WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE BULGARIA - news journal - UPDATE (en) Bulgaria, FAB: On the Middle East front - St (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Fighting continues in the Gaza Strip and on the border between Israel

and Lebanon. This is a regional war, but it has the prospect of growing
into a much larger one. In Lebanon, the state is in ruins, so it is more
correct to talk about the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel.
"Hezbollah" is not so concerned about the Gaza Strip, but it works at
the expense of Iranian investments and has been shelling the territory
of Israel for eight months, because of which about a hundred thousand
Israelis from the border towns and kibbutzim are refugees in their own
small country. Lebanon, which is half the size of Israel, also has many
internally displaced people and many casualties because the Israeli army
answers to Hezbollah. And Israel's defense against rocket attacks is
much more effective than Lebanon's: rocket attacks on Israel are not
without casualties, but far more often when the sirens go off, people
end up in hospitals, dislocating their legs as they run to bomb
shelters. For weeks now, the intensity of artillery duels, bombings and
drone warfare on the Lebanese-Israeli border has been increasing. There
is a real risk of so-called "all-out war". Hezbollah is much more
powerful than Hamas, it has enough missiles to destroy all of Israel.
And Israel has enough missiles to destroy Lebanon... Recently, the
region thought it would begin now: due to shelling from Lebanese
territory on Kiryat Shmona, a town close to the border where 20,000
people once lived. It caught fire and was abandoned. Fortunately, the
Israeli army was smart enough not to launch a counterattack after Kiryat
Shmona, but no one is immune to the missile apocalypse.

Demonstrations "for Israel" and "for Palestine" continue in Western
countries without a clear understanding of the situation. A few myths on
both sides can be debunked. Even before the October 7 attack by Hamas,
masses of people were living in poverty in the Gaza Strip. Israel is
said to have blockaded Gaza. Yes, but the Gaza Strip has a long border
with Egypt. Egyptian authorities fear the spread of Hamas ideas (as part
of the Muslim Brotherhood) and have also tightly blockaded Gaza. So
Israel is not the only problem. Many Gazans have been treated in Israeli
hospitals, where water and electricity still flow from Israeli territory.

During Hamas' rule in Gaza, billions of dollars in humanitarian aid
flowed into the Strip each year from Qatar, the UN, the EU and others,
not to mention Iran's support for Hamas, the group's various criminal
proceeds and the taxes it collects in the Gaza Strip. They say it's
Israel's fault that Gazans live in poverty, but Hamas has vast amounts
of weapons and a network of tunnels comparable to the Moscow subway.

Almost everyone in Israel has someone they know who was killed or taken
hostage as a result of the October 7 attack. This is the reason for the
hatred and ferocity with which war is waged. It is true - the Israeli
army uses clearly excessive force, but how to explain the actions of
Hamas, which is shelling Israeli positions with rockets from the city of
Rafah in the Gaza Strip, which in peacetime lived 90,000 people, and now
- over a million internal refugees? Is this not a provocation to kill
more Palestinians? Or the recent story of the release of four Israeli
hostages: the Israeli operation killed, according to Hamas, hundreds of
Palestinians. What else could have been the result if the hostages were
held in the middle of a crowded urban neighborhood, and when Israeli
special forces came for them, Hamas started fighting with heavy small
arms? The recent interesting statement by representatives of the
Palestinian Authority that the Palestinians are a bargaining chip for
Iran in its international expansion has gone unnoticed.

On the other hand, inside Israel, unfortunately, some rather crazy ideas
are widespread, such as the idea that the occupation of the West Bank
must be maintained "because it is written in the Tanakh (the sacred
texts of Judaism) that it is Jewish land'. For Jews, the life of a
Palestinian is not worth a penny (Arabs with Israeli citizenship are
treated qualitatively differently). For Israel, there is a continuing
belief that bombs and bullets are the best way to deal with the
Palestinians.

In Israel's war with Hamas, justice is not on anyone's side. And if you
go to a demonstration under the Israeli or Palestinian flag in Europe or
America, you are more than likely covering up the crimes of one side and
ignoring the civilian casualties of the other.

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