Comment by runarberg

This paints a very rosy picture of the actual situation. Hardly any international organization would call Gaza an independent nation, not even Israel does that. Most (all?) international organization describe Gaza as an occupied territory of Israel.

Having control over a territory is what makes it occupied. And Israel very much has control over Gaza. The government and the legislator is one of few things which Gazans them self control, almost everything else is controlled by Israel, including the population registry, what goes in and out, etc.

> Israel mistakenly thought Hamas was transforming into a national government that is busy governing its territory.

They never thought such thing. There were regular bombing campaigns which Israelis described as “mowing the lawn” (talk about dehumanization) where the Israeli military went into Gaza—sometimes with groundtroups—including in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021. In 2018 the Israeli military indiscriminately shot at unarmed protestors inside Gaza. Israel always assumed Hamas to be a terrorist organization first, and an illegitimate government of Gaza second.