Hamas, its partners and its patron Iran unleashed immense suffering on Israelis and Palestinians by staging a massacre on October 7. Hamas triggered a devastating war that brought untold suffering upon millions of people.

Today, nearly a million Gazans are returning to their homes, which are destroyed by the war. In addition, Hamas, which was claiming to fight for the Palestinians are now publicly executing them.

To hide and fight, like many other terrorist groups, Hamas used places of religious worship, schools and universities, and hospitals. They used the Palestinians as human shields. Their use of civilian infrastructure prompted their demolition by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

To be kidnapped and held by force against the will of a person is a criminal offence. Similarly, the loss of one’s home is unforgettable.

Key Questions:

Did Hamas win by kidnapping 251 Israelis and foreigners? Any group that adopts the tactic of terror should understand that they will eventually be marginalised and isolated, if not dismantled and decimated. Hamas is no exception.

With no regret, Hamas is viewed today and in the coming years as a group that damaged and destroyed the lives of people. Hamas patrons and supporters should understand that Hamas is not a resistance movement. Irrespective of the cause, whether it is legitimate or not, no group should be permitted to kill, maim, injure, burn, and kidnap civilians. If they do so, they are not a resistance group, but a terrorist group. If a state engages in such acts deliberately, they have to be held accountable for committing war crimes.

This is what Dr. Ezzideen Shehab, a 28-year-old doctor in northern Gaza, born and raised in Jabaliya, had to say about the victory narrative that Hamas is trying to sell to the world. The thinking Palestinian people are not convinced of the Hamas narrative that it won the fight.

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Dr. Ezzideen Shehab from Gaza writes:

“Since the early morning, my family and I have been living in a state of complete psychological collapse.

Today, we learned that our homes, our land, and our entire neighborhood — every house belonging to our family and our neighbors — have been completely erased. Destroyed. Turned into a lifeless expanse of yellow dust.

With the first rays of sunlight, we learned the full meaning of the word defeat.

We lost more than seventy members of our family. We lost our land.

We no longer have a home to return to, no walls to protect us, no place we can call our own.

And now one of Hamas’s leaders appears on television and declares that ‘the people have not been defeated,’ that ‘Gaza stood firm and fought a historic war.’

Let history record this:

I, Dr. Az al-Din Shihab from Gaza, together with my family, my friends, and their families, did not fight in any war.

We were the victims of the destruction that Hamas began from within our own homes — and then the Israeli army unleashed its full force upon us, while Hamas operatives vanished into their tunnels.

May history record the truth: we were defeated — utterly, painfully, and finally.And we, the people of Gaza, are the ones who have the right to say whether we were defeated or not — not those who sit comfortably in Qatar or Turkey.

We were trampled, humiliated, and broken after our city was destroyed, conquered, and wiped off the face of the earth.

We were expelled, stripped of everything we built, left to wander among the ruins of our lives.And somewhere amid all this, I understood something simple yet terrible:

My mother’s tears are holier than my homeland itself, and my father’s grief means more to me than any flag.

For what meaning does a homeland have if it devours those you love — if it glorifies death but forgets life?

We were not resilient. We were hostages in our own land.

We could not leave. We could not replace those who claimed to rule us.

We were caught between a merciless occupier and rulers who fed on our suffering.

And if there is one moment in my life when I must speak the truth — without fear, without hesitation — that moment is now.Let it be written clearly:We were not soldiers in this war.

We were the bodies buried beneath it.”

Dr Ezzideen’s Twitter / X account: https://x.com/ezzingaza?lang=en

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May Dr. Ezzideen Shehab from Gaza continue to enlighten Palestinians and the world to live in reality! He writings are essential to understanding the conflict. He has a key role to play to resolve the enduring dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis. To build a harmonious Middle East, please visit the writings of Dr Ezzideen who is not afraid to speak his mind

Rohan Gunaratna is the Editor of The Handbook of Terrorism in the Middle East