Jake Wallis Simons:
“Gaza sits on top of an underground aquifer. For 18 years, while Hamas has neglected its water infrastructure and directed its resources towards funding terror, including tunnels, rockets, arms and explosives, Israel has been pumping in water, effectively propping up a jihadi regime for humanitarian purposes. The same goes for electricity and other resources. Now the rules have changed.
Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind profitable farms and other facilities. These were destroyed by Hamas because they were seen to be tainted by the Jews.
Under the mismanagement, corruption and fanaticism that followed, Gaza’s economy crashed. Israel, of course, had to keep the border sealed to avoid the scenes of carnage that we have tragically witnessed in recent days.
One thing is clear: if Gaza is an ‘open-air prison’, the true jailers are Hamas. Although Israel has been propping up Gazan society for years, it is under no legal obligation to pick up the tab for a foreign country, let alone one that is led by a regime that is hellbent on another Holocaust. And although many ordinary Palestinians loathe the terror group, an inconvenient fact is that in 2005 they elected them.”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hamas-is-not-long-for-this-world/