Last updated: 11.10.2023, 05:02 a.m.
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In Israel, the war with Hamas is raging. The terrorist organization wants to destroy the state and can rely on international help to do so.
Tel Aviv - Israel declared war on Hamas on Sunday after a surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group from the Gaza Strip, in which military and civilian hostages were also taken. The Israeli security forces, caught off guard, have hit the Gaza Strip with retaliatory strikes, and U.S. officials said they expected Israel to launch a ground assault on the enclave soon as violence escalated in the conflict-ridden region.
Since its victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Hamas has repeatedly attacked with rockets and mortars in Israel's ongoing war and has proven to be a defiant adversary. Israel has responded with its superior firepower and a punitive blockade that restricts imports and the movement of civilians as part of a strategy of collective punishment. The blockade and repeated Israeli attacks have contributed to Gaza's poor infrastructure and living conditions. Israel imposed a full siege of the enclave on Monday. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised "no electricity, no food, no fuel" and called the Hamas fighters "savages."
What you need to know about Hamas and the recent violence.
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What is Hamas and where does its hatred of Israel come from?
Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, a 25-mile-long, densely populated enclave of more than 2.1 million people. Hamas emerged in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising) against Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric. Its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was founded around 1991.
Unlike the Palestinian Authority, Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel and advocates replacing it through armed struggle with a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
Hamas: Iranian-backed terrorist organization
In October 1997, the United States designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Iranian-backed group has attacked Israel with explosives and rockets, as well as suicide bombings and kidnappings. Hamas won the 2006 elections in the Gaza Strip and defeated Fatah, the main Palestinian party that still controls the West Bank.
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Israel has repeatedly targeted Hamas leaders over the years. In 1997, Khaled Meshal, a top official, survived an assassination attempt by the Mossad, Israeli intelligence service, which poisoned him in Amman, Jordan. Meshal was rescued after Jordan arrested the Israeli agents and President Bill Clinton urged Israel to hand over the antidote.
Israel assassinated Yassin and another founding member, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in 2004 and killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari in November 2012.
Why did Hamas attack Israel now?
A block of flats in Tel Aviv damaged in a rocket attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. © Andrei Shirokov/Imago
Hamas' coordinated attack took Israel by surprise. But it comes after months of rising tensions over the violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque — a Muslim holy site in the heart of Jerusalem that sits on the same site as the Temple Mount revered by Jews — as well as the punitive blockade and occupation of the Palestinians. The presence of former Jewish racists and settler leaders in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has further inflamed tensions with the Palestinians and led to disputes within Israel that have given the impression of weakness.
In May 2021, Palestinian anger over the planned eviction of families from a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem reached a boiling point, leading to clashes between protesters and Israeli forces and prompting Hamas to fire rockets at Israeli cities.
Numerous clashes in the run-up to the war in Israel
In the months leading up to Saturday's surprise attack, clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank, had increased. Between January and September, 227 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or settlers – more than in the whole of 2022, according to the United Nations. The Israeli death toll was at least 29 before the recent violence.
In April, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and violently cracked down on worshippers, including women and the elderly, and last week, Israeli police guarded a group of settlers marching through the area. Both Muslims and Jews, who refer to the mosque as the Temple Mount, consider the site to be one of the holiest sites of their respective faiths.
In May, a five-day conflict broke out between Israel and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed group, killing at least 33 people in Gaza and two in Israel.
Over the summer, clashes broke out between Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Israeli forces or Jewish settlers. In June, four Israelis were killed after two Hamas gunmen opened fire on a hummus restaurant outside an Israeli settlement. A few days later, Israel conducted its most extensive military operation in the West Bank in two decades, when it stormed the city of Jenin with some 1,000 troops supported by drone strikes. The operation, which Israel described as a "counterterrorism," focused on the impoverished Jenin refugee camp, known as the center of armed groups, many of which have ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Hamas Smuggles Explosives into the Gaza Strip
Tensions in the Gaza Strip almost led to a spillover in September after Israeli agents found explosives in a shipment of jeans and halted all exports from the enclave. In response, Hamas held field exercises, during which it practiced firing rockets, and allowed Palestinians to protest at the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Even though Netanyahu's government has struggled with violence, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have regularly taken to the streets since the spring to demonstrate against the policies pursued by his right-wing coalition. Some analysts suspect that Israel's carelessness with regard to national security and activities in the Gaza Strip has led to what is widely portrayed as a massive failure of the intelligence community.
In calls to the leaders of Hamas and the Islamic Republic, another Islamist group in the Gaza Strip, Iranian President Ibraham Raisi said on Sunday that "Israel is in decline," according to Iranian media reports.
In comments following the attacks, Iranian officials have explicitly warned Arab countries that are trying to normalize their relations with Israel. In an apparent allusion to Saudi Arabia, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khameini, warned "certain governments in the region to learn a lesson from the fate of countries that have taken the path of [normalization]," according to Iran's Mehr news agency. In a conversation with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Velayati also warned against participation in the Biden administration's proposed economic rail and sea corridor, which stretches through the countries of the Persian Gulf from India to Europe, according to the report.
Hamas ally Hezbollah intervenes
On Sunday, Hezbollah, the Islamist militant group in Lebanon and one of the main political parties, said it had attacked Israeli targets in the Shebaa Farms, a disputed area on the border, "in solidarity" with Hamas, prompting Israel to retaliate. While the group did not declare that it was formally joining the fight, its message of support increased the likelihood of a major regional conflict.
Hezbollah has long been seen as a more dangerous opponent of Israel than Hamas, as it has more sophisticated weapons and has closer ties to Iran.
Our hearts are with you. Our minds are with you. Our souls are with you. Our history, our weapons and our missiles are with you.
Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine to Hamas
"Our hearts are with you. Our minds are with you. Our souls are with you. Our history, our weapons and our rockets are with you," senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said at a rally in Beirut on Sunday, referring to Hamas.
Israel asks U.S. for cooperation
While Palestinian factions have used Lebanese territory to attack Israel in recent years, Hezbollah's behavior had indicated that it wanted to avoid escalation, and the attacks were usually limited, often targeting uninhabited areas. Sunday's firefights and public statements, however, suggest that Hezbollah has no intention of getting out of the affair.
Israel asked the United States to cooperate in sharing information about southern Lebanon, officials told The Washington Post.
About the author
Niha Masih is a reporter in the Seoul office of The Washington Post, where she covers breaking news from the United States and around the world. Previously, she was the Post's correspondent in India, where she covered the rise of majority nationalism, the conflict in Kashmir, the covid crisis, and the digital surveillance of citizens.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article has been automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English by the "Washingtonpost.com" on October 10, 2023 - in the course of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of IPPEN. MEDIA portals.