🧵Luxury Hamad towers in Gaza, below, is a microcosm of the entire Gaza war: massive int'l aid pouring in, Gaza is actually a modern urban enclave, Hamas exploitation of civilian Gaza for war, careful IDF action within rules of war & tragic destruction. Overview & analysis: 1/9
Hamad towers near Khan Younes consists of about 60 5-story buildings with ~3,000 apartments initiated & funded by Qatar in 2016 with over $200 million in donated costs. The towers were built & inhabited in phases as part of a new luxury neighborhood. 2/ gulf-times.com/story/557266/w…
Below is a luxury wedding dress shop housed in retail section of towers. Parks, high end mosques, etc. Sudanis, Yemenis & Afghanis could only dream of this. Didn't you know they have these in open air prisons? Enjoy the whole video about this shop. 3/
Unfortunately for civilians in Gaza, Hamas leaders & 100s of operatives extensively embedded in these civilian towers to plan, attack, manufacture weapons, tunnel shafts, fire rockets, etc. IDF began operation here in early March after learning about extensive Hamas presence. 4/
IDF could carpet bomb 60 buildings and not risk ground troops. But without specific Hamas targets that would be illegal, against laws of distinction & proportionality; so instead IDF undertook multi-week ground operation clearing civilians first, which of course warned Hamas. 5/
Intense fighting has been ongoing in Hamad with close building-to-building, apartment-to-apartment combat. Again, no carpet bombing, no “genocide” as some civilians still remain. IDF troops have been killed at Hamad as a result of adherence to rules of war. 6/
See video of IDF action in Hamad. Hamas attacked IDF forces with several cases of human shields. Again, no indiscriminate destruction as libelously claimed but troops risking lives in close combat. Some would say they shouldn’t have to do it this way. 7/
To defeat Hamas in Hamad, IDF airstrikes, tank firing, combat etc. has caused extensive damage, this is a photo from March 13. Tragic. Did it have to be this way? No. Hamas could have decided not to embed in Hamad towers. Every Hamas operative could have surrendered. 8/
It’s also true as some will say, IDF did not need to go into Hamad. It could instead allow 100s of would be serial killers to survive to kill, rape & kidnap Israelis as Hamas vows to do again. But Israel decided that was not acceptable, so it went in to destroy Hamas. END
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