I claimed Hamas had a larger and more powerful military than many European countries. This is a fact.

> What? You mean countries like Monaco and Liechtenstein?

No, my claim is much stronger. I mean Hamas's army was comparable to countries like Denmark (20k active soldiers), Finland, the Czech republic (27k active) and maybe even the Netherlands (40k active). Estimates of the size of Hamas's army pre October 7 range from 20k to 40k active combatants, with US intelligence estimates converging on 30k. This is looking just at fighters and excludes Hamas's political wing.

> Simply counting the # of soldiers or rockets is disingenuous when this is obviously an asymmetric war.

Counting things like soldiers and military arsenals is the standard way to evaluate military strength. And of course there is a force asymmetry, Israel is a global power and its air force is probably the second most effective in the world. That doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate Gaza's military the way we would any other.

> Please explain what you mean by "war-fighting infrastructure ".

Well, for example, Hamas built the largest underground military tunnel system in the known world, a vast standing army numbering in the tens of thousands, gathered plenty of intelligence on Israel, militarized their population, and has a history of combat, for starters. But it goes way beyond this, and extends to the broad financial and military support they enjoyed from the IRGC.

> "Depends on what you mean by "standards of the Middle East", but just compare Israel($52k) and Gaza ($3455) for 2023:" I'm not comparing it to Israel, which is a standout in the middle east, and among the most technologically developed countries in the world. I'm comparing it to other middle eastern countries. It wasn't exactly destitute, despite its murderous, anti-woman, anti-gay, and antiy-jew jihadi philosophy. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE-xjBRKkPL/

> It's clear that the method of combatant recognition employed by the IDF is flawed, given they're killing aid workers and people from the UN.

Have you considered that the some aid workers were also Hamas militants? Or that the UN, through UNRWA, employed Hamas militants? Many of the so-called aid-workers israel killed turned out to actually have been part of Hamas. There is unfortunately extensive evidence that UN employees participated in the 10/7 attacks and the subsequent fighting. And Hamas uses world central kitchen and other aid organization vehicles and infrastructure, so distinguishing is not easy in the first place.

> How did you develop your understanding of this situation? And what are you trying to communicate here?

I have developed my understanding of this situation from decades of study on this topic, and at least a thousand of hours of research over the past 2.5 years. In the span of 15 years, I've gone from leading so-called pro Palestine rallies to my current positions. What I am trying to communicate is that reality is more nuanced than many (including a younger version of me) like to think. Reality is nuanced, and at odds with the picture you paint.

>No, my claim is much stronger. I mean Hamas's army was comparable to countries like Denmark (20k active soldiers), Finland, the Czech republic (27k active) and maybe even the Netherlands (40k active). Estimates of the size of Hamas's army pre October 7 range from 20k to 40k active combatants, with US intelligence estimates converging on 30k. This is looking just at fighters and excludes Hamas's political wing.

Hamas, who don't even own a single Howitzer. Much less a plane.

They were weaker than most European countries in their air power. Stronger in manpower and in munitions, which included tens of thousands of rockets.

Stronger in munitions? One western artillery shell is worth countless Qassam rockets. The Qassam rockets are largely useless from a military perspective because you aren't going to hit anything with them.

This is an apples and oranges type comparison, except Hamas is stuck with crabapples.

Qassam rockets are not "useless." They've killed multiple people, including kids. They are relatively low-yield compared to later Grad/Fajr/M-75 type rockets Hamas used, but to say they're "useless" is a huge overstatement, and the implication that they represented Hamas's entire arsenal is wrong.

The reality is that Hamas also had dozens if not hundreds of R-160 / M-302 medium range rockets (up to 200km) and long range Ayyash 250 rocekts (travel more than 200km).

In addition to the direct devastation the rockets cause, they also force large swaths of the Israeli population into bomb shelters, which has other military benefits for Hamas. It was part of the 10/7 strategy they employed.

People like to pretend Hamas was a tiny force. The reality is what I said: it was larger than many European militaries, with an arsenal to match.

I suggest you look up the concept of CEP, circular error probable. It's a very important measure when discussing weapons like these.

Modern western rocket artillery will strike your target from tens of kilometers away within a circle of a couple of meters.

Your typical Grad will have CEP in excess of 1.5% of range. So at 10KM you'll have only half of your rockets land within 150 meters of your target.

These are weapons where your target selection amounts to "fuck someone in that general direction". Not "better shoot at that guy before he shoots at us". Fundamentally useless for fighting wars.

The Grads can be vaguely useful, but Hamas doesn't have the launch platforms to field them as an area denial weapon as originally intended.

EDIT: and you can probably stop reading right here, I'm mostly just repeating myself after this point.

> They've killed multiple people, including kids

I never thought I'd laugh at the idea of kids being killed, but in this context it comes across as pretty hilarious. This is not a good feature in a weapon of war! In war you typically want to kill enemy soldiers, not kids.

You can point a Gazan artillery rocket towards an urban center, maybe hit someone and kill a kid. It is not feasible to hit a target more specific than that using these weapons.

You can't fire one at a smallish enemy position.

>The reality is that Hamas also had dozens if not hundreds of R-160 / M-302 medium range rockets (up to 200km) and long range Ayyash 250 rocekts (travel more than 200km).

Hamas having dozens if not hundreds of M-302s is certainly a claim I'd love to see evidence for, but even if it were true this isn't very impressive at all. These are terribly inaccurate unguided artillery rockets! Western militaries don't really have much in terms of equivalents because they're practically useless.

>People like to pretend Hamas was a tiny force. The reality is what I said: it was larger than many European militaries, with an arsenal to match.

This is a straight up lie. Hamas had a plenty of manpower, but certainly has never had an arsenal to match. Artillery rockets you can realistically only use to indiscriminately strike civilian areas are absolutely useless when fighting a war.

The whole point is that Hamas is an unconventional fighting force that does aim at civilian centers and doesn't particularly care for accuracy. You sneeringly ask me to look up CEP, as though Hamas tries to be accurate and target military installations rather than sewing terror. They know they can't go head to head against Israel militarily, and they do purposefully kill civilians (see: 10/7). I can see you laugh at kids being killed, which is horrifying!

You also scoff at the idea that Hamas had M-302s, but the reality is not only did they have them but they fired them, for example on July 9, 2014 towards Hadera. In March 2014 the IDF also siezed M-302s being smuggled into Gaza. I can go on. Your snarkiness is no substitute for research.

I wrote "people like to pretend hamas was a tiny force" and you say that's a "straight up lie." But people on this very thread have claimed that. Yes, their arsenal didn't match European countries in terms of accuracy, but in terms of raw firepower, they had lots, which is why Israel spent billions developing the iron dome.

> as though Hamas tries to be accurate and target military installations

I think they would if they could; I think Hamas would be much happier to be able to hit Netanyahu or the IDF HQ than some rando. Don't you?

They quite simply don't have the tech. Which is good!

If Hamas had the tech, they'd surely blow up the whole of Israel, including military installations. But they don't (which I agree is good) and their history and words and actions all show a desire to target and kill civilians.

Hamas clearly places a much higher value on killing and kidnapping soldiers than Israeli civilians.

>Israel is a global power and its air force is probably the second most effective in the world

If by that you're implying the US has the most effective air force in the world, then you're probably wrong.

The most effective air force in the world is almost certainly the American one. The second most effective air force in the world may well be the American Navy.

I'm curious who you're ranking at the top here.

"Probably wrong"? Who do you think has it?