The Palestinian Authority only has exclusive security control of roughly 18% of the West Bank – Area A. However the IDF basically enters it whenever they deem it necessary anyway, so exclusive is a misnomer.
The PA has joint security control with Israel in 22% known as Area B. The rest of the West Bank – 60% in Area C – is under direct Israeli control. Area C is where all the illegal Israeli settlements are. Palestinians are also pretty much never granted building permits, etc in Area C. And it’s worth noting that Areas A and B are non-contiguous as dotted islands of control inside of Area C.
I’m not really sure what other outcome Hamas thought there would be when they launched their Oct. 7 attacks and then are continuing to hold hostages. Widespread killing and sexual violence launched from Gaza against Israel, killing ~1,400? Whether or not you agree with Israel’s actions since then, it should’ve been apparent to anybody that Israel was going to retaliate in a major way, they shoot kids who throw stones at them, like they weren’t going to respond with a massively disproportionate show of force. I guess they wanted to spark a greater war against Israel in the Middle East, that seems like the only other outcome that “makes sense”, but does the rest of the Middle East care that much about the Palestinians to get into another war with Israel? It sucks for the people caught in the middle just trying to live their lives.
Hamas didn’t have a plan beyond “shake the hornets nest and hope the other side puts us in a better position after the rubble is cleared.” They just wanted to cause a disturbance that would put them on the world stage again.
Hamas took hostages so Israel would come after them of course. They’d been unsuccessful provoking them with small attacks prior.
Sadly for the Palestinians, Hamas is actively trying to use them as war propaganda by forcing a war and as much suffering as possible. Why? To isolate Israel and soften it up for the larger attack.
The Palestinian state is in the West Bank (about 16x the land area of Gaza).
It would be more accurate to say that the Palestinian state lost control of Gaza to Hamas, and Hamas is losing Gaza to Israel.
The Palestinian Authority only has exclusive security control of roughly 18% of the West Bank – Area A. However the IDF basically enters it whenever they deem it necessary anyway, so exclusive is a misnomer.
The PA has joint security control with Israel in 22% known as Area B. The rest of the West Bank – 60% in Area C – is under direct Israeli control. Area C is where all the illegal Israeli settlements are. Palestinians are also pretty much never granted building permits, etc in Area C. And it’s worth noting that Areas A and B are non-contiguous as dotted islands of control inside of Area C.
I’m not really sure what other outcome Hamas thought there would be when they launched their Oct. 7 attacks and then are continuing to hold hostages. Widespread killing and sexual violence launched from Gaza against Israel, killing ~1,400? Whether or not you agree with Israel’s actions since then, it should’ve been apparent to anybody that Israel was going to retaliate in a major way, they shoot kids who throw stones at them, like they weren’t going to respond with a massively disproportionate show of force. I guess they wanted to spark a greater war against Israel in the Middle East, that seems like the only other outcome that “makes sense”, but does the rest of the Middle East care that much about the Palestinians to get into another war with Israel? It sucks for the people caught in the middle just trying to live their lives.
Hamas didn’t have a plan beyond “shake the hornets nest and hope the other side puts us in a better position after the rubble is cleared.” They just wanted to cause a disturbance that would put them on the world stage again.
Hamas took hostages so Israel would come after them of course. They’d been unsuccessful provoking them with small attacks prior.
Sadly for the Palestinians, Hamas is actively trying to use them as war propaganda by forcing a war and as much suffering as possible. Why? To isolate Israel and soften it up for the larger attack.