IN THE MEDIA
Why Israel had to resume its attacks on Hamas
March 24, 2025 | Justin Amler
Sky News Australia – 22 March 2025
The Israeli attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets on Tuesday should not come as any great surprise. If anything, the only surprise should be that it took this long.
The temporary truce that came into effect on January 19 – and ended officially on March 1 – was an extortionate deal to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists in exchange for 25 living innocent civilians. It was forced on Israel by Hamas’ inhuman policy of hostage-taking and thus was always on borrowed time.
That’s because Hamas and its fellow terror organisations are not entities interested in coexistence. They are death cults, whose goal is not about Palestinian independence or the creation of another Arab state – to add to the already existing 22 Arab states. It’s about the destruction of the one Jewish state.
This should not be a shock, since Hamas itself makes this abundantly clear in its charter which says, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.
But this is not even limited to Israel itself. All Jews too are slated for eradication. The Hamas charter again:
“The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,” (Hamas Charter, Article 7).
Negotiated peace has never been an option for Hamas, only violence, as it makes clear in Article 13, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”
Only the truly naïve, who refuse to listen to Hamas’ own words, could have believed that this hostage ransom deal could ever have led to lasting peace.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong released a statement following the resumption of Israeli air strikes in Gaza, urging all parties to “abide by international humanitarian law” and also to “engage constructively in negotiations towards a permanent end to hostilities.”
She did call on Hamas to “release all hostages immediately, unconditionally and with dignity” – yet somehow, she neglected to issue any statements during the disgusting repulsive theatre of hostage releases that took place during the first phase of this ransom deal, only condemning the actions of Hamas in relation to the two Bibas children, after being prompted by Patricia Karvelas in a television interview. There was certainly no dignity on display as starving, emaciated Israeli hostages were paraded out, surrounded by a festive atmosphere of well-fed, well-dressed Gazans and Hamas terrorists with mobile phones in hand gratuitously recording every bit of misery of the innocent kidnapped victims, who were displayed like animals in a zoo.
Yet Israel continued to negotiate, accepting an updated proposal of President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. That proposal included the release of ten living hostages, along with the remains of deceased ones; a ceasefire lasting 45 to 50 days; and the restoration of the flow of humanitarian aid and electricity into Gaza, which Israel had previously halted.
But Hamas refused, prioritising the holding of innocent hostages over the suffering of its own people. Their counter-offer was insulting – one live hostage and four bodies for the same Israeli concessions.
Meanwhile, rather than using the ceasefire of the last few weeks to start rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure and services, Hamas had spent that time making preparations for further invasions into Israel. This includes the training of new recruits for combat against the IDF, boosting its ranks to a reported 25,000. Plus, there are also an estimated further 5,000 Islamic Jihad terrorists.
The ceasefire the world naively clamoured for has predictably been exploited by Hamas to fortify its positions across Gaza, including rigging roads, tunnels and buildings with explosives. It has provided Hamas with an opportunity to emerge stronger and more organised than before. If Hamas is allowed to continue, the inevitable result would not be the conclusion of the war, but the continuation of it, shortly or in a few months or years – with all the suffering this would entail for both Gazans and Israelis.
It was only after exhausting all possibilities of progress with Hamas on extending the ceasefire, and intelligence that Hamas was preparing for some imminent attacks, that Israel finally responded militarily. The decision to do so was unanimously approved by Israeli security officials.
Meanwhile, Hamas continues to make a mockery of the world’s naivety, especially Europe’s, by calling on “friendly countries to pressure the US administration to halt this aggression and genocidal war against defenceless civilians.”
And apparently it’s working, with the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas telling Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that Israel’s strikes are “unacceptable”. In doing so the EU is assisting Hamas by demanding a perpetual, unconditional ceasefire from Israel while allowing Hamas to continue its policy of murderous Jihad unhindered, and on its own terms.
Israel is simply exercising its fundamental right – and duty – to protect its citizens.
As Prime Minister Netanyahu recently said, “In the face of pure evil, free societies have no choice but to fight.”
It’s scandalous so much of the world doesn’t feel the same.
