As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

 

"Hamas understands very well that, when it comes to holding Israeli prisoners, patience is all they need."

"Over time, the Israeli public will create the pressure. All Hamas has to do is wait."

Regional diplomat

 

"[Mohammed] Deif has tried to start the second war of Israeli independence."

"The main goal is -- by steps -- to destroy Israel. This is one of the first steps -- this is just the beginning."

Eyal Rosen, colonel, Israeli Army reserves

 

"Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on, and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home."

Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz

 

"You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists you will never have to."

"We will always be there by your side."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Palestinians head south on Friday, after the Israeli army warned civilians to relocate from northern Gaza and Gaza City, ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion. (Hatem Moussa/The Associated Press)

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed American support to Israel even while the Israeli military pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes, preparing to launch a potential ground invasion. Israel announced that nothing would be allowed into Gaza, no food, no energy, no water, until such time as the 150 Israeli hostages that Hamas and PIJ boast they are holding are given their freedom.

 

Palestinians are attempting to stock up on bread and groceries while available supplies are steadily dwindling. This situation is what the world at large focuses on. At the same time the Israeli civilian population is itself finding limited stocks of groceries available on supermarket shelves; deliveries have been interrupted as people involved in servicing everyday needs of a population have been called to duty as military reserves. 

While Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad slaughtered Israelis in border towns, villages and kibbutzim, viciously disrupting a nearby music festival to remorselessly kill 260 of the thousands of devoted music fans, raping, taking hostages, killing entire families in defenceless border towns, the population of Gaza whom polls have revealed massively support Hamas and its agenda, are now themselves defenceless against a massive retaliatory response from Israel.

 

Aid groups warn of disaster in Gaza as relentless and ferocious airstrikes continue. In Israel, more scenes of devastation emerge, and journalists are brought to the site of the Supernova music festival, where at least 260 people were killed. Still from video, CBC News

 

This, while the United Nations and international aid groups warn of an impending humanitarian crisis with the halting of food, water, fuel and electricity to the crowded enclave, in preventing supply entries from Egypt as well. Those that reluctantly in many instances were forced by the slickly-produced sickening videos that Hamas publicity produced and posted to social media to denounce the terrorist attacks, now turn to blame Israel for the results of Hamas's atrocities causing a crisis in Gaza.

Even while Israeli's military pulverizes Gaza from the air, returning rockets continue to cross from Gaza into Israel, thousands of rockets have been fired by Hamas. Syrian state media reported Israeli airstrikes hit their two international airports in Damascus and Aleppo, placing them out of service, unable to continue providing Hamas with military supplies courtesy of Iran. Another Iran proxy, Hezbollah, has mounted several attacks from Lebanon into Israel.

And raging Jordanian Palestinians have been flocking to their border with Israel, threatening the potential for a pincer encirclement of assaults against Israel. Peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan aside, it is only the more recent United Arab Emirates and Bahrain peace partners that have seen fit to outright condemn Hamas for its inhumane atrocities committed against the Jewish population in Israel. 

 

After Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel's south on Saturday morning, massacring hundreds, killing children in their homes, taking others hostage back to Gaza, in atrocities that included beheading soldiers and gang-raping women, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would "crush" Hamas. 

 

That, precisely, is what Israeli forces are busy doing, bombing Hamas infrastructure, informing Gazans they best vacate specific areas marked for destruction, while Hamas urges its population to remain where it is and face the onslaught it has created. The greater the number of Gazan casualties, the louder Hamas will cry out to the West that Israel is a murderer of helpless Arab civilians.

Palestinians flee from northern Gaza to the south after the Israeli army issued an unprecedented evacuation warning on Friday, October 13, 2023. Hatem Moussa/AP