Yes, Hamas uses donations that are meant for civilian and humanitarian aid toward military use. We don't have the exact amounts, and we will likely never have, but there are clear evidence that it did so on a regular basis.
I want to start with what is (in my eyes) not only the most direct eviden...
I feel like there's still a subtle distinction to be made, between aid getting syphoned straight out of the gate.. and them just stealing it? Like, in one case aid could actually be said to be "problematic" - but in the other you are just basically contending that literally every single resource Gazans have (from water pipes, to phones or even water itself) could be repurposed. Btw that telegraph hit piece is probably false (it sounds odd for new pipes not to be HDPE or PVC)
@mirh, the medium article you linked to does not falsify the Telegraph allegation nor the authenticity of the Hamas produced video that shows exactly this. It also claims that that Russia doesn't repurposes civilian microchips for military use when there are clear evidence from Russian rockets that they do exactly this. And is dismissive of Hamas capabilities. They have built rockets and tools of war from everything from traffic signs to condoms. The only thing that it does is state that the video is from 2021.
A lot of real estate in the answer is devoted to a tweet which has been deleted and denied by its source, why are you using that to support your argument?
@SIMEL My understanding is that the Telegraph piece might be technically correct while not suppporting your conclusion: The Telegraph clearly says that Hamas made a video about turning water pipes into rockets and after that happened, EU funded new water pipes. So it is not claimed that specifically the pipes funded by EU were used. And the pipes in the video look very much like metal, which would be hihgly unlikely if they were laid recently.
A mistake in the previous comment: metal (e.g. ductile iron) is still used for water mains as there seem to be situations when it is the best (e.g. american-usa.com/news/2023/10/26/…, harriswatermainandsewers.com/…) Sorry for jumping too quickly to a conclusion.
The Times of Israel article includes its own rebuttal: “military sources told The Times of Israel on Friday that Hamas was being careful not to divert cement that is being supplied to the Strip for rebuilding”.
The water pipes claim is based on this: israelnationalnews.com/news/271759 Hamas boasted about scavenging irrigation water pipes from an abandoned settlement. There is no evidence that they ever did that with Gaza’s own network.
It would be nice if the various links and quotations contained dates. It's not obvious whether these events happened this week during the fighting or a year ago in preparation for it.
@Kazami Concrete can be used for rebuilding old infrastructure and for building new infrastructure.
@Yay295, it puts this source of aid at risk. If it's found out that they are used for bunkers then there will be pressure on the source of this aid (in this case, japan) to stop the aid. If I was giving someone aid and then found out that they are using part of it (even a negligible part) for violence I would rethink my aid giving.
@Kazami, from the article: "Now, these same pipes - which could have been used for Gazan farmers - are being used by Hamas to manufacture rockets." All of the infrastructure that was left after the 2005 withdrawal was left so that the Gazan people will be able to reuse it and continue the economic functions that were active in the Settlements. Including fully functioning agricultural infrastructure. They decided to take what was meant for economical development into tools of violence. They heard Isaiah 2:4 and said "yes, but the opposite".
@RayButterworth The question isn't specific to a time period. Evidence of Hamas using humanitarian aid from 2007 would be perfectly valid to answer this question.
@DavidS says "The question isn't specific to a time period." — True, but the answer would be more useful if one knew when the reported events happened. One could use the information to say "See have they've been doing this for years.", or say "They are so desperate that during the current attacks they've had to start doing such things.", or … . Context always helps.
@RayButterworth, Book of Joel has two parts, one where Israel suffers (especially agriculturally) and the second part is how God f!@#s up Israel's enemies. It's a very long way to say f!@# around find out. I don't think that Hamas got the meaning of it. All the Kibbutzes attacked are mainly agricultural. The plows that turn into swords are Israeli plows and Israeli swords, with hundreds of thousands reservists called up, it matches. And now we are at the find out stage.
@RayButterworth you don't build 500 km of tunnels infrastructure in a week.
@RayButterworth Context helps far more with narratives than it does with establishing facts. The question is seeking a true/false answer with supporting evidence. As long as evidence exists, it supports the true. The context of the evidence is irrelevant to the substance of the question, which is to establish a fact. In this case, context would only be relevant if it changes the fact, which, "Doing it for years" vs "They only just started" don't do. You may question the credibility of the source, or if the cited events happened, but extraneous details are outside the scope of the question.
@SIMEL That is fully irrelevant on both counts. Irrigation pipes left behind in an abandoned settlement are not by any reasonable definition humanitarian aid. Buying concrete and using it for military tunnels instead of civilian structures is also not diverting human aid.
@Kazami, Getting concrete from as aid that is meant for new civilian infrastructure and instead building military tunnels with it is diverting humanitarian aid.
@SIMEL I would add that plastic and metal pipes entering the Gaza strip is severely limited since at least 2009 according to this Amnesty report: archive.ph/XLXfw The Telegraph article doesn't mention if the pipes funded by the EU would be plastic or metal that highly impacts if they could be used for rockets or not.
"Doing it for years up to literally right now (or just short of that)" answers the present tense of the question in a completely different way than "it used to happen once upon a time a decade ago". Is there anything newer than this? Also.. how can we even know about the EU-purchased pipes if the most we can verify are the old 2005 settlement ones?
Discussion on answer by SIMEL: Does H…
Discussion on answer by SIMEL: Does H…