I think it’s important to keep in mind that Hamas is completely capable - at any moment - of surrendering, releasing all hostages, de-militarizing, and vowing to never again attempt to kill civilians. The water and electricity would come right back on.

Doing so would save the lives of countless Palestinian civilians, and if they had any care for their lives at all, they would do this immediately.

Israel has announced a “total” blockade of the already besieged Gaza Strip, including a ban on food and water, after Hamas carried out the biggest attack on the country in decades.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel as part of “a complete siege” on Hamas-run Gaza, where about 2.3 million people live in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

der crossing points; the third is controlled by Egypt.

“We are putting a complete siege on Gaza … No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Gallant said in a video statement.

Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, told reporters on Monday that Israel has “control” of its communities following Saturday’s mass incursion of Hamas fighters into its territory.

Hagari said there had been some isolated incidents on Monday morning, but that “at this stage, there is no fighting in the communities”.

He added that “there might still be terrorists in the region”.

Israeli tanks and drones were guarding openings in the fence to prevent more infiltrations, Hagari said, adding that 15 of 24 border communities had been evacuated, with the rest expected to be evacuated over the next 24 hours.

Earlier, Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told The Associated Press news agency that the group’s fighters continued to battle outside Gaza and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.

He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which in the past has agreed to lopsided exchange deals in which it released large numbers of prisoners for individual captives or even the remains of soldiers.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

I’m sure this will in no way backfire.

I’ve been tracking the comments on all of this across various websites to see what people’s thoughts are. This genuinely might be the most contentious issue of our age. There are people who are vehemently pro Palestine and can dismiss the loss of civilian lives as’ what do you expect when people are pushed like this’ . Then others are hugely pro Israel and see this as an unprovoked attack by a terrorist group and any retaliation is justified.

I think everyone’s shitty here. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They use terrorist practices and target civilians. That’s a terrorist organization. There’s no discussion on that point. Israel is a right wing authoritarian state that regularly commits war crimes. The total Palestinian body count far exceeds the death toll from this attack by orders of magnitude so we can’t pretend like Israel was minding its own business and was attacked.

I don’t think you can point to one or the other as being the true hero or the true victim. It’s the greatest grey area of all time.

I absolutely condemn the Palestinians and Hamas for this act. I absolutely condemn the Israelis for their continued mistreatment and violence towards Palestinians. One will say they only act this way because of the behavior of the other. But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start and end.

The only thing that is certain is that there will be far more blood shed and every dead Israeli will be met with 10 dead Palestinians. I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict. And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it. With the US protecting Israel no other Arab countries will dare intervene militarily. If the Israelis occupy Gaza it’s going to quickly become a quagmire with a never ending insurgency. It will be costly and in ten years Israel will be more unsafe then they were today.

There’s no good answers or good parties here. Just disgusting human nature and the consequences of half baked racist geopolitics from the 40s.