It’s exactly a week plus a day today, since Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement in control of small Gaza, embarrassed its bigger neighbour Israel, with a daredevilry that surprised and shocked the entire world. This is the report of an on-the-scene Al Jazeera reporter: “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 exceeded 1,200, including more than 120 soldiers; dozens of Israeli hostages were also taken into the Gaza Strip. 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.”
This report answers the “how” question. But the “why” probably is the most significant because it gives a sense of what is to follow. According Al Jazeera, “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 normalisation. 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 normalisation 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.”
In other words, Hamas, by its Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, wanted to remind Israel and the world that changing regional power dynamics have not weakened its potency as a resistance and fighting force. The group also wanted to reassure its followers both in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupied West Bank that they could yet rely on it to fight their cause of an eventual independent State of Palestine. Yes, Hamas may have succeeded in stopping Israeli desecration of the Al Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s most respected holy sites, and taking 150 Israeli hostages that it hoped to exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in jail in Israel. But it could do no more. What comes next will depend on what Israel does in response to October 7 and the nature of that response. Also how the rest of the world, America especially, reacts is important. So far, Israel’s reaction has been in the form of heavy air bombardments of neighborhoods inside Gaza. Some 1000 plus are said to have died in the air raids tagged Operation Swords of Iron. Before then, a total air, sea and land blockade of the strip had gone into effect. Israel also announced it was stopping supplies of electricity, food, fuel and other commodities. On Friday, the Israeli military issued a warning for residents of southern Gaza to leave. Is a ground attack imminent? Prime Minister Benjamin “bibi” Binyamin Netanyahu, in a televised address, said Israel was at war. “We are at war, and we will win”. But he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult”. It will be, certainly. First, the prime minister is very unpopular with his people at home because of his determination to push through judicial reforms to weaken the country’s supreme court. He is doing this at a time when he is standing trial for corruption. Second, that Hamas very easily breached Israel’s hitech intelligence apparatus, thought to be one of the world’s most sophisticated, suggests the worst intelligence failure in 50 years. So, Israel is going into this war knowing it won’t be a walk in the park. Victory is not as certain as Netanyahu boasts. It will be both a personal war for his political survival and one to test his country’s regional militarily superiority as well as its world reputation. This latter could be eroded if the war gets too bloody, becomes a war of attrition and lasts far longer than necessary.
