As the death toll has risen to 700, more than 50% of them are children and women, in Gaza Strip by the Israeli air, land and sea strikes, some still, shamelessly, argue that it was HAMAS which first launched the rockets. No matter whoever launched rockets first, the random killing of the children, the women, the young or the old cannot be tolerated. Above all, HAMAS has the all rights to defend its people, whether with rockets or without and as HAMAS leader Khaled Meshaal put rightly, “Israel seeks a one-sided ceasefire, observed by Palestinians alone, in return for siege, starvation, bombardment, assassinations, incursions and colonial settlement. What Israel wants is a gratuitous ceasefire.”

There are hundreds of incidents indicating how Israel has been committing war crimes since its foundation in 1948 and before, but Israeli brutality against Palestinians and shocking images of the killed school boys and girls fall on deaf ears. As a matter of fact, those who have been backing Israel are not very interested in Israeli war crimes, but removing HAMAS out of power, clearing all the obstacles that Israel faces for its divinely-inspired goals.

Robert Fisk’s article in yesterday’s Independent, a small brief of Israeli war crimes, might be a useful introduction to those showing ignorence or pretending to be ignorant about the Palestinian issue, although their corrupt ideological stance won’t let them denounce Israeli atrocities in Gaza Strip. That they denounce HAMAS and justify Israel’s lies of occupation and violence is not just a matter of twisting the facts, but some even take the case further, emphasising on Islamic creeds HAMAS obeys, no matter how Israel has committed religion-inspired terrorism and become a destructive killing machine. For them, Palestinians are damned to death and starvation for electing rebellious and uncompromising HAMAS.

HAMAS has been resisting the Israeli occupation and violence and in a sense it resembles Turkey’s Indepence War led by Atatürk. I wonder whether those in Turkish media condemning HAMAS would ever call Turkey’s Indepence Movement as a ‘terrorist organisation’.

Those who shamelessly repeat the Israeli cheap propaganda and threats that HAMAS is the same as PKK should be reminded of Turkey’s Indepence War. The case is very clear: Israel is an occupying force and HAMAS is a resistance movement.