The war between Israel and Hamas has been raging for close to a couple months now and many people refer to this ongoing conflict as the Israel-Palestine war. However, Israel is not at war with Palestine; Israel is at war with Hamas.

Hamas is a nationalist terrorist organization that was founded in 1987 the group ignores all agreements made between the Palestinian liberation organization and Israel. Hamas’s charter calls for the establishment of an Islamic state in the place of Israel, as the group calls for the destruction of the country of Israel. Throughout the late 80’s and early 90’s, Hamas conducted many anti-Israeli attacks both in Israel and Palestine which are located to the west of Israel between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. These included large scale bombings against civilian targets and rocket attacks.

In 2006, the organization was able to become a sort of political faction and managed to win an election, and with it, political control over Gaza. Before the election in 2006 the Fatah political group had control over the Palestinian authority, the governing body of the palestinians. In 2008, after a series of suicide bombings, the U.S. Government officially labeled Hamas a terrorist organization and shortly after Hamas seized militant control of the Gaza strip which is in between the West bank and Israel.

“It’s a little worrisome that it took that long to label Hamas a terror organization,” junior Jesse Weekly said.

The Palestinian Authority recently called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which lasted about a week.The ceasefire’s aim was to allow Palestine to evacuate hospital occupants and for Israel to exchange prisoners for hostages who were being held captive by Hamas.

Aid sent to the Gaza strip has also been halted, and again the lack of food is leading to an imminent starvation crisis among the civilians. Hamas has resorted to stealing or extorting food and other supplies from Palestinian civilians within the Gaza strip.

“It’s unbelievably ironic and hypocritical of Hamas saying that they want to liberate people then hold innocents hostage and that they are stealing from the people they say they are trying to liberate in the first place,” junior Alex Houck said.

These matters show the difference between Palestine and Hamas. Palestine is a small, underrepresented country who does not have a seat at the U.N. Hamas calls for the destruction of the country of Israel, however most Palestinian civilians, as well as the only other main political party in Palestine, call to have negotiations with Israel and to live independently alongside Israel rather than waging a war and destroying the country and killing people.