Hamas has launched an unprecedented strike on Israel. Here’s what you need to know.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades destroy a tank of Israeli forces in Gaza City on October 7, 2023. Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Hamas on Saturday launched a large, well-coordinated attack on Israel from the territory it controls in Gaza after months of simmering conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
A group of fighters from Hamas’s military arm, the Al-Qassam brigades, entered Israel Saturday — an unprecedented breach of the security apparatus that controls Palestinian movement in and out of Israel — killing at least 250 Israelis and wounding over 1,400, according to the latest numbers from Haaretz. At least 198 Palestinians have been killed, the Gazan Health Ministry reports, both in retaliatory strikes and in gunfights. There have also been reports of Hamas fighters taking hostages back into Gaza, holding Israelis hostage in their homes, and of gunfights in southern Israeli towns. Hamas military leader Mohammad Deif claimed that the group had launched 5,000 rockets into Israel; the Israeli military put that number at 2,200 by late morning Saturday. Still, that number indicates the massive scale of this operation; in the whole of a 50-day war between Hamas and Israel in 2014, the group launched a total of 4,564 rockets and mortars into Israel.
“Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about the attacks. “We are in a war and we will win it.” Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel has become increasingly hostile to Palestinians and encouraged Israeli settlements in parts of the West Bank, another Palestinian enclave.
Meanwhile, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said that he was willing to set aside disagreements with Netanyahu to “establish, together with him, a small, professional emergency government,” according to the New York Times.
The Israeli Defense Forces have already retaliated with airstrikes against Gaza, which has suffered from blockades by Israel and Egypt for years and has been described as an “open-air prison.” Meanwhile, Iran and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militant group based in southern Lebanon, have praised the attacks. Saudi Arabia, which is in negotiations to normalize relations with Israel, issued a statement calling for de-escalation, specifically calling out Israel for its “continued occupation, the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations against its sanctities.”
that, which was a big part of the attack,” he added.
Iran and Hezbollah also provide funding, training, and intelligence to Hamas fighters, all of which could have contributed to Saturday’s attack, both Byman and Clarke said.
However, given the tensions within Israeli society and the simmering conflict between Israel and Palestinians over settlements in the West Bank and traditionally Palestinian sites in East Jerusalem, a conflict of some sort was likely.
Israel’s internal politics under Netanyahu have created a maximally polarized society under minority rule by Netanyahu’s Likud party and its right-wing coalition partners who favor Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory as well as other conservative religious values. A recent decision to change the balance of power between Israel’s Supreme Court and its parliament, the Knesset, sent shockwaves through secular Israeli society, sparking mass protests across several sectors of society, including Israeli Defense Force reservists.
The important question: Why did Hamas attack Israel?
Hamas is likely seeking the return of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, according to experts. In the past, the group has successfully traded a small number of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held in Israel, notably keeping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for five years before exchanging him for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, the New York Times reported.
The number of hostages is as yet unknown, but they are reportedly being held both within Gaza itself and in Israeli villages where Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters have been able to infiltrate and include a “substantial” number of both civilians and IDF soldiers, the Israeli military confirmed Saturday.
Saturday’s attack, though it’s unprecedented in scale, complexity, and surprise factor is all happening in the context of increased settlements in the West Bank, a brutal, 16-year blockade on Gaza by Israel and Egypt, the political vacuum in the Palestinian territories, the displacement of generations of Palestinians since the founding of the Israeli state, and the apartheid under which Palestinians live.
Source: Vox News
