The standard story goes like so…Israel imposed a blockade, the blockade trapped and radicalized two million people, and that desperation explains everything that followed.
The timeline doesn’t support it.
Hamas was firing rockets into Israeli civilian areas before the claim of a blockade existed. In May 2007, rocket attacks on Sderot forced the temporary evacuation of thousands of Israeli residents. The full land blockade came in autumn 2007, after Hamas had already seized power by force. It tightened in January 2008 in direct response to sustained rocket fire on Israeli towns.
The alleged blockade didn’t produce the rockets. The rockets and the violent takeover came first. The cause-and-effect story most widely repeated gets the order backward. And for the record, prior to 10/7, an average of 500 trucks per day entered the Gaza Strip FROM Israel that contained aid, commercial goods, fuel, and construction materials.
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