Israel and Palestine Most Recent Confrontation

Roberto Landa

Liceo Bilingue Centroamericano

World History

Mrs. Merary Escobar

February 09, 2024

 Israel and Palestine Recent Confrontation

On October 7, Hamas launched a massive military operation into Israeli territory. The shooting
of thousands of rockets into Israel was followed by an attack by land, air and sea, with fighters
penetrating deep into territory under Israeli control. They attacked military installations and
temporarily took over various settlements. The death toll among Israelis has exceeded 1,200,
including more than 120 soldiers; dozens of Israeli hostages were also taken into the Gaza Strip.
Three groups - PIJ, the Mujahideen Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades - claim to
have seized Israeli hostages, alongside Hamas, on that day.

The planning of the operation took somewhere between a few months and two years, per
different accounts from Hamas leaders. The depth and magnitude of the attack were
unprecedented and took Israel by surprise. It was a reaction to changing regional dynamics and
growing Israeli aggression.

While Hamas may appear to have fulfilled its declared short-term goals of deterring Israeli
violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque and taking hostages to bargain for the release of Palestinian
political prisoners held in Israeli jails, it does not appear to have a long-term end game. A
heavy-handed response by Israel is ongoing – already claiming more than 950 Palestinian lives –
but sooner or later it will have to end with mediation.

Why did Hamas attack Israel?

Hamas’s move was triggered by three factors. First, the policies of the far-right Israeli
government enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem led to a sense
of desperation among Palestinians and growing demands for a reaction. At the same time, the
rising tensions in the West Bank caused by these policies necessitated the shift of Israeli forces
away from the south and into the north to guard the settlements. This gave Hamas both a
justification and an opportunity to attack.

Second, the Hamas leadership felt compelled to act due to the acceleration of Arab-Israeli
normalization. In recent years, this process further diminished the significance of the Palestinian
issue for Arab leaders who became less keen on pressuring Israel on this matter.

If a Saudi-Israeli deal had been concluded, it would have been a turning point in the Arab-Israeli
conflict, which may have eliminated the already weak chances of a two-state solution. This was
also part of Hamas’s calculations.
Third, Hamas was emboldened after it managed to repair its ties with Iran. In recent years, the
movement had to reconsider the political position it assumed in the wake of the Arab Spring in
2011, in opposition to Iran and its ally, the Syrian regime.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has said that he was personally involved in
improving the relations between Hamas and Damascus. A Hamas delegation visited Damascus
in October 2022 and its political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh travelled to Beirut in April and
Tehran in June. Just last month, Nasrallah hosted the Secretary-General of the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad Ziad al-Nakhalah and the deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau Saleh al-Arouri.

Israel has struggled to recover from the attack. It has intensified its bombardment of the Gaza
Strip and announced a total blockade on the coastal enclave, turning off electricity and blocking
humanitarian aid. Netanyahu’s government was already facing domestic turmoil before the
attack due to its judicial reforms; its stability will now be tested even further.

Israel will have to decide whether to undertake a ground invasion and if it is worth the military
and political costs. Whether it proceeds with it or not, sooner or later its military operation,
including the excessive bombardment of the strip, will have to come to an end. At that point,
Israel will have to ask for Egypt to mediate some kind of conclusion of this escalation and a deal
to exchange prisoners.

When the Israeli assault ends, Hamas, which has gained more legitimacy in Gaza and the West
Bank with its operation, will also face the challenge of translating it into policies and governance
that would serve the Palestinians in the long term.

The United States, for its part, will have to put its normalization mediation plans on hold for
now. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected in Israel and Saudi Arabia later this
month to discuss peace talks, but his plans have changed and now include a visit to Jordan.

Given the current public mood in the Arab world after the Gaza attack, it would be too
complicated to advance talks on a Saudi-Israeli deal. Most probably, these talks will be put on
the shelf by the Saudis in the short term but not necessarily fully canceled.

These developments work in Iran’s favor. With the progress of Arab-Israeli normalization halted,
Tehran can now pressure the US into re-entering a nuclear deal of some kind that would take
some of the sanctions pressure off the Iranian economy.