‘Hamas goal: eradicate Israel state’

IT WAS déjà vu on Monday when residents of cities throughout southern and central Israel found themselves under yet another deadly missile barrage from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Ever since Israel’s evacuation of Gaza fifteen years ago, Hamas has regularly used the territory as a base from which to launch rocket attacks on Israeli population centres.

An unapologetically Islamist movement primarily sponsored by Iran, it has not deviated from its oft-stated goal of eradicating the Israel state and reinstating Muslim domination