To the Editor:

With regard to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, we are aware of the history involving both entities and the back-and-forth actions and words between them. But how will we begin to end the ongoing bloodshed?

The Hamas attack of Oct. 7 was a brutal ambush of innocent citizens and a massacre. They also took hostages. Hamas and any Palestinians involved, definitely knew that this would start a war. They didn't attack the government of Israel; they attacked innocent civilians!

So anyone would expect Israel to react with a barrage of a military response.

Now that Israel has blown the hell out of Palestine in order to defeat Hamas, there is rightfully a call for a stop to the killing of so many innocent people that Hamas has been hiding among, by their own admission.

Palestinians are blaming only Israel for the inhumane killing of civilians, but they should be rooting out and killing Hamas themselves for bringing this destruction upon them.

Hamas initiated an attack on Israel, took hostages, and hid among Palestinians knowing the innocent would get killed. As much as Israel could stop the inhumane killing of innocent bystanders to Hamas, the primary guilt of what has happened lies with Hamas.

All that was and is needed for the situation to come to a cease fire is for Hamas to return the hostages and stop sending bombs to the Israelis. If Hamas had done this long ago it would have enlisted the attention of the world to a level that would have stopped Israel’s bombardment. Now the destroyed cities will take decades to rebuild and the lives lost are gone forever!

The beginning to the end of the war is in the hands of Hamas. Give back the hostages!

I am not diminishing the blood of innocent Plaestinians on the hands of the Israeli government, but Hamas put the Israelis in a difficult position by attacking them, taking people alive, saying they want to extinguish all Jews and then hiding behind their own countrymen’s families. 

End the war. Start by simply giving back the hostages!

Timothy Albright

Meadowdale