[dmurray]

> Hamas was an aspiring near-peer military force

This is beyond ridiculous. Israel is a nuclear-armed regional power with tanks, a modern navy, a state of the art air force, the best missile defence system in the world, and one of the best counterintelligence operations. It can project force thousands of kilometres away into Iran. Hamas is none of that.

Even on sheer manpower, sources from 2023 put Hamas at 3 to 30 times smaller than the IDF, depending on who you trust and how you count reservists. [0]

If Hamas had been a near peer to the IDF, the October 7th attackers wouldn't have been shootings and stabbings within 5 miles of the Gaza border, they would have been successful missile attacks on Tel Aviv or tanks rolling down the streets of West Jerusalem. Or do you think Hamas just wanted to start a limited war with border skirmishes and kept its real military might in reserve?

Perhaps "small arms" or "light weapons" would be more precise than "handguns", but Hamas's capabilities have always been closer to the latter than to Israel's.

[0] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231016-the-israel-ha...

[troupo]

> they would have been successful missile attacks on Tel Aviv

--- start quote ---

In January 2008 the border between Gaza and Egypt was breached by Hamas. It allowed them to bring in Russian and Iranian-made rockets with a larger range. In the first half of 2008, the number of attacks rose sharply, consistently totaling several hundred per month. In addition, Ashkelon was hit many times during this period by Grad rockets.

...

In 2012, Jerusalem and Israel's commercial center Tel Aviv were targeted with locally made "M-75" and Iranian Fajr-5 rockets, respectively, and in July 2014, the northern city of Haifa was targeted for the first time

--- end quote ---

> Perhaps "small arms" or "light weapons" would be more precise than "handguns"

Where "light weapons" are literally thousands of rocket launches against various targets in Israel.

Iron Dome exists due to "small lightly equipped militia" in Palestine.

[Aeolun]

I can call throwing a grenade in Jerusalem a successful attack with an explosive device, but all those attacks together over the past decade haven’t even come close to scratching the deaths inflicted by a single Israelli bomb. I can’t even imagine how people keep repeating that. The attacks two years ago were noteworthy exactly because they were so relatively effective.

[troupo]

Literally hundreds of rocket attacks per month, including foreign rockets.

"Oh it's just a single grenade in Jerusalem or something"

Iron Dome literally built to protect from hundreds of rocket attacks.

"Oh, it's not even close to scratching the deaths from Israeli bombs"

A well-organised organisation easily orchestrating the attacks, and with a funding at lower estimates of at least $200 million

"Oh, it's just militants with handguns. It's just $100 million, not that much" [1].

> I can’t even imagine how people keep repeating that.

Yes, yes I can't imagine how people keep being Hamas apologists in the face of actual reality.

[1] My original comment said "I wouldn't be surprised if Hamas had total funding near the same level as IDF.". This is definitely not true. But man. To dismiss the lower estimate of ~$200 million dollars as "it's nothing" and to pretend that Hamas is neither well funded nor well organised is just absolute insanity.