The war did not begin on October 7

The general narrative from Israel and in the mainstream media, especially today, October 7 2025, is that the ongoing war started two years ago when Palestinian militants broke through the border around Gaza. They also consistently call it a war of “Israel against Hamas,” even though it has been proven time and time again that Israel deliberately targets Palestinians young and old, armed or unarmed, regardless of their affiliation with Hamas or any other organization.

The truth is, Israel’s war against Palestine and against Palestinians has been going on for a very long time and the action to overrun the Israeli military trapping two million people, many of them refugees, inside the tiny Gaza Strip, and to take hundreds of hostages, happened in a context of escalating Israeli violence that has the clear and explicit intention of completely annihilating Palestine.

In 2022, the year before the Hamas attack:

The Israeli military killed 182 Palestinians, and Israeli settlers killed another 5-8 (the media call them “civilians” though they are highly armed paramilitaries living on stolen land, who are given police authority to stop, harass, beat, and steal property from Palestinians on a daily basis).

According to an Israeli human rights organization, around two-thirds of the Palestinians killed were unarmed. Some of the unarmed Palestinians were throwing stones. Even in equal conditions, when one person is not an invader, someone throwing a stone is no justification to put a bullet through them. And I’m unaware of any documented instance of an Israeli soldier killed by a stone, whereas Israeli troops have murdered hundreds of Palestinian children, shooting them down with sniper rifles, for throwing stones.

Of the unarmed Palestinians killed in 2022, 60% were not engaging in any conflictual activity. They were shopping, walking down the street, or filming abuses by Israeli soldiers and settlers. 36 of the Palestinians killed were children.

During the same time period, Palestinians killed 22 Israelis. 182 vs. 22. In “peacetime,” Israelis are killing around 10 Palestinians for every Israeli killed, and at least half of those Israelis are in the military or on land where, according to international law, they’re not supposed to be.

Speaking of land seizure, in 2022 the Israeli government, Israeli military, and Israeli settlers