the panic, Mahmoud stayed on the phone the whole time, trying his best to delay the bombing. The voice on the other end of the phone continued, without emotion. “He even told me, ‘Take your time. I won’t bomb unless you give me permission.’ “I said ‘No, it’s not my permission. I don’t want you to bomb anything. If you want me to evacuate, I will evacuate for the safety of the people, but if you want to bomb, don’t tell me you need my permission.”’
Although Shaheen takes offense at the warning cell’s comment, we see what he meant: I will not bomb until you let me know that all civilians are safe. This level of care taken concerning what, in terms of war, must be looked at as an an enemy civilian population almost reaches the level of absurdity. In no way does this minimize the suffering of seeing one’s neighborhoods bombarded, especially at night when there is added fear and confusion. However, this story, told by a Palestinian man, shows the extreme lengths to which the IDF goes to minimize civilian casualties and death. When Shaheen asked the warning cell why his neighborhood was being bombed, he was told, “There are some things that we see that you don’t see.”’ In other words, Israeli intelligence had made a decision about the necessity of bombing certain buildings in that area.
As the Lieber Institute also highlights, phone calls and text messages are only one way in which IDF warns civilians: “. . . leaflets, social media, text messages, and radio and television broadcasts. And it regularly monitors the area to assess whether civilians have heeded the warnings. For instance, the IDF has been harvesting data from mobile phones in Gaza to give it a real-time picture of where Gazans are located, especially following its warnings to evacuate the north. From reading such reports, one might imagine that the Gazans are Israel’s responsibility to protect, and not the Palestinian government of Gaza’s responsibility. On the contrary though, Hamas deliberately endangers Palestinian lives, which is another aspect of on-the-ground operations to bear in mind: Hamas routinely encourages civilians to ignore IDF warnings, pamphlets, and text messages. This automatically raises the number of civilians who will be killed in IDF strikes, and it works against the measures the IDF has implemented to protect Palestinians.
It is a good question to ask oneself in the context of the above information: how many Israeli civilians were warned by Hamas/the military arm of the Palestinian Government of Gaza before the terror attack of Oct. 7? How many families were encouraged to evacuate targeted areas before Hamas launched more than 3500 rockets on Israeli populations? The answer is: none. Rather, measures were taken to maximize Israeli civilian death.
It is also important to realize that the only definitive weapon which Hamas possesses is propaganda. I say definitive, in the sense of a weapon which might put an end to the current conflict, at least temporarily (by negotiating a ceasefire, for example). These terrorists cannot match the sophistication and technology of IDF, nor can they compete in terms of arsenal, man-power, tanks, armored vehicles, strategic planning, or intelligence gathering. However, as a NATO reports points out:
“The strategic logic of human shields has two components. It is based on an awareness of Israel’s desire to minimize collateral damage and of Western public opinion’s sensitivity towards civilian casualties. If the IDF uses lethal force and causes an increase in civilian casualties, Hamas can utilise that as a lawfare tool: it can accuse Israel of committing war crimes, which could result in the imposition of a wide array of sanctions. Alternatively, if the IDF limits its use of military force in Gaza to avoid collateral damage, Hamas will be less susceptible to Israeli attacks, and thereby able to protect its assets while continuing to fight.”
Hamas’ only chance at survival is to negotiate a temporary ceasefire in order to regroup and begin planning, as Hamas official Hamad said, ‘another Oct. 7 attack’. I use the term temporary, because Hamas spokesmen have already signaled that Hamas does not desire any permanent peace with Israel. In fact, Hamas spokesmen have said that they hope the “war with Israel” becomes “permanent on all borders”. Rather than permanent peace, Hamas—the Palestinian government of Gaza—seeks permanent war.
Given the extensive measures of IDF to minimize civilian death and collateral damage; given the measures Hamas deliberately takes to maximize civilian casualties and cultivate distrust of the IDF, including booby-trapping civilian structures and wearing civilian clothes; given that the death of Palestinians is the only definitive weapon Hamas wields to end the current conflict and guarantee its own survival; given that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health does not make a distinction between the deaths of terrorists and the deaths of civilians–it lists even terrorists as ‘victims of Israeli aggression’–given that the Gaza Ministry of Health has a history of inflating civilian deaths by 30-50%–recall the al-Ahli hospital fiasco and the true number of deaths–given that there are no independent media sources in the Gaza Strip; given that Hamas’ rockets have a history of misfiring and killing Palestinian civilians; and given that Islamic Jihad rockets have an even worse track record, we have at least 5-8 logically and factually grounded reasons for disbelieving casualty numbers regarding civilian deaths being released by Gaza Health Ministry. The IDF estimates 9,000+ Hamas terrorists have been killed since Oct. 7, while pointing out that civilian death counts being released out of Gaza conspicuously lack men aged 17-35 (fighting aged men). Perhaps this is because a dead 35-year-old man is not going to garner as much sympathy as a dead 75-year-old woman or 13-year-old child – another reason to distrust the casualty numbers.
Compare this to the number of reasons we have to believe Hamas’ numbers: zip. zero, nada. No reasons at all. There is not one logical or factual reason to believe Hamas’ numbers.
Let us now address the proposed “humanitarian” solution to the ongoing conflict in Gaza: a permanent ceasefire. We must immediately note that the Oct. 7 atrocity was itself a violation of a previously negotiated ceasefire, which up until that day, had been respected by Israel. Since Hamas chose to break the ceasefire agreement not simply by an attack against Israelis, but by an act of genocide. According to the U.N. itself, it would be a dereliction of government duty for Israel to accept another ceasefire. Indeed, it would be tantamount potentially to permitting another act of genocide against its own population.
We must also note that Hamas, the de facto government of the Gaza Strip, has already expressed its intention to break a ceasefire, were it ever negotiated. Hamas has said plainly, “not only will we break any ceasefire, but we will break any ceasefire with another act of genocide”. Additionally, Hamas has a long history of breaking humanitarian ceasefires and initiating extended conflicts with Israel in the process. Hamas, for example, dishonored a ceasefire agreement in 2014 by attacking IDF soldiers. This ultimately led to a bloody and brutal war with Israel. Since August of 2023, Hamas has dishonored 10+ humanitarian ceasefires.
If a ceasefire is negotiated, it will merely be a pause in hostilities. It will be a devastating and nerve-torturing period of “supposed peace”, which will end in the beginning of another period of conflict, resulting in the deaths of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. It is only within this context, this history, these facts, and this truth, that we begin to see how a ceasefire is not a humanitarian solution. It is the postponement of a humanitarian solution.
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Conlan Salgado, is a college junior. He is an astute political observer and highly informed conservative. America needs more young patriots and gifted writers to awaken citizens to the existential danger our nation faces in the decades-long political war with a radical leftist party and culture increasingly out-of-control. We recommend all of his superb writings. Access Conlan Salgado’s essays in The Prickly Pear here.
