One of the most striking aspects of criticism of Israel’s military operation in Gaza is how much is based on prop provided by Hamas. This week’s remarks in the Telegraph by former defence secretary Ben Wallace, for example, contained no questioning of the death toll provided by Hamas and no solutions for how Israel might eradicate the terror group without incurring civilian casualties.

Hamas’s figures are broadcast credulously by news organisations and reporters who are trained to require two or often three separate forms of verification for a story. When Russia makes claims about its operations in Ukraine, for example, they are rightly sceptical. And when reports first emerged of the rape of Jewish women on October 7, it took weeks before they were believed. But it takes just minutes for Hamas’s propaganda to be broadcast to the world. Hamas’ claims, in other words, are treated as reliable, whereas Israel’s claims are regarded as by definition suspicious.

To compound this, when the figures are disseminated it is rarely pointed out that the vast majority of casualties are likely to be Hamas militants, given Israel’s focus on destroying terrorists and avoiding civilian casualties as far as possible in an arena in which Hamas uses civilians as human shields. Indeed, as Kasra Aarabi points out this week, Hamas has spent years deliberately constructing tunnels and operation centres to ensure that any Israeli action would mean civilian deaths, knowing that there would be an outcry.

That is exactly what has happened, as the calls for a ceasefire — which means, of course, giving Hamas the opportunity to regroup and resume its war on Israel and the Jews — grow. Credulous activists and politicians have been played by Hamas.