Israel and Hamas in Gaza
Photo by Barks from Shutterstock.
Dylan Lister
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, the military body governing the Gaza Strip, launched an unparalleled missile attack on Israel, killing over 1200 Israelis, and injuring hundreds more. The attack was brutal in nature and sparked an ongoing war that has so far killed over twenty-two thousand Palestinians and Israeli citizens. If any diplomatic relations are to be reached, it is not just beneficial to both belligerents, but ultimately crucial to declare a ceasefire and allow the citizens trapped in Gaza and Israel to evacuate. However, to fully understand the risks and rewards available from declaring a ceasefire, it is necessary to understand the long-term conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The land in dispute, currently known as Israel, was established in 1948 after the Second World War. The Allied Nations, in response to the centuries-old persecution of the Jews in Europe, had actually ceded a section of land previously under British occupation, called Palestine, to the Jewish people to establish a homeland for themselves in 1917 called the Balfour Declaration, but it failed to gain international recognition following the outbreak of the Second World War. The actual population of Palestine was mostly Hebrew, and the Arabic population had only called Palestine home for about 200 years. In the thousands of years prior to the Arabic presence in Palestine, it had belonged to several different dynasties and empires, like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaemenids, Greeks, and Romans.
Early tensions began to brew after the British issued the Balfour Declaration, but armed conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians would not begin until 1948 after Israel gained international recognition. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war began soon after the British Mandate for Palestine ended. Five Arab Nations, outraged with the existence of a neighboring Jewish state, promptly invaded and massacred thousands of soldiers and civilians. It was the costliest war for Israel in terms of bloodshed that was ever fought, with over 6,000 dead, wounded, or missing. In the end, Israel came out victorious, mostly thanks to the intervention of the United Nations, which provided food, clothing, shelter, and weapons to the Israeli people.
The Arab-Israeli war years continued far into the future, starting again in 1956, and occurring again in 1967, 1972, 1982, and most recently in 2006. Peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine have been historically scarce but had a few notable advances in 2013. However, that peace didn't last long, and on October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a series of missile and ground attacks, orchestrated by Ismail Haniyeh, the de facto leader of Hamas whilst living abroad in Qatar. The attacks killed as many as 1200 Israeli civilians, and the event was the most destructive act committed against the Jewish people in pure numbers since the Holocaust ended in 1945.
As if the situation couldn't get any worse, in the days following the ground invasion, hundreds of women and children were reportedly raped, tortured, and mutilated by Hamas militants. Video footage captured militants using shovels to penetrate their victims, often young Israeli women. It is apparent that Hamas in general is utilizing sexual violence as a weapon against the defenseless. The New York Times reports that video evidence showed "A woman in a black dress lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed, and face charred black." Civilians have also been the target of abductions by Hamas, with it initially taking around 250 people, with the stated goal of coercing Israel into releasing Palestinian prisoners. As of last week, that number rests at 132, as more hostage negotiations take place.
Likewise, Israel has also begun targeting civilians. In the first two weeks of fighting alone, nearly 3800 Palestinians had been killed, including 1500 children. Targets have included schools, mosques, hospitals, apartments and homes. It has been widely reported that Hamas does not have any forces operating or quartering in any of the previously reported locations, and some speculate that Israel is waging a civilian campaign to expedite the process of an insurgent surrender.
A popular theory about why Israel is targeting civilians is that Israel is attempting to completely displace the Palestinian people from their homeland. This theory is typically spouted by Pro-Islamist sympathizers, who believe Hamas is fighting merely for independence from Zionist Israel. The term Zionist was first coined in 1890 by Jewish author Nathan Birnbaum, and it means to support the founding and independence of a Jewish state in Israel. While it is true that Israel exists on the same land Palestine once existed upon, it is not entirely true to say that Palestine has always been the homeland of the Palestinians. This is because the ancestors of modern-day Palestinians, the Arab Muslims, actually invaded their “homeland” in 648 BCE, overthrowing the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius, who ruled over the larger landmass of what was known then as Syria.
The truth is, the lands of Israel and Palestine are in dispute because of the latter’s desire to create an Islamic state and take back their previously conquered territory. But in the crossfire, both Hamas and Israel fail to understand the human impact that their religious crusade has had on the people in Gaza. Over twenty-five thousand people, regardless of race, sex, or religion have been killed. A human is a human, despite the polarity between one ideology and the other. For any hope of an end to the death in Gaza, we must all petition for our government to declare a ceasefire, not for Hamas, but for humanity.
