To those who call Hamas animals and seek to extract a condemnation of their actions as inhuman and barbaric, consider this:
As inhuman as Hamas’s actions may be, they are matched and exceeded by the inhumanity Zionists have wrought on Palestinians for nearly eight decades. It is further inhuman to deny and ignore this historical, and still ongoing, inhumanity by Zionists towards Palestinians.
For examples of ongoing Zionist atrocities and crimes against humanity, visit the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, who state on their website that “Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations”. Also view this recent threat by Zionist Jewish supremacists to attack, kill and ethnically cleanse all Palestinians in the West Bank, as reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz: ‘Wait for the Great Nakba’: Palestinians Find Threatening Leaflets on Cars in West Bank
The starting point for an honest investigation of a history of inhumanity in the region is the Nakba of 1948. The first point to note is that Zionists set the precedent for civilian massacre, including many women and children, on 8 April 1948 in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Around 150 villagers were shot or butchered in that village alone, as part of the strategy to raise panic among Palestinians and cause them to flee. This and other atrocities were successful, and around 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from Palestine by the end of the 12948 war. There were also strong allegations of sexual violence by Zionist militias at Deir Yassin, most notably from Assistant Inspector-General Richard Catling of the British Palestine Police Force of the time (Wikipedia).
Deir Yassin still stands today, now housing an Israeli psychiatric hospital. Perhaps this is a statement on the insanity of considering only Hamas and not Zionists as having a particular and unique claim to civilian massacre.