I'm a Palestinian in the West Bank. Hamas Alone Is Responsible for Any Bloodshed in Gaza | Opinion

In a since-deleted thread on the messaging platform X, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which services Palestinians in Gaza claimed that men acting under Hamas authorities seized fuel, medical supplies, and other types of material that were supposed to be used for strictly humanitarian purposes. UNRWA later deleted the post and withdrew the claims, but Axios journalist Barak Ravid confirmed it happened.

To those of us on the front lines, this does not come as a surprise: UNRWA has a troubling record of supporting Hamas. UNWRA employs known Hamas terrorists and turns a blind eye when its own ambulances and UNWRA vehicles are used to transport weapons and explosives. It also circulates textbooks in the Gaza Strip that spread vile antisemitic messaging—with the horrific results we saw on October 7.

UNRWA doesn't even hide their outward support for Hamas; they provide direct financial support to its terror activities. And while it covers for Hamas, the agency is quick to criticize Israel for warning the Palestinians in the northern part of the Strip to relocate for their own safety ahead of Israel's expected ground offensive. Their willingness to carry water for Hamas knows no bounds.

But the truly heartbreaking takeaway here is the lengths Hamas will go to hurt its own people in the name of destroying Israel. And this is why it is Hamas that is responsible for all the blood that has and will be shed—Israeli and Palestinian alike—during this completely avoidable war.

After Israel gave civilians in Gaza numerous warnings and time to flee, Hamas did its best to force them to stay. Most Gazans know the high stakes of violating a direct Hamas order. They've also made it impossible for Gazans to flee to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, and they've set up roadblocks within Gaza, preventing residents from exiting the northern part of the Strip.

This is all to strategically maximize the use of their own people as human shields.

Here we see the same kind of manipulation of territory to intimidate and control a population that Hamas used at the music festival massacre, when it blockaded three different roads, turning the street into a "highway of death" and forcing young, innocent civilians to run across an open field, where they were shot at like "ducks on a range."

Hamas fans the flames that Israel has denied their people clean water, yet they are the ones digging up water pipes from the public infrastructure and turning them into rockets. And Hamas claims that 70 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike while trying to leave Gaza City—Israel denies that airstrike was theirs—but it was only due to Hamas roadblocks that the civilians were stuck in Gaza at all.

For nearly two decades, Hamas has allowed its people to live in squalor, using the humanitarian aid it is given from the international community to stockpile ammunition and deliberately turn severe poverty and deprivation in Gaza into hatred of Israel.

Now, Hamas uses my brothers and sisters in Gaza as human shields, hiding their weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques, and embedding their terror fighters among women, children, the elderly and families. This is all by design. They don't want peace; they want Gazans to die in a propaganda victory over Israel.

Hamas showed us that it truly knows no bounds when it murdered over 1,400 Israelis—rape and torture have been detected in 80 percent of the bodies, including children. It injured another 4,000, and took 200 captives to Gaza last week. These unprovoked attacks all took place in peaceful communities that are part of Israel proper, not areas in question for my people like settlements.

Hamas's attack set my people and those of us pushing for peace back decades. And now Hamas is putting its own people at grave risk.

Hamas can best be understood as the Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIS combined. It is like the Taliban in that it runs a piece of territory as a brutal Islamic dictatorship, where LGBTQ+ people and those who do not live a strict Islamic lifestyle are executed. It is like al Qaeda in that it frequently engages in suicide bombings and just perpetrated Israel's 9/11. And it's like ISIS, which butchered the non-Muslim Yezidi ethnic group and took their women as sex slaves or "concubines."

The Palestinian people of Gaza deserve liberation from Hamas. If Israel ends the unjust rule of the terror gang, it will be doing my brothers and sisters in Gaza a life-changing favor.

The facts are simple: Hamas is responsible for all the blood that has been shed and will continue to be shed during this war, full stop. Palestinians like me and my neighbors want peace; Hamas does not.

Eid is a Palestinian human rights activist. He lives in the West Bank.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.