Genesis of Hamas attacks on Israel - 1

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour,” the PM said. — Vinod Johri

 

The world was horrified and grief struck when Hamas’s brazen dawn assault began on 7th October 2023 with rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. Simultaneously, the Palestinian militant group dispatched armed drones, fighters on motorbikes and paragliders across the strip’s border, targeting civilian towns and military checkpoints. The Israeli civilians who had been sleeping or resting during the Shabat, Israel’s day of rest — fled for their lives across fields. Hamas’s deadly, carefully planned and multi-faceted operation had unleashed Israel’s most terrifying nightmare. Israeli analysts describe the attack as the worst inside the Jewish state’s territory since 1948 — the year it was founded. At least 600 people had been killed in Israel, and Hamas has taken 100 hostages.  The October 2023 conflict between Israel and Hamas marks the most significant escalation of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in several decades. Hamas’s ability to launch such a well-planned attack from within the confines of the impoverished, hemmed-in Gaza Strip, which is surrounded by Israeli military fences and checkpoints, suggested a massive intelligence failure that sent shockwaves — and fear — through Israeli society. Some are even tagging this as the “third Intifada” (Arabic word meaning uprising). The first lasted from 1987 to 1993, and the second from 2000-2005.

The death toll in Israel remains at 1400, with over 200 hostages taken during the October 7th attack. The total death toll now stands at 6,500. For, the current hostility tests the Abraham Accords and the efforts towards rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel that held the promise of reshaping age-old fault-lines in the Middle East.

Gaza is a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, but with a short southern border with Egypt. Just 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, it has more than two million inhabitants and is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, an Islamist group which is committed to the destruction of Israel and is designated as a terrorist group by the UK and many other countries. Hamas won the Palestinians’ last elections in 2006, and seized control of Gaza the following year by ousting the rival Fatah movement of West Bank-based President Mahmoud Abbas. Since then, militants in Gaza have fought several wars with Israel, which along with Egypt has maintained a partial blockade on the strip to isolate Hamas and try to stop attacks, particularly the indiscriminate firing of rockets towards Israeli cities. Palestinians in Gaza say Israel’s restrictions and its air strikes on heavily populated areas amount to collective punishment. This year has been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. They also complain of the restrictions and military actions being carried out there in response to deadly attacks on Israelis. 

The 7th October 2023 attacks have echoes of the 1973 war when Egypt and Syria caught Israel unawares by leading an Arab offensive in the Sinai and the Golan Heights on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Hamas launched its assault close to the 50th anniversary of that war. But Saturday’s attack took place inside Israel and civilians were targeted, whereas in 1973 the Sinai and the Golan Heights were under Israeli occupation. Despite fighting at least four wars with Hamas since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007, Israel clearly under-estimated the militants’ capacity. The most recent conflict was in 2021 when Hamas fired barrage after barrage of rockets into Israel, surprising Israeli security officials with their scope and scale. Israel responded by pounding Gaza with air strikes and artillery and ended up fighting on multiple fronts. 

Iran-backed Hezbollah has already joined Hamas offensive and has a far larger and more sophisticated rocket and missile arsenal than Hamas. Its involvement in the conflict has threatened to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, which protects its towns and cities. Hezbollah had delivered a bloody nose to Israel during a month-long conflict in 2006 and it has gained battleground experience after intervening in Syria’s civil war to back President Bashar al-Assad. Israel has long warned that it would respond to any serious Hezbollah attacks with massive force against Lebanon, a country already on its knees after years of economic crisis and political malaise. Saturday’s events also raise Israeli fears that Iran, which supports Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another militant Palestinian group in Gaza, may decide to stoke the flames. The West Bank, meanwhile, has been simmering with tension as it endures the worst cycle of violence since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, ended in 2005. Israel has been conducting almost daily raids in the occupied territory. Rarely in recent years has the situation appeared so combustible? The war has already engulfed Lebanon and Syria. 

Background

1. The/Israeli-Palestinian conflict/ dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. Britain took control of the area known as Palestine following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled that part of the Middle East, in World War One. The land was inhabited by a Jewish minority and Arab majority, as well as other, smaller ethnic groups. Tensions between the two peoples grew when the international community gave the UK the task of establishing a “national home” in Palestine for Jewish people.

This stemmed from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a pledge made by then Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Britain’s Jewish community. The declaration was enshrined in the British mandate over Palestine and endorsed by the newly-created League of Nations - forerunner of the United Nations - in 1922.To Jews, Palestine was their ancestral home, but Palestinian Arabs also claimed the land and opposed the move.

2. Between the 1920s and 1940s, the number of Jews arriving there grew, with many fleeing from persecution in Europe, especially the Nazi Holocaust in World War Two.

Violence between Jews and Arabs, and against British rule, also increased. In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem becoming an international city. That plan was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arab side and never implemented.

3. In 1947, the United Nations adopted/ Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip. 

4. In 1948, unable to solve the problem, Britain withdrew and Jewish leaders declared the creation of the State of Israel. It was intended to be a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution, as well as a national homeland for Jews. Fighting between Jewish and Arab militias had been intensifying for months, and the day after Israel declared statehood, five Arab countries attacked. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in what they call Al Nakba, or the “Catastrophe”. By the time the fighting ended in a ceasefire the following year, Israel controlled most of the territory. 

5. Jordan occupied land which became known as the West Bank, and Egypt occupied Gaza. Jerusalem was divided between Israeli forces in the West, and Jordanian forces in the East. Because there was never a peace agreement there were more wars and fighting in the following decades.

6. In a war in 1967, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as most of the Syrian Golan Heights, Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. Most Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in neighbouring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes - Israel says this would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state.

7. In the wake of the 1948-49 war, Gaza was occupied by Egypt for 19 years.

8. Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the/ 1956 Suez Crisis/ and Israel’s invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defence pacts in anticipation of a possible mobilization of Israeli troops. In June 1967, following/ a series of manoeuvres/ by Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser, Israel pre-emptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. Six years later, in what is referred to as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria launched/ a surprise two-front attack/ on Israel to regain their lost territory; the conflict did not result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria, but Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat declared the war a victory for Egypt as it allowed Egypt and Syria to/ negotiate over previously ceded territory. Finally, in 1979, following a series of cease-fires and peace negotiations, representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the/ Camp David Accords,/ a peace treaty that ended the thirty-year conflict between Egypt and Israel. 

9. Even though the Camp David Accords improved relations between Israel and its neighbours, the question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unresolved. In 1987, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in what is known as the first intifada. The 1993,/ Oslo-I Accords/ mediated the conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and enabled mutual recognition between the newly established Palestinian Authority and Israel’s government. In 1995, the/ Oslo II/ Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank. 

10. In 2000, sparked in part by Palestinian grievances over Israel’s control over the West Bank, a stagnating peace process, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s/ visit/ to the al-Aqsa mosque—the third holiest site in Islam—in September 2000, Palestinians/ launched/ the second intifada, which would last until 2005. In response, the Israeli government approved the/ construction of a barrier wall/ around the West Bank in 2002, despite/ opposition/ from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. 

The series of remaining incidents of genesis of war between Israel and Hamas will be taken up in the next issue. 

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock at what he called “terrorist attacks” and conveyed “solidarity with Israel”.  “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour,” the Prime Minister said via a social media post on X. But Bharat navigates a complicated neighbourhood in west Asia, where it has friends on both, or rather many sides of the aisle — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and the UAE to name the four major powers in the region. According to the details on the website of the our Embassy, there are about 18,000 Bharatiya nationals in Israel. Bharat has launched ‘Operation Ajay’ to carry out a phased evacuation of its citizens from Israel and brought back 212 and 235 Bhartiya nationals in two special flights. Special charter flights and necessary arrangements have been made for this operation. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has established a 24/7 control room in Delhi to oversee the operation. Separate emergency help lines in Tel Aviv and Ramallah are operational to monitor the situation in Israel and Palestine.     

Vinod Johri: Retd. Addl. Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi

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