Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip during the 1987 Intifada
Efi Sharir / Dan Hadani collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection / Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0
Israel is calling up another ten thousand reservists and will permanently occupy the Gaza Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed earlier this week. This marks a radical shift from previous policy and effectively brings an end to the Oslo ‘peace process’—a process that many believed was doomed from the start. The term ‘peace process’ can only be used in quotation marks, of course, since the Arab side was never truly open to peace.
The decision to take back Gaza is rooted in important antecedents. Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip after the Six-Day War in 1967. At the time, it intended to stay, carrying out significant infrastructure investments and establishing Jewish settlements. Everything was given to turn the area into a flourishing spot in the desert, as predicted in the Bible. However, the predominantly Arab city became one of the central locations of the First Intifada—often translated as a “revolt,” although it was essentially a wave of Palestinian terror—that broke out in 1987. That same year, Hamas was founded. It emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood and was established by one Ahmed Yassin. Ironically, Israel even supported Hamas initially, seeing it as a counterbalance to the secular, nationalist Palestinian organizations. This lenient approach later severely backfired.
In 2005, Ariel Sharon’s right-wing government—amid significant political controversy—withdrew both the Israeli army and the Jewish civilian population from Gaza: a move that continues to haunt the Jewish state to this date, and one that was fiercely opposed by the current, also right-wing, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sharon believed that perhaps some kind of peaceful Palestinian entity could emerge in the territory, but instead, rocket attacks began almost immediately. After the withdrawal, Hamas won the 2006 elections and soon seized power in Gaza through violence. In the 2007 armed conflict, they quickly drove out Fatah—a party considered “moderate” by the global ‘papers of record,’ though in reality also deeply entangled with terrorism—and began establishing an extremist Islamist regime. This included religious restrictions, the persecution of Christians, and the dismantling of secular institutions, effectively creating a ‘mini-Islamic State’ in Gaza.
In response to the attacks and kidnappings, Israel launched military operations in 2008–2009 and again in 2014, but was unable to dismantle Hamas’s rule. During these operations, Israel sought to avoid civilian casualties—for example, through so-called ‘knock-on-the-roof’ warnings, i.e., small detonations on the rooftops of buildings where civilians were present, shortly before those buildings were destroyed. It is for this reason, among others, that objective analysts consider accusations of Israeli war crimes to be unfounded—Israel’s actions not only lacked criminal intent but were, on the contrary, intended to spare civilian lives.
If we look at the current war, what we see is Hamas claiming that 46,000 Palestinian Arabs have been killed during the fighting over the past year and a half, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. According to Israel, Hamas’s military losses may be around 20,000 militants.
It is an important fact, however, that Hamas has been proven to inflate the number of civilian casualties. While civilian deaths certainly do occur—and this is deeply regrettable—Israel has provided opportunities for civilians to evacuate. But the terrorists use them as human shields.
A very recent study also found that the proportion of women and children killed during the war is significantly lower than what Hamas’s propaganda outlets claim. A new study published by Professors Lewi Stone and Gregory Rose determined that, contrary to Hamas’s assertion that about 70% of the fatalities were women and children, data from Gaza’s own Ministry of Health indicates the actual proportion is 51%.
However, even this study relies on Hamas’s official figures, despite recent revelations that these numbers are certainly falsified. In April, euronews reported that the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry deleted thousands of names from the March death toll without any notice. Analysts discovered that around 3,400 previously ‘identified’ deaths were no longer listed in the ministry’s PDF report, which, again, makes no distinction between combatants and civilians. Among those removed from the list are at least 1,000 children.
Meanwhile, Israeli critics point out that it will be difficult for the Jewish state to sustain such a long war. Israel is a small country that, in wartime, relies heavily on its air force, intelligence capabilities, and special forces. It also requires the mass mobilization of reservists, which draws manpower away from the economy and places a significant burden on civil society.
Israel’s founders believed that wars must be brought to a swift end, as a small number of Jews faced an overwhelming ‘demographic sea’ of Arabs, according to an analysis by the Times of Israel. This approach relied on mobilized reservists achieving decisive victories within a short period, then returning to civilian life, thus minimizing economic and social disruption. This strategy proved successful in the wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973. It’s uncertain how long the current situation can be maintained: there will definitely be people who will show up even after being called in for their fourth, fifth, or even sixth round of reserve duty—but this cannot go on indefinitely.
At the same time, it would be inaccurate to say that what Israel is doing in the north is pointless: Hezbollah has indeed been pushed back, and Assad’s downfall represents an incredible opportunity for the Jewish state to finally stabilize its northern borders and guarantee the security of its northern settlements. So Israel must hold the line simultaneously in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria (often referred to as the West Bank), and in the north, while facing an increasing number of terrorists infiltrating from Jordan.
The fact that Israel has now completely rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood in Gaza—returning to a pre-Oslo mindset (even though autonomy for Gaza was already on the table at the 1978 Camp David Summit)—and is effectively reoccupying the territory with increasing talk of peacefully relocating its civilian population signals that the era of the neoliberal-globalist world order, dictated by international institutions, is over in the Middle East as well. Israel is making unilateral decisions, relying on its own power, securing its safety on its own terms. In this specific and concrete case, that may not necessarily be a bad thing.
The ‘international community’—the UN, the EU, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and others—has done little besides providing moral, legal, and financial support to bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists, standing against the only democracy in the Middle East. After October 7th, it is understandable that Israel has chosen to take its destiny into its own hands. Moreover, aside from Israeli civilians, the other main victims of Hamas’s reign of terror and the war it sparked have been the Palestinian Arabs themselves. In the end, they too will be able to breathe more easily if Israel can achieve the difficult military and political goal of destroying Hamas.
Once again, we are witnessing the bloody wheel of history turning. This need not be celebrated or feared, but acknowledged, and every country and nation must act accordingly.
