Amalekites don’t just happen to harm women and children as “collateral damage.” Amalekites don’t carry out the ban, as Israel did, destroying men, women, children, and animals in select Canaanite cities, on Yahweh’s orders. Israel didn’t attack Jericho, Ai, or Hormah when all the men were gone. They attacked fortified and guarded cities, conquered them, and offered them in smoke and fire to Yahweh. Amalekites specifically target women and children and the weak. Amalek is the anti-Israel, a people whose way of life, values, and military tactics are set in direct opposition to Yahweh’s purposes for humanity. //

Hamas isn’t Amalek. Hamas isn’t literally under Yahweh’s ban and curse. And Hamas certainly isn’t the same as the Palestinian people. Thousands of Palestinians are Christians, and many Muslim Palestinians oppose Hamas and its violence. To compare Hamas to Amalek isn’t to justify or even suggest genocide.

Still, the tactics Hamas used on October 7 were Amalekite tactics. Hamas isn’t the only terrorist group to fight like Amalekites.