[dopamean]

Honest question because I'm not super educated on this matter... I keep hearing all this awful stuff about Hamas: they use human shields, they're launching rockets from hospitals and churches, they dont care about the lives of Palestinian people. The only people I ever hear making these claims are Israelis and pro-Israeli westerners. I haven't heard any of these claims from Palestinian people. If it was true that they're being used as human shields by these awful thugs that are ruining their lives wouldn't there be more of an outcry against them by Palestinians? Maybe that's happening and I'm just not seeing it?

[invalidname]

Plenty of Palestinians and Arabs talk about that but they get very little press. Probably most famous is Mosab: https://www.amazon.com/Son-Hamas-Gripping-Political-Unthinka...

[grumple]

The majority of Palestinians support Hamas and violence against Jews. You can find recent polls:

https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8...

https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2086%20English%20... (warning, pdf)

If you want to learn more about the way Palestinians and Hamas interact, look up "Son of Hamas", a book by the Palestinian son of one of the founders of Hamas. Here's an interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v738Wogza0

That's a good start. You can find reports of rockets launched from civilian areas on your own. I'm sure you can find others condemning Hamas. But the reason there isn't more obvious outcry is because Palestinians are largely supportive, and those that aren't don't exactly have robust freedom of speech protections - speaking out can get you killed. And the media doesn't seem to like portraying Palestine as anything other than a monoculture.

[johnnyworker]

First off, 45% of the population of Gaza is below the age of 15.

Secondly, https://theconversation.com/hamas-was-unpopular-in-gaza-befo...

> Support of armed resistance was not always present. When Hamas openly fought the Palestinian Authority – which governs the West Bank and questioned the legitimacy of Hamas’ victory – and seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, over 73% of Palestinians opposed that seizure and any further armed conflict.

> At that time, fewer than one-third of Gazans supported any military action against Israel. Over 80% condemned kidnapping, arson and indiscriminate violence.

> If read over time, polls of Gazans from 2007 to 2023 tell a story. They help make clear that Gazan support for armed resistance grew alongside increasing frustration, anger and a sense of hopelessness with any political solution to their suffering.

It's very easy to judge people born into what is essentially the largest open-air prison in the world for being able to be driven mad, blow by blow by blow. You think you'd fare better?