Israel’s on the front line against Islamic terror. We must support our ally

Can our friends rely on us, and do our enemies fear us? Our adversaries are betting that we cannot sustain support for our allies when things get tough.

Putin is hoping he can outlast the Western alliance’s financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The Houthis are testing whether we have the appetite to deploy hard power in the Gulf. Hamas believe they can wage an information war that erodes the West’s public support for Israel and pressures them to desist.

Three months on from Hamas’s pogrom on Oct 7, the UK’s public support for Israel’s cause is already waning. There is a small core of

Hamas sympathisers, hell-bent on Israel’s destruction, who have no place in our country. But far more common are well-meaning people – including politicians – who genuinely do not understand the reality of the conflict.

This is perhaps unsurprising when they are fed a diet of Hamas propaganda on social media, biased UN resolutions, and the stark consequences of war for Gaza is broadcast into their homes every night. Who could fail to be moved by the appalling humanitarian situation that now unfolds?

Until the sheer barbarity of Hamas is exposed to the public, this war cannot be properly understood. Mistruths will take hold. Misguided policy-making will follow.

This week I was in Israel to see the reality of what they are facing. In Kfar Aza, one of the nearest kibbutzim to Gaza, there were no street names before Oct 7. Today the main avenue is known as “Death Street” as someone was murdered in every house.

Survivors are just beginning to speak fully of the unimaginable cruelty of the terrorists, particularly the rapes, mutilations and sexual assaults on women and girls. It’s hard to reach for parallels, but the actions of Daesh are the closest in recent times. When watching the harrowing footage that abounds of those events, I was struck by the smiles on the faces of the terrorists, the lack of fear; the fanaticism. I’d invite those chanting “from the river to the sea” to watch the harrowing film that Israel has pieced together from doorbell cameras, CCTV and the terrorists own recordings.

Israeli troops are fighting a terrorist group that has spent more than 16 years requisitioning civilian sites for weapon stores, command centres and a labyrinth of tunnels which are larger and more sophisticated than was ever imagined. I saw a fraction of the weaponry assembled, much imported from Iran, including thermobaric vacuum bombs that suck the oxygen out of spaces and incinerate everyone inside. They used the latter against families sheltering in what they thought were safe rooms. As they have retreated into Gaza they now happily use Palestinian civilians as human shields during their street battles. All this is a gross breach of the laws of war and yet there is a telling silence from human rights groups.

This, of course, makes limiting the civilian death toll incredibly hard. Israel has done much to protect civilian life – indeed, its democratic character compels it to do so. It is quickly forgotten in reporting that Israel delayed its military response by weeks to allow civilians to evacuate to the south and subsequently created safe zones. Could Israel take greater precautions? Yes – and the UK should continue to press it to do so. In a densely populated area its use of precision guided missiles should be higher. But it will never be simple, as Hamas’s leadership is concealed amid civilians in cities like Khan Younis. The tragedy is that no matter what Israel does, Hamas’s cowardly tactics have guaranteed a completely preventable civilian death toll.

Amid the suffering have been calls for an unconditional ceasefire, led by António Guterres, the UN secretary general. If Israel listened to his counsel, or indeed that of the 125 MPs who voted for one in our Parliament in November, I cannot see how Hamas would have been compelled to return even those hostages that it did. After all, it was only after more weeks of intense fighting that Hamas was pressured to return some hostages in exchange for a pause. And if there’s a chance of the hundreds of hostages emerging, there needs to be more pressure, not less.

To call for a ceasefire now would be to concede Hamas’s existence and more Oct 7-style massacres. The tunnels, command centres and leadership will remain intact, ready to strike again. To the north, Hezbollah would draw conclusions about Israel’s willingness to defend itself. Worst of all, it would validate Hamas’s strategy of a deteriorating humanitarian crisis as their tool of war.

I’d invite those chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ to watch Israel’s harrowing film of the Oct 7 attacks

The only way to deal with a terror state like Hamas is to destroy their leadership and military capabilities. Israel’s security will remain completely compromised so long as they have a neighbour which considers their destruction a religious commandment. Arab states know they cannot be safe when Iran continues to fund and support terrorist proxy groups in the region. And the West will remain vulnerable so long as there is a breeding ground for fanatical Islamic terror ripe for export to the rest of the Western world.

Shamefully, the UK’s recent statement at the UN failed to mention this security imperative. Our Government should actively prosecute the case against Hamas in the court of public opinion and be clear that we support Israel’s fight to dismantle Hamas’s leadership and infrastructure. Israel is doing the world a favour, for it is certainly not the endgame for a terror group whose charter states that no one will enjoy peace and security unless under the control of Islam. And as Hamas is just one tentacle of the Iranian octopus, the UK should shed its remaining naïveté about their intentions, in the region or here at home, and help the like-minded Arab world in their quest to unite against it.

The answer to the painful humanitarian question everyone is grappling with is for significantly more aid to reach civilians. Some 6,000 aid trucks have already entered Gaza and Israel has opened an additional border crossing point which will enable more. But the hijacked lorries and the aid being found at military sites in Gaza is testament to the corruption of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that has impoverished Palestinians for decades, and the malfeasance and misgovernance of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If self-professed supporters of the Palestinian people were truly committed to their welfare, they would be devoting far more attention to the violent, unstable and oppressive regime from which Palestinians should be freed. That UNRWA has failed to issue a single statement critical of

Hamas is extremely telling. It is an organisation with many well-meaning people, often working in the most challenging circumstances, but whose leadership forever turns a blind eye to the terrorists.

A new approach is needed that bypasses the Palestinian leadership and reaches civilians directly. As Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has suggested, this could involve Arab states playing a more prominent role. The elephant in the room, which nobody dares mention publicly, is that no Arab country is so far willing to risk its own people in the Gaza

Strip. As ever, peace, stability and development in the region are inextricably tied to defeating Hamas. Otherwise Gaza will continue to be what one diplomat described to me as, “Mogadishu on Med”.

In the disorientating shock of Oct 7 everything seemingly changed, but continuity has also prevailed. Privately, Arab states hope Israel can destroy one of Iran’s many limbs so normalisation with Israel has not been derailed. When this is the diplomatic outlook from Israel’s one-time critics, the UK – as Israel’s friend – should have the strength to publicly defend it as it fights against Hamas to guarantee its future and the West’s security. In a previous conflict Golda Meir said that Israel would win because it had no choice. We do have choices. Let our friends rely on us and our enemies fear us.