Note: I put much effort into writing this, and would really appreciate you reading it, as it sheds light onto a rarely discussed point of view.

It’s certainly an interesting question, what’s their end goal? I didn’t ask that question because “Fighting the occupying force” seems like an obvious thing to do.

It’s hard to say “To destroy Israel” because it’s already a country that exists, but then again, Palestine was a country that existed too, and Israel more or less… killed everyone and deleted the country, so IT IS possible to destroy a country that exists and replace it.

I think the mid-to-long-term goals are (or at least, these would be my goals if I led Hamas):

a) Stop treating the Palestinians as human animals.

So stop the economical siege.

So stop the actual wall-based siege.

So stop using noise-planes 24/7 to break the population mentally.

b) stop mass immigration to Israel.

c) Give them a governemnt that actually seeks the interests of the population instead of US planted puppets (and while we’re at it can we do the same for the rest of the Arab nations, living under a diatatorship is painful)

Edit: d) free the Palestinian people being unjustly imprisoned and inhumanly (and internationally illegally) tortured in Israeli prisons.

e) Make Jerusalem at-least a neutral area

this is almost impossible to achieve in my opinion as both sides want to have the entirety of it for themselves for religious purposes.

Now with that out of the way let’s speak religion, regrading the ethnic cleaning part, Muslim war rules (a very good paper) allign with general moral codes, and was a pioneer of proper human rights during war, something which is missing in a practical sense even today, and throughout history you can see them being respected during the Islamic “openings” (or conquests), as Islam - as the name in Arabic implies - is a religion of peace, and we shouldn’t make wars unless necessary, and we’re limited in what we can do, and I can boil the war rules down to:

1 - Don’t kill the old, the women, and children.

2 - Don’t kill people who dedicate their lives to worshipping (hermits)

3 - No betrayal, if you come with the enemy to an agreement you have to respect it.

4 - Don’t cause unnecessary destruction to infetructure as much as possible, and try the preserve the hard work of humanity (don’t destroy for the sake of destruction)

5 - proper treatment of prisoners (See my last reply on prisoner tratement)

6 - No looting and no cutting dead bodies as a form of humiliation. (mutilating and disgracing is banned)

I am not and do not pretend to know much about Judaism, but I heard Natenyahu and Jewish religion men say things which boil down to “In war there is no mercy, spare no woman, no man, no child, don’t leave any living thing not even donkeys” (this is not a quote, and I’m willing to hear a reply from someone who knows more about Judaism), I also heard a few quotes from the Torah.

During the months this war took place in we observed both sides following the rules of their religion, and as for the supposed “Raping and beheading of children” that happened on the 7th of October, it doesn’t seem to allign with what Hamas did past that day nor with Islam*, and what Israel did pre and post the 7th of October alligns with their religion; some actions just scream: “we are the choosen population”.

I am personally of the opinion that religion doesn’t fit under the term ‘Racism’, as it’s a choice done by a person to believe in, and do certain things, even if many just treat their religion as something inhereted from their parents. Religion in the latter group is - in my opinion - the only form of religion that could fall under the word ‘Racism’, and even then it still has an effect on people, even if minor. (I think that Israel falls in the first group though)

Disclaimer: I do not support any form of mistreatment or prejudice against any individual person based on religion, as for most people - as I have said - it is just something on their ID card, because most don’t seem to care about the possibility of spending an eternity in hell for some reason.

*: It is either Israeli lies (most probable) or an insane few pretending to work for the cause who sneaked into Hamas’ ranks and do not reflect the group as a whole (least probable).