Gaza began the war with a more powerful army than many European countries: more soldiers, more rockets, more war-fighting infrastructure. Gaza wasn't a particularly poor place before the war, certainly not by the standards of the middle east. It had mansions and average salaries that, for some professions, were higher than average salaries in Israel. It was a net food exporter.

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xg15 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It was also fully blockaded by Israeli (and Egyptian) forces on all sides? Israel was in full control of what was going in an out of it.

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richardfeynman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't see how that's relevant to the earlier claim, but even this claim of yours is a gross overstatement.

There was a partial blockade, not a full blockade, and this partial blockade came after Palestinians launched the second intifada. Prior to the october 7 massacre, perpetrated by Hamas and gazan civilians, tens of thousands of gazans were able to travel out of gaza through egypt and israel, where many of them worked. nearly 75,000 truckloads of food and cargo went into gaza from israel in 2022. Gaza exported lots too.

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xg15 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My point is that Israel had full control about exactly what Gaza was allowed to import and export (and frequently used those controls for collective punishment as well)

I don't quite see how under those circumstances, they were able to build "a more powerful army than many European countries", unless you talk about Luxembourg or the Vatican.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

	▲	richardfeynman an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, Israel and Egypt together controlled what Gaza was allowed to import and export - not as a form of collective punishment, but to ensure its own security. There's a huge difference between that and a "full blockade" (which is what Russia did to Mariupol early in the war), so precision matters. In terms of Hamas's army being more powerful than that of many European countries, I'll respond to that below. And the Wikipedia article you cite has been manipulated by a band of ideological editors and is not reliable, and has no value (inverse value?) as a citation.
	▲	youarentrightjr an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[flagged]

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youarentrightjr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Gaza began the war with a more powerful army than many European countries

What? You mean countries like Monaco and Liechtenstein?

> more soldiers, more rockets

Simply counting the # of soldiers or rockets is disingenuous when this is obviously an asymmetric war.

It's clear that the method of combatant recognition employed by the IDF is flawed, given they're killing aid workers and people from the UN.

Eg, here is Hamas' bread and butter rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket

There is more technology in a modern rifle round than in those rockets + launch systems (if you even dare call them that).

> more war-fighting infrastructure

Please explain what you mean by "war-fighting infrastructure ".

> Gaza wasn't a particularly poor place before the war, certainly not by the standards of the middle east

Depends on what you mean by "standards of the Middle East", but just compare Israel($52k) and Gaza ($3455) for 2023:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

> It had mansions and average salaries that, for some professions, were higher than average salaries in Israel.

"The wealthiest in a poor country have more money than the average in a developed country", means what exactly?

How did you develop your understanding of this situation? And what are you trying to communicate here?