- We've watched the body cam footage
from the Hamas terrorists who invaded Israeli communities.
Read the horrifying stories
of families murdered in their homes
while waiting for help that never came.
We've seen the photos though we wish we hadn't.
You know which ones.
Now, we're seeing the response.
- More than 100 targets were hit
in the Hamas run enclave overnight.
- Ground invasion is imminent
and Israeli commandos have started conducting raids
to target Hamas militants.
- The Israeli army
has been shelling Gaza relentlessly
in order to destroy Hamas' infrastructure once and for all.
And even in the midst of our suffering
as first responders comb through the wreckage
of Israeli communities and Israeli cemeteries
hold funerals around the clock,
we can't ignore the suffering in Gaza.
So do we have to choose?
Is it possible to support Israel's right to defend itself
and remain empathetic to the suffering
of Palestinians and Gaza?
I wanna make something clear.
None of us outside of the situation
have any ground to tell Israelis or Palestinians
how to think about their own suffering.
These are the people who actually live in the region,
who are running from the rockets or airstrikes,
who have attended too many funerals since October 7th.
That gives them the right to decide and manage
their own responses to the unimaginable trauma
they've suffered and continue to suffer.
This video is for those of us
who are watching the horror unfold from hundreds
or thousands of miles away.
Those of us who are still trying to manage our reaction
to the constant onslaught of terrible news.
- Young people came here for a party, for a celebration,
and then they were slaughtered.
- The situation with the hostages,
they say there are around 200 in total.
They say about 10% of them are children under the age of 18.
- If you've taken to social media
to try and make sense of what is happening.
You've seen someone justify the indiscriminate
and barbaric murder of over a thousand Israeli civilians.
- Resistance is justified.
- The hot takes are everywhere,
and each is more deranged than the next.
- Hamas are Palestinians.
Okay?
All of us Hamas
(speaking in Arabic)
- First it was
(speaking in Arabic)
- Then it was,
this is what decolonization looks like.
- Then it was Israel is lying
about the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas
and the inevitable conclusion,
Swastikas at rallies, cries of gas the Jews,
kill a settler spray painted on buildings.
I'm not going to address those takes.
None of us have the time or energy
to entertain the profound moral rot
at the heart of these reactions.
This is hateful, denialist garbage.
But some people are asking important questions.
Even as we condemn the massacre in Israel
in the strongest terms,
many people are wondering,
why should the Palestinians of Gaza have to pay?
Why is Israel making them suffer?
And you know what?
These are fair questions.
Because if you've been paying attention
for the past couple of decades,
you probably already know
the Palestinians and Gaza have not had it easy.
And that's an understatement.
- Hamas, a Sunni movement won Palestinian elections in 2006.
In the end, Hamas won control of Gaza
and its grip on the enclave
of around 2 million people tightened
as Israel and Egypt largely sealed it off,
causing intense humanitarian problems.
- Now, I don't wanna push this narrative
that Palestinians are nothing but victims,
that they don't have any joy or resilience or agency,
that is utterly false.
Like any other group of people,
Palestinians are human beings
who manage to find joy, purpose, and meaning
even in difficult circumstances.
So when I say that they've had it tough, I'm stating a fact,
not dismissing their agency or resilience.
Because the fact is, life in Gaza is tough.
It is a tiny densely populated strip of land
where 2 million people live in crowded conditions
with very little freedom.
Half of the population is under 18 years old
and that means they've lived under Hamas their entire lives.
They've attended Hamas schools and summer camps,
surrounded by Hamas propaganda.
- Ahmed Ibrahim is being taught how to put together a rifle.
He'll also learn how to look after it and how to use it.
Ahmed is a new recruit to a youth military program
being run by the Government of Hamas.
- They live through multiple wars with Israel
and they're surrounded by poverty, crumbling infrastructure,
and food insecurity.
The average Gazan lives on $13 a day,
and that's if they're lucky enough to be employed,
which many, many Gazans aren't.
Since 2007,
both Egypt and Israel have imposed blockades on the strip.
The intensity of those blockades
depends on the year and each country's political situation.
For obvious reasons,
the blockades go stricter during times of war.
But even in times of relative peace,
both Egypt and Israel regulate everything
that enters and exits Gaza, including people.
The thousands of Gazans
who cross into Israel every day
for work or medical treatment, need permits to do so.
But those Palestinians who wish to cross into the West Bank
or to leave the strip entirely for a trip abroad,
need permission from Egyptian, Palestinian
and/or Israeli authorities,
depending on where they're trying to go
and through which exit.
And as you might imagine,
that severely limits their employment
and educational prospects,
not to mention, their quality of life.
It's not just the land routes that are blocked,
Gaza has no airport or seaport.
In short, Gazans are effectively trapped,
and life in the strip is not pleasant.
Hamas, the political party that runs Gaza
is considered a terrorist group
by over a dozen countries, including the US
and their terror is not limited to Israelis.
Hamas steals aid meant for ordinary Gazans,
pilfers humanitarian supplies,
and silences any citizens that try to protest.
Innocent Palestinians are routinely killed
by the rockets shot from within Gaza towards Israel.
- CNN just got its hands on unclassified US intelligence
that shows that it was a misfired Palestinian rocket
that caused the explosion at the Gaza Hospital on Tuesday.
- In short, ordinary Palestinians
have suffered greatly since they elected Hamas in 2006.
That was nearly two decades ago.
Hamas has not held a single election since.
For that matter, neither has the PA in the West Bank.
That's a different story.
And that means that over half of Gaza wasn't even born
when their parents or grandparents elected Hamas.
So while there is no justification
for Hamas' slaughter of Israeli's civilians on October 7th,
you would be absolutely forgiven for asking
why should ordinary Palestinians
who have already suffered so much have to pay?
And the answer isn't comfortable,
it isn't pleasant, and it isn't fair.
The Israeli government once hoped that Hamas might be,
well, not a partner for peace,
but a stable if unpleasant neighbor.
After all, the terrorist group revised
its genocidal charter in 2017,
removing the more blatant antisemitism
and seeming to accept a Palestinian state
within the 1967 borders.
- This is the message actually,
crystal clear to the people in the West
to the world community, that this is Hamas.
And I think now they will say
now we can make business with the movement.
- And for the past couple of years,
Hamas' negotiations with Israel
centered mostly on ways to ease
Gaza's dire economic distress,
a distress they themselves have facilitated
by funneling Gaza's aid money into terror.
But in the wake of October 7th, Israel has realized
in the most shocking and bloody way possible
that Hamas' apparent desire for stability was a smokescreen.
And Israelis paid dearly for that false sense of security.
The terrorists that poured into Israel on October 7th
had clear directions from the top brass,
murder, torture, kidnap.
Fueled by cheap amphetamines,
they fulfilled their instructions with savage glee.
I won't repeat the things that they did to their victims,
it's too graphic.
But you don't have to take my word for it
because perversely, they recorded and uploaded their crimes.
I don't recommend searching for these videos, by the way,
they're horrific.
The Israeli response was swift and unambiguous.
They promised to root out Hamas' fighters,
to destroy their infrastructure, to target their leadership,
and to banish them from Gaza,
ensuring that Israel's borders are safe.
The aim is understandable, even justified.
Hamas tortures its own civilians,
uses innocent people as human shields.
- Hamas is willing to use innocent civilians
as essentially human shields.
That's exactly what we saw with ISIS.
- And rips up Gaza's water pipes
to create rockets.
They've spent the past 17 years destroying Gaza
from the inside out
and they're hell bent on even more destruction
because their ultimate goal
is to establish a state free of Zionism
and treacherous Christianity,
just like ISIS.
(speaking Arabic)
- And as we've seen time and again,
they will use violence to do it.
And that's why the Israeli army is currently bombing Gaza.
That is why they're targeting Hamas leadership.
That is why they're warning Palestinian civilians to flee.
That is why they're preparing a ground assault.
Not because they hate Palestinians,
not because they want Palestinians to suffer,
not because they're out for revenge,
but because Israel now insists
this will be the last time
that Hamas will be allowed to murder innocent civilians,
to take hostages, to commit human rights atrocities,
and to threaten its own people.
Hamas started a war, and Israel is going to finish it.
War is devastating and unfair and ugly
but it's the only way to ensure
that any of the people living in the holy land,
whether in Israel or in Gaza,
have a shot at a future that is free of terror,
destruction, and blood.