What a strange "open air prison", Gaza was! It had a university, mosques, churches, hospitals, apartment blocks, farms, areas that looked like nice little towns, but were called "refugee camps" to keep alive the notion that their residents were going to return to what is now Israel after the Israelis were driven into the sea
I notice how you failed to mention these elements of this sun-drenched paradise: the blockades on jobs, food, health care supplies; the rationing of sanitized water, electricity, no weapons permitted, but frequent and mandatory IDF checkpoints, the mandatory registration of all births, deaths, apartment occupancies, electronics and phone numbers with the state of Israel, the censorship of information reaching Gazans--- and, my personal favorites: the prohibition of travel in and out of the paradise, including swimming in the sea and the periodic massive IDF "mowing the grass" using bombs, kidnapping Gazans off the streets and holding them for years without benefit of trial, and the destruction of the family homes of the kidnapped as a reminder that collective punishment is okay.
Unfortunately, it elected a government in 2005 that is committed to rendering not just Palestine, but the entire planet earth, judenrein, which diverted all the aid given to improve the lives of Gazans into creating a military tunnel complex with key entrances and command centers under hospitals, and building rockets to attack Israel. .
Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. And, since the current median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place.
Here’s a little more information on that last election in Gaza -
In January 2006 Gaza held what turned out to be their last parliamentary elections. Hamas won a bare plurality of votes (44 percent to the more moderate Fatah party’s 41 percent) but, given the electoral system, a strong majority of seats (74 to 45).
Fighting broke out between the two political parties. When a unity government was finally formed in June 2007, Hamas broke the deal, started murdering Fatah members, and, in the end, took total control of the Gaza Strip. Those who weren’t killed fled to the West Bank, and the territories have remained split ever since.
Netanyahu saw the advantage of having Hamas in power: --- to keep Gaza and the West Bank from politically joining and forming a separate state. To keep this dream alive, Bibi damn near treated Hamas like an ally. For instance:
Netanyahu authorized mega unaudited money transfers to Hamas from Qatar, the last transfer was in Sep 2023,
Netanyahu knew for certain about the tunnels since the war in 2014, but allowed them to be built and expanded for nine more years.
The Netanyahu government ignored the clarion warning of an attack on Israel outlined in chilling details in the "Jericho Wall Document", a document compiled by Israel's own security agencies. Netanyahu chose instead to dedicate focus and resources to expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Could it be the Israelis have repeatedly made the wrong choice in its leader?
Now, of course, it's all rubble, just like a lot of Germany was rubble during and after the defeat of the Nazis.
Gaza has been rubble since Netanyahu's last rampage, in 2014. Remember this iconic photo courtesy of the IDF?
If I recall correctly, the Gazans were fighting back in 2014 with balloons set on fire.
