What has happened so far between Hamas and Israel
Rights — di Luigi Mastrodonato
Hamas attacked Israel. The death toll has reached seven hundred, including 78 children. After the first air strikes, Israel is preparing a ground offensive.
What has happened so far between Hamas and Israel
Hamas attacked Israel. The death toll has reached seven hundred, including 78 children. After the first air strikes, Israel is preparing a ground offensive.
- Following the massacre caused by Hamas's attack on Israel, the latter launched a counter-offensive air campaign, striking civilian targets as well.
- The Israeli Defence Minister ordered the total siege of Gaza, cutting off power and water.
- Israel has mobilised thousands of reservists and is preparing a ground invasion to "eliminate Hamas".
On Saturday 7 October, the Palestinian political-religious extremist organisation Hamas launched a large-scale military operation against Israel. Thousands of rockets were fired, many of which were not intercepted by the Israeli missile defence system Iron Dome. Hamas militants then crossed the Gaza Strip border by land, breaking through the fences, as well as by air using motorised hang-gliders. Forty-eight hours after the attack, the Israeli death toll stands at at least seven hundred, with around one hundred hostages taken by Hamas. The worst single scene was at the Supernova festival, a rave where at least 260 young people were killed.
Israel's response was swift. Jets launched a heavy bombardment of Gaza, officially to strike Hamas cells, but strikes also hit civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals. Forty-eight hours into the Israeli counter-offensive, the Palestinian death toll stands at around five hundred, including more than seventy children. Israel is mobilising troops and armoured vehicles to launch a ground operation in Gaza as well, while Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered "a total siege."
The terrorist attack by Hamas
The offensive by Hamas — the Palestinian extremist organisation founded in 1987 that today controls the Gaza Strip — began at 6 o'clock in the morning local time on Saturday 7 October. The attack did not come on an ordinary day. 6 October marked the anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, which was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between an Arab coalition made up of Egypt and Syria and the state of Israel. The operation launched on the eve of Yom Kippur, an important Jewish holiday, caught Israeli military defences off guard, just as has happened now.
Around five thousand rockets were fired at Israeli territory. Some were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system, while others hit the ground. At the same time, several Hamas militants crossed the border using motorised hang-gliders, while around one thousand fighters tore down the fences marking the boundary of the Gaza Strip, advancing into Israeli territory to a depth never reached before. While missiles flew over dozens of Israeli border villages, reaching as far as Tel Aviv, fighting broke out on the ground between Hamas militants and Israeli soldiers. Images never seen before began circulating online, showing Israeli military vehicles driven by Hamas members and brought into the Gaza Strip, displayed as trophies.
New video: Aftermath of the Supernova music festival in Israel, where Hamas gunmen killed 260 people
Over time, more graphic images also spread — those from the Supernova festival, a rave organised in southern Israel around five kilometres from the Gaza Strip. Thousands of young civilians were at the event, still dancing at dawn on 7 October, when Hamas militants stormed the site — both by air on hang-gliders and by land in vans. They opened fire, leaving at least 260 dead.
The massacre of Israeli civilians
Hamas's attack on Israel caused a bloodbath. The provisional toll on 9 October, 48 hours after the attack and with ground fighting and rocket fire still ongoing, is at least seven hundred dead, including several foreign nationals, such as Americans, Thais and Nepalese. There are at least 750 missing, and of these at least one hundred are believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas and brought into the Gaza Strip.
Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued throughout the rest of Saturday 7 October and into Sunday 8 October. The flashes of missiles lit up the sky above Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, which experienced diametrically opposite situations over the course of the weekend. First it was stormed, mainly by tourists fleeing Israeli territory. Then it emptied out, as an increasing number of international airlines decided to suspend flights. Meanwhile, Israel also had to contend with an escalation of tensions in the north of the country: militants from Hezbollah, Lebanon's Shia Islamist movement and party, gathered at the border and fired several rockets into Israeli territory.
Why did Hamas also attack civilians?
"Today is the day of the great revolution," announced Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's armed wing, on 7 October. He went on to add that the group "is leading a heroic campaign aimed at defending the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the holy sites and Palestinian prisoners." The al-Aqsa mosque, in East Jerusalem, is one of the most important places of worship in Islam and is frequently the scene of clashes between Muslim pilgrims and Israeli security forces, who obstruct their religious freedom.
#Palestine / #Israel 🇵🇸🇮🇱: Al-Qassam Brigades (#HAMAS) released a video of their attack on an #IDF Merkava Mk IV tank with Trophy APS.
The group noteably used a 'Tandem 85' anti-tank projectile —an improvised RPG projectile produced by HAMAS. Seems to be quite efficient.
The group noteably used a 'Tandem 85' anti-tank projectile —an improvised RPG projectile produced by HAMAS. Seems to be quite efficient.
Hamas is a radical Islamic organisation. Since 2007 it has controlled the Gaza Strip, where it won a surprise election victory — the last to be held in the territory. The Palestinian group draws on Islamic fundamentalism, similar to the Iranian regime, of which it is also a close ally. Palestinian women in Gaza, for example, need a male's permission to travel, do not have the freedom to divorce except under certain conditions, and are largely excluded from the world of work. In general, there are many restrictions on rights and freedoms imposed in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas's attack on Israel replicated beyond its borders the brutality exercised at home.
The motives for the attack on civilians on Israeli territory are unclear, also because the organisation initially claimed to have attacked only military targets, while simultaneously stating that it considers anyone occupying historic Palestinian territory to be a military target. In the case of the Supernova festival, since the location was kept secret until a few hours before the event, it is possible that the young people found themselves by pure chance in the path of Hamas militants and that there had been no prior planning.
Hamas was founded in Gaza in 1987 with the aim of liberating Palestine from the Israeli presence. Israel has been in violation of international law for decades, in particular UN Resolution 242 of 1967 and the Oslo Accords of 1993, which require the withdrawal from militarily occupied Palestinian territories. Israel has never withdrawn; on the contrary, it has continued to extend its presence, building new settlements, restricting the freedom of movement of the Palestinian people (many Palestinian roads, for example, cannot be used by Palestinians) and creating what the UN has described as a crime against humanity of apartheid. War crimes and crimes against humanity are systematically committed by Israel during its anti-terrorism incursions into Palestine as well: killings of journalists, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment without trial through the mechanism of administrative detention, the killing of medical personnel and civilians, including many children.
The Israeli counter-offensive on Gaza
Following Hamas's attack on Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the most right-wing government in the country's history, declared: "We are at war", adding that "the enemy will pay a price it has never known."
Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.
The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an
The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an
Within a matter of hours on the morning of Saturday 7 October, Israeli jets launched the aerial military counter-offensive on the Gaza Strip. Dozens of targets linked to Hamas were bombed, with the Israeli government's stated intention of "wiping out the organisation." But the air raids also struck civilian targets. As Médecins Sans Frontières denounced, two hospitals were hit, causing the deaths of medical personnel. In addition to this, the bombardments cost the lives of dozens of children. According to the provisional toll for the first 48 hours of the Israeli counter-offensive, Palestinian deaths number almost five hundred, of whom 78 are children. The number of displaced Palestinians fleeing the Israeli bombardments on Gaza has already reached 123,000 out of a population of around two million. And on the morning of 9 October, Israel bombed the fruit and vegetable market in Jabalia, which was very crowded at the time as people were rushing to stock up on supplies before taking shelter indoors. The initial toll stands at at least 50 civilian deaths.
Israel has pounded Gaza for a second straight night after formally declaring war against Hamas, in response to the Palestinian group’s unprecedented attack on Israel ⤵️