Because the IDF has seized control of much of the Gazan city of Khan Younis, it was able to show reporters the tunnel underneath the European Hospital where Mohammad Sinwar and other Hamas leaders were hiding when they were killed by Israeli airstrikes. Even the New York Times has had to admit that Hamas had buried its military infrastructure beneath a civilian medical facility. And one can see from the photographs that the hospital itself is still standing, which makes it hard to maintain the argument that the IDF destroys hospitals out of sheer cruelty.

Brendan O’Neill notes that the European Hospital

was set up with a grant from the European Union and run by the UN through its local Palestine agency, UNRWA. Let that sink in: a mass murderer of Jews, the leader of a movement that carried out the worst act of anti-Semitic slaughter since the Nazis, found refuge under a facility funded by the globalist outfits that are forever wagging a finger at “genocidal” Israel.

That’s the thing: the media-elite handwringing over the strike on the European Hospital was more than misinformation—it was a complete inversion of truth. It was Hamas that was using the hospital for military purposes, yet they suggested it was Israel that was doing that. It was Hamas that endangered sick kids’ lives by turning their facility into an outpost in a raging war, yet they called Israel child-killers. It is Hamas that cares so little for Palestinian life that its fascist gunmen will happily hide behind patients in a hospital, using the ill and wounded as human shields—and yet it’s Israel, always, that is accused of devaluing the humanity of Gazans.

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.