How can someone write an entire, detailed article about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or the destruction in Gaza and not even mention Hamas?

Not a word about its strategy of embedding fighters and military infrastructure within civilian areas, or how that shapes the reality of urban warfare. Just… omitted. A side issue at best.

How do they leave out Palestinian governing authorities altogether (whether that’s Hamas in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority) as if there’s no agency, no decision-making, no responsibility?

People build entire careers and identities around frameworks that assign virtually all responsibility to Israel, as if it’s acting in a vacuum, or out of some inexplicable desire to inflict suffering for no apparent reason while knowingly inviting global condemnation.

Why is that treated as serious analysis rather than a glaring oversimplification?

And how do they ignore repeated rejections of statehood offers by Palestinian leaders over decades, when those decisions are central to why this conflict remains unresolved?

You don’t have to agree with Israel. But when entire categories of relevant facts are missing, that’s a huge red flag. It’s narrative built on omission.

I follow several Palestinian activists, and I’m far more inclined to take their criticisms of Israel seriously because they’re not confused about Hamas, jihadism, or the role Palestinian leadership has played in shaping current conditions, including prioritising conflict over the wellbeing of their own people.

“…Hamas vanishes from the moral universe these activists inhabit. Their worldview depends on one rule: Palestinians are eternal victims and Israel the only actor with agency. Hamas is not treated as a real organisation at all; it becomes a narrative prop, a placeholder stripped of intention or responsibility so that all moral weight can be shifted onto Israel.

Under this fixed narrative, Hamas never uses hospitals as interrogation centres, it is Israel bombs hospitals. Hamas never hides behind children, it is Israel kills children. Hamas never steals aid, it is Israel starves Gaza.”