A thought: Considering the large population packed into the Gaza Strip, maybe part of Hamas’ plan was also a form of free population control, free up more land and resources for themselves.
They knew Israel would fight back hard and many civilians’ lives would be lost as a result of their actions.
Just as the Israelis were taken by surprise by Hamas I think Hamas was taken by surprise by the Israelis.
The norm is for prisoner swaps to occur when the opportunity arises. Hamas had no personnel in detention with which to strike a deal. They wanted hostages. Which makes the unprecedented death toll another matter entirely as there is no leverage in dead or missing hostages, as we have seen.
Even viewed against the backdrop of the war of attrition which has claimed the lives of many Palestinian farmers over the years, it is unfathomable.
Snip
These settler attacks are primarily directed against rural Palestinian families living on small farms or in villages and towns in the occupied West Bank located in close proximity to Israeli settlements. Many of these Palestinians reside in the so-called “Area C” of the West Bank, which is under complete Israeli security and civil control, and where Israel’s
de facto annexation stratagem is most evident.
The experts noted that settler violence has taken many forms, including physical violence, shooting with live ammunition, torching of fields and livestock, theft and vandalization of property, trees and crops, stone-throwing and tenacious intimidation of herders and their families. In the autumn, it is often directed towards Palestinians engaged in the olive harvest. Harvested olives are stolen or ruined. Olive trees are destroyed. Harvesters are attacked with rocks and pipes, or threatened with weapons.
On other occasions, settlers have seized private or public Palestinian land and brought sheep and cattle to graze on the land, as an initial step to drive Palestinians away from their land. If Palestinians attempt to keep their land, they are frequently met with violence.
“The ubiquity of these attacks, and the credible reports of the Israeli military’s passivity in combating this violence, has deepened the atmosphere of fear and coercion throughout the West Bank,” said the experts.
“We are very troubled by the failure of Israel, the occupying power, to exercise its substantial obligations under the
Fourth Geneva Convention, including Article 27, to protect the population under occupation.”
