We must see the true nature of Hamas-and of Netanyahu

Know thine enemy - and know thine ally, too. Too many of those pushing for one outcome or another in the war between Israel and Hamas misjudge the parties involved.

- Jonathan Freedland

They make mistaken assumptions about one side or the other-or both-that lead them to draw flawed, even dangerous, conclusions. There is no monopoly on these mistaken assumptions. They can be made by those calling on western leaders to demand an immediate ceasefire - and by the very western leaders they seek to persuade.

Start with those who look at the havoc wreaked in Gaza - at the many thousands killed, at the pile of rubble that was once Palestine's largest city - and decide that, whatever horrors Hamas committed on 7 October, surely it has now sustained enough of a blow; given all that Gaza has suffered, surely now Hamas will be deterred from future attacks. Such thinking fundamentally misunderstands the nature of that organisation. Hamas is a different kind of enemy, one that does not fit the usual theories of war. It does not mind if its own people die.

Recall how counter-terrorist strategists had to rethink all they knew when first confronted with suicide bombers. It's hard to deter a terrorist who does not fear death. That's true writ large for an organisation that has explicitly said it is "proud to sacrifice martyrs". Not its own leaders, mind, many of whom live in safety and, reportedly, great luxury in Qatar and elsewhere. But the ordinary men and women of Gaza.

This is why Hamas has spent hundreds of millions of dollars - much of it international aid money - not on basic services for those living in Gaza, but on a network of underground tunnels that it has said are exclusively for its own use. As one Hamas leader put it, ordinary people in Gaza who need protection should look to the UN.