Status: 24.11.2023, 10:01 a.m.
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Palestinians search the rubble for victims of an airstrike on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 17. © Loay Ayyoub/The Washington Post
Despite the release of the first hostages, the Israeli war will continue in the Gaza Strip. But why? The most important questions and answers – simply explained.
Tel Aviv – Israel and Hamas have been at war for more than six weeks. According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, which can no longer give an official death toll due to the intensity of the fighting and repeated communication failures, more than 10,11 Palestinians have been killed as of November 100 - one in 200 residents of the Gaza Strip. At least 7,1 people were killed in Hamas' attack on Israel on October 200, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The following are the reasons for the current war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
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War in the Middle East: What happened between Israel and Hamas?
On October 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border war in Israel. In a well-organized secret attack, they penetrated the border fence in several places, surprising Israel's security apparatus and overwhelming the military defenses. Surprised by the lack of resistance, the attackers turned the operation into a bloody and chaotic rampage through civilian areas.
The militants took prisoners in an area more than 20 miles wide, reflecting the wide extent of the attack across the Gaza Strip's border to southern Israel. Most of the detainees identified by the Washington Post were civilians, including women and young children. More than 260 bodies were recovered on the grounds of a dance festival, three miles from the border fence. According to Israeli figures, 5,400 people were injured in the attack and at least 32 US citizens were killed.
Hamas, a militant group that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, said the aim of the attack was "to free Palestinian prisoners, stop Israeli aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque and end the siege of the Gaza Strip."
On the day of the attack, Israel declared war on Hamas. Since then, the Gaza Strip has been bombarded with Israeli air and artillery strikes, killing thousands of people and injuring more than 26,400, including many children, according to the Health Ministry.
Why are Israel and Hamas currently fighting in the Gaza Strip?
The roots of the recent fighting predate the establishment of the State of Israel 75 years ago and the founding of Hamas in 1987. Both Palestinians and Israelis consider the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be their own.
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As a result, there have been repeated outbreaks of violence, armed conflicts and displacements. Prior to October 7, there had been 15,6 Palestinian and 407 Israeli deaths in the past 308 years, according to UN figures.
In recent times, Israel has uneasily coexisted with Hamas – alternating with bloody escalations and periods of relative peace, including periods when Gazans were allowed to work in Israel and export goods to Israel.
Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997, won the 2006 elections in the Gaza Strip, defeating Fatah, the main Palestinian party that still controls the Palestinian Authority, the U.S.-backed government in the West Bank, the second Palestinian territory. Hamas is now pursuing its attack in the Israel war for its own reasons.
In 2007, Hamas expelled the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip and took complete control of the enclave. Since then, no elections have been held in Gaza. Unlike the Palestinian Authority, Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Since taking control of the Gaza Strip, the Iranian-backed group has attacked Israel with explosives and rockets, as well as suicide bombings and kidnappings.
Israel responded with a years-long blockade that restricted imports, exports, and the movement of civilians from the Gaza Strip, which is home to some 2.1 million people, a strategy that has been condemned by human rights groups as collective punishment and a violation of international law.
The imbalance of power and the lack of movement towards peace and Palestinian statehood have kept tensions simmering. In May 2021, Israeli attempts to evict families from a Palestinian neighborhood in favor of Jewish Israelis in East Jerusalem led to violent clashes that prompted Hamas to fire rockets at Israeli cities.
In April of this year, Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. The following month, at least 22 people were killed in the Gaza Strip and two in Israel in a five-day conflict between Israel and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed group. It was a rare summer of calm in the Gaza Strip until the end of August, when Israel halted new work permits and barred workers with permits from entering the country, blaming Hamas for a series of attacks on Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
What are Israel's military objectives in Gaza?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has formed a unity government with a political rival, has promised to end Hamas' rule in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has stated that a major goal of this war is to lead the militant group, and the leaders have said that they want the group's military and state capabilities to collapse to the point where it can no longer recover.
Previous Israeli ground offensives in the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2019 had a more limited goal: to punish and weaken Hamas, but not to eliminate it entirely. More than 2019,1 Palestinians were killed in the 000 campaign; In 2014, there were more than 1,500, including more than 500 children.
What is the situation of the people in Gaza?
According to aid agencies, the enclave is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by Israeli bombings and calls for more than 1 million Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to flee to the south.
Since the beginning of October, Gazans have been largely cut off from the internet, mobile phones and landlines, further isolating them from the rest of the world. U.S. officials have directly linked the power and digital outages to Israel, saying Washington exerted pressure to achieve the restoration of communications. The United Nations and other organizations have also stated that the lack of fuel and means of communication is limiting their relief efforts.
With many Palestinians unable to leave the enclave through the closed borders, they face a critical shortage of basic resources amid collapsed infrastructure. Eventually, an agreement was reached to allow some of the humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip through Egypt, and supplies are slowly trickling into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. Israel has restricted fuel supplies on the grounds that they could be used by Hamas, while hospitals such as al-Shifa and others report that they are stretched to their limits by the lack of electricity. Due to the limited opening of the crossing, some injured Palestinians and foreign citizens were also able to leave for Egypt.
In interviews with The Post, residents said they had no electricity or water and had nowhere to flee. Journalists who tried to report on the conflict on the ground were also killed. Since October 7, at least 50 journalists and other media workers have been killed, most of them Palestinians, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
What are the details of the agreement on a four-day ceasefire in the Israeli war?
An agreement reached on Wednesday between Israel and Hamas calls for a cessation of fighting in the Gaza Strip for at least four days. In return, at least 50 of the 240 hostages held in the enclave will be released, according to the Israeli government. The agreement marks the first cessation of fighting since a six-week air and ground assault and the culmination of weeks of tense international talks brokered by the Qatari government with significant participation from the Biden administration.
Under the agreement, each hostage will be exchanged for three Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Israel will allow more fuel and humanitarian aid into the enclave, and the pause could be extended by one day for every additional 10 hostages released beyond the initial group of 50, officials said. None of the Gazans who have been evicted from their homes in the northern Gaza Strip will be allowed to return during the break.
How could the war between Israel and Gaza continue?
The Israeli leadership has stated that it will continue military pressure on Hamas to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Israeli forces have urged civilians in the south to move to unspecified "safe zones" after the north called for evacuation. The White House has warned Israel against advancing to the south "without a coherent plan" to protect "a dramatically increased civilian population" of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
There is also the question of who will administer the Gaza Strip after the war. Netanyahu said Israel does not want to "occupy" the Gaza Strip after earlier statements — that Israel would be responsible for the security of the enclave "indefinitely" — raised red flags with the Biden administration. "Gaza cannot continue to be ruled by Hamas," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, adding, "It is also clear that Israel cannot occupy the Gaza Strip."
The government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would return to the Gaza Strip only as part of a "comprehensive solution," his advisers said, although critics rejected the idea, calling his leadership outdated and corrupt.
In addition, there is a growing risk that the conflict could involve neighboring countries or even world powers. One potential flashpoint is Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where there is a risk of a second front opening up between Israel and Hezbollah – the well-armed and battle-hardened Lebanese Shiite political and militant group that has been fighting Israel for decades from its base in southern Lebanon.
Iran, which supports Hezbollah, has denied any involvement in the original Hamas attack. However, Tehran has warned that it could take unspecified "preemptive measures" to prevent an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip; Iranian intervention would embroil the region in a larger conflict.
Frances Vinall, Jennifer Hassan, William Booth, Hazem Balousha, Victoria Bisset, Niha Masih, Michael Birnbaum, Timothy Bella, Steve Hendrix, Sarah Dadouch, Hajar Harb, Liz Sly, Paul Schemm, and Loveday Morris contributed to this report.
About the authors
Leo Sands is a breaking news reporter in the London office of The Washington Post, covering news from around the world.
Adela Suliman is a breaking news reporter in the London bureau of The Washington Post.
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 November 24, 2023 - in the course of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of IPPEN. MEDIA portals.