Ensconced in the safety of Doha, Gaza’s rulers—like their Hizballah allies in South Lebanon—have become expert at locating military assets in mosques, hospitals, kindergartens, and residential neighborhoods so as to use their most vulnerable subjects as human shields. This too is now the fate of the Israelis they have taken hostage. But Douglas Feith observes that Hamas’s strategy is even more sinister than that:
On October 13, Israeli military commanders told Palestinians living in Gaza to evacuate to the south. The northern half of the strip is full of Hamas assets—from rockets to rifles, communications gear to personnel—that Israel plans to destroy in the coming days of the war. But Hamas leaders demanded that the people stay in place. Why?
While some of Hamas’s most brutal tactics, like systematic rape and beheading captives, are long-practiced atrocities for which the armies of Stalin, Hitler, and Genghis Khan are infamous, it is unprecedented for a party to adopt a war strategy to maximize civilian deaths on its own side. . . . Contrary to conventional commentary, this is not a human-shield strategy. It’s a human-sacrifice strategy.
In hopes (presumably) that it can induce Saudi leaders to drop their plans to normalize relations with Israel, Hamas launched this war with two goals. First, to provoke uprisings among Arabs and Muslims, both within and outside Israel. Second, to cause the rest of the world to view Israel with disgust and hatred. To achieve these aims, Hamas is ensuring that its war will harm and kill large numbers of Palestinians in Gaza.
Read more on Free Press: https://www.thefp.com/p/hamass-strategy-of-human-sacrifice