Israel aims to eliminate Hamas from the planet

Israel has said that Hamas must be treated like Isis and be annihilated. After the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel, the murder of whole families and the slaughter of 260 people at the music festival in southern Israel, that sentiment is understandable. But at what cost for the Palestinian people who have the misfortune of living in Gaza, most of them packed into the city of Gaza? If Israel invades Gaza as seems unavoidable they are going to kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians. It is inevitable because unless every Palestinian leaves home and shelters somewhere safe - where is safe in Gaza? - they will be caught up in artillery fire, tank fire, air strikes and the whole panoply of war. Israel has warned more than a million Palestinians in the north of Gaza to go to the south but an evacuation on that scale is surely never going to happen. But so determined is Israel to kill every Hamas member that it will be impossible to avoid what the West likes to call collateral damage. The elimination of Isis by the US-led coalition and Iraqi forces led to up to 10,000 civilian casualties, according to the most modest of estimates. Attacking Gaza City to kill Hamas fighters will be like when the Iraqi army, backed by US airstrikes, launched an offensive against Mosul to rid the northern Iraqi city of Isis fighters. The city was reduced in many parts to rubble. Isis was defeated in Mosul but thousands of Iraqis who stayed in their homes died, too. Is this what Israel is planning to do in Gaza? The US has called for restraint but if the objective is to wipe Hamas from the planet, restraint is not going to be part of the Israeli army's rules of engagement. Hamas is a despicable, inhuman organisation designated as terrorists by the US and many others. But I fear for and sympathise with the poor Palestinian people who have Hamas as their rulers.