I've seen it said over and over again how Hamas "broke the peace" on October 7 and how Hamas only understands violence. How true is that?
Let's recall what happened the last time the people of Gaza demonstrated peacefully.

One year on from the start of the Great March of Return protests in Gaza, thousands of civilians continue to suffer the devastating consequences of Israel’s ruthless tactics without accountability, Amnesty International said today. At least 195 Palestinians were killed, including 41 children and 28,939 injured by Israeli forces in the context of the protests between 30 March 2018 until 22 March 2019, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

By the end of 2018 more than 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza were injured by live ammunition at protest sites and at least 122 – including 21 children – had limbs amputated as a result of their wounds, according to a report published in March by the UN commission of inquiry, which was set up to look into the abuses committed in the context of the protests.

“The shocking scale and horrific nature of the debilitating injuries inflicted by Israeli forces on Palestinian protesters in Gaza last year suggests Israel pursued a deliberate strategy to maim civilians,” said Saleh Higazi, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director for Amnesty International.

The report highlighted how 80% of the 6,106 injuries caused by live ammunition were to the lower limbs and that more people lost limbs as a result of injuries sustained during the Great March of Return protests than during the entire 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. Doctors in Gaza had told Amnesty International that many of the serious injuries they had witnessed were typical of war wounds.

According to military experts and forensic pathologists who reviewed photographs of injuries obtained by Amnesty International, many of the wounds observed by doctors in Gaza were consistent with those caused by high-velocity military weapons, including Israeli-manufactured Tavor rifles and US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles that shoot 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which expand and mushroom inside the body.

“The Israeli forces’ policy of using lethal force during protests, deploying weapons designed to cause maximum harm against protesters, medics and journalists who did not pose an imminent threat to life, is simply criminal,” said Saleh Higazi.

UNRWA did their own investigation and determined that nearly all of the protestors were unarmed.

While protests have continued to be largely non-violent and the vast majority of those in attendance are unarmed, there are often reported incidents of stone throwing, as well as tire burning, attempts to damage the fence and, since April, some demonstrators flew kites or balloons towards Israel that carried burning rags and damaged Israeli property, including agricultural land. Israeli Security Forces (ISF) have responded to these civilian demonstrations with the use of tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition.

I remember debating Israel defenders, and them trying to convince me that children flying balloons with burning rags justified shooting them with sniper rifles.
Just during the first 6 months of these protests, at least 115 paramedics and 115 journalists were injured.

To put this into an American perspective, in 2019, as these protests were ending, the Trump Administration was proposing a “Deal of the Century.”

The $50 billion, 10-year economic component of the plan aims to “empower” and “unlock the vast potential of the Palestinian people” – yet the 40-page document says nothing about why Palestinians are disempowered today and unable to unlock their potential. The result? A sideshow divorced from reality.

The plan fails to address the most significant barrier to economic development: Israeli abuses of Palestinians’ human rights. For example, it sets out to develop a “transportation corridor directly connecting the West Bank and Gaza through a major road and, potentially, a modern rail line.” But what good is a corridor when Israel imposes a travel ban on the 2 million Palestinians of Gaza that prevents nearly all of them from traveling – not only to the West Bank, but anywhere else? The problem is not a lack of roads, but Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on movement that have turned Gaza into an open-air prison.

The plan speaks of the importance of private property rights without mentioning the Israeli authorities’ methodical theft of thousands of hectares of privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank to build settlements, which are illegal under international humanitarian law, or their illegal exploitation of natural resources for their own benefit while imposing severe restrictions on how Palestinians can use those resources.