WHEN the Palestinians in Gaza complain that they have been under Israeli siege for eight years, they have a point. They have no airport and no seaport. The Israelis operate a naval blockade and they control passage between Israel and Gaza by means of seven border checkpoints.

Ordinary everyday travel is a nightmare for Palestinians in Gaza. Moreover, Israel has intensified Gaza’s isolation by erecting a protective fence between the two areas.

Life is well-nigh intolerable for the inhabitants of Gaza. Most of the world’s media insist that the siege and the privations which it enforces demonstrate that Israel is pursuing a cruel and vindictive policy amounting to war crimes.

But there is another way of looking at the horror. Before Israel’s blockade, weapons, rockets and bombs were regularly being received in Gaza by ship. Hamas – the terrorist organisation which rules Gaza – lost no time in firing these rockets at Israeli citizens in southern towns such Sderot.

Often 100 rockets in 24 hours. The Israeli women and children who are forced several times a day to leave what they are doing and run to the air raid shelter are innocent victims just as much as Palestinian families in Gaza. Perhaps Hamas ought to be tried for war crimes?

Also, before that fence was put up and the checkpoints established, there were frequent incursions by Hamas suicide bombers into the West Bank and Jerusalem itself.

As a direct result of the protective and defensive measures taken by Israel – the blockade, the fence and the checkpoints – these murderous bombings have all but ceased.

The fundamental cause of the horror now endemic in southern Israel and Gaza is Hamas. This organisation is governed and manned by fanatics, psychopaths, who have declared time and time again that their aim is the destruction of Israel. Knowing this, and suffering the rocket attacks and the suicide bombs, what is Israel to do?

As I mentioned last week, they have tried to arrange peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians many times over the past 20 years. Most notably with Arafat, who signed up to a peace agreement then immediately reneged on it and instigated a second murderous uprising against Israeli civilians.

The Israelis hoped, and perhaps even believed, that they had someone they could do business with in the leader of the more moderate Palestinians in Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas.

It was, to say the least, a disappointment to the Israelis when Abbas signed up to a unity government with the psychopaths in Hamas.

What possible motive could there be for Israel’s savage invasion of Gaza? The explanation is not hard to find. Hamas has constructed a complex and extensive network of tunnels in Gaza and these it uses both for the transportation of its rocketry and as a means for its terrorist militia to enter Israel and wreak mayhem.

Hamas terrorists like to portray themselves as heroes. This is not how much of the Arab world regards them. The Arab League detests them.

Peace between Palestinians and Israelis remains possible. But Hamas must be got out of the way first.