The war did not begin on October 7

when did acts of war first break out in Gaza?

The general narrative from Israel and in the mainstream media, especially today, October 7 2025, is that the ongoing war started two years ago when Palestinian militants broke through the border around Gaza. They also consistently call it a war of “Israel against Hamas,” even though it has been proven time and time again that Israel deliberately targets Palestinians young and old, armed or unarmed, regardless of their affiliation with Hamas or any other organization.

The truth is, Israel’s war against Palestine and against Palestinians has been going on for a very long time and the action to overrun the Israeli military trapping two million people, many of them refugees, inside the tiny Gaza Strip, and to take hundreds of hostages, happened in a context of escalating Israeli violence that has the clear and explicit intention of completely annihilating Palestine.

This image says nothing about the cruelty and the suffering the Israeli state is based on… but it is a clear visualization of the ongoing ethnic cleansing

In 2022, the year before the Hamas attack:

The Israeli military killed 182 Palestinians, and Israeli settlers killed another 5-8 (the media call them “civilians” though they are highly armed paramilitaries living on stolen land, who are given police authority to stop, harass, beat, and steal property from Palestinians on a daily basis).

According to an Israeli human rights organization, around two-thirds of the Palestinians killed were unarmed. Some of the unarmed Palestinians were throwing stones. Even in equal conditions, when one person is not an invader, someone throwing a stone is no justification to put a bullet through them. And I’m unaware of any documented instance of an Israeli soldier killed by a stone, whereas Israeli troops have murdered hundreds of Palestinian children, shooting them down with sniper rifles, for throwing stones.

Of the unarmed Palestinians killed in 2022, 60% were not engaging in any conflictual activity. They were shopping, walking down the street, or filming abuses by Israeli soldiers and settlers. 36 of the Palestinians killed were children.

During the same time period, Palestinians killed 22 Israelis. 182 vs. 22. In “peacetime,” Israelis are killing around 10 Palestinians for every Israeli killed, and at least half of those Israelis are in the military or on land where, according to international law, they’re not supposed to be.

Speaking of land seizure, in 2022 the Israeli government, Israeli military, and Israeli settlers demolished 784 homes and other structures in the West Bank alone, leaving 500 people, including 255 children, houseless. For years, now, Israeli law has forbidden new construction by Palestinians in the West Bank even as the state financially and militarily supports illegal construction by Israeli invaders. Israel is very literally an apartheid state based on explicit racism.

It’s not just happening in Gaza. This is a visual representation of how Israel has been systematically carving up, isolating, and stealing land in the West Bank, with the military and settlers working together.

As for hostages, in April 2022 the Israeli state was holding 4,173 Palestinian “security” prisoners, 160 of them children, some of them for offenses as simple as raising a Palestinian flag, and 1,000 of them in indefinite imprisonment without any charges (“indefinite” means they could potentially hold them until they die). The Israelis taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 were illegal settlers on stolen land, whereas many of the Palestinians held by Israel are there on vague accusations, held for acts of political protest, or held without any accusations at all, and yet nearly all the media say that Palestinians take “hostages” and Israelis take “prisoners.” This is yet another example of the white supremacy of the Israeli state and those who support it.

There are plenty of important criticisms to make of Hamas, but they must be made with the awareness that the Palestinian people are fighting for their survival, whereas the Israelis are fighting to steal other people’s lands. The Israelis are the invaders and the occupiers, and they are responsible for well over 90% of all the killings in the ongoing war. If it weren’t for the existence of armed resistance, there would be no Palestine, and there would be no Palestinians left in the occupied territories except for the ones the Israeli economy deemed necessary for cheap labor.

Israeli politicians from Netanyahu going back to Ben-Gurion and earlier do not hide the fact that they want nothing less than to annihilate all of Palestine, to steal every centimeter of that land. They are getting away with it, and unless people physically stop them, they will accomplish their goal.

This is how Israel steals land and destroys Palestinian homes: with armored bulldozers made by Caterpillar…

This article has a number of figures and links to peer-reviewed reports on the death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war

If they like housing that has been built by Palestinians, armed Israeli settlers will go in and steal it, while the IDF protects them

And here’s an article on “indefinite detention” by the Israelis: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67600015

They systematically destroy Palestinian homes, agricultural buildings, and orchards

And one with more historical context to the Israeli occupation, especially the parts preceding 1967: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_West_Banknews/world-middle-east-67600015

And often, Israeli settlers will burn down Palestinian homes, creating more trauma and additional pressure to force Palestinians off their lands.

Finally, two seminal books you can get from your local bookstore, and not Amazon: The Question of Palestine by Edward Said.

And, The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

…until next time, take care of each other