Israel-Palestine war

There is not an Israeli who does not remember the calls for help addressed, on October 7, to the police or the army by dozens of families locked in a fortified room of a kibbutz. " Come quickly ! Terrorists are outside my house! »

The army arrived too late and in insufficient numbers to prevent 3,000 Islamists from infiltrating around twenty towns near Gaza. They massacred 817 civilians, men, women and children, 474 soldiers, police and rescue workers, captured 240 hostages, and inflicted immense trauma on Israeli society. The state, created to be a refuge for Jewish victims of anti-Semitism, was unable to protect its citizens against an invader. For the first time since 1973, general mobilization is decreed.

The response began three days later, with series of air force strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza where they caused the first victims. This territory has one of the highest population densities in the world. In the process, Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defense, announced a total blockade depriving Gaza of electricity, water, food, fuel and humanitarian aid. It should only be lifted if Hamas releases its hostages. On October 27, the ground invasion of the northern Gaza Strip began. The mission of the forces involved: the eradication of Hamas, the release of the hostages and the return of security for the inhabitants of southern Israel. But no strategic and political objective is defined for the post-war period. The General Staff focuses on military tactics, and does not put in place any humanitarian and civilian component that would support the hundreds of thousands of Gazans evacuated to the south of the territory. It's a mistake. Matti Steinberg, former senior Shin Beth analyst, considers that letting the army rein in the civilian population represents a danger for Israel. “In the absence of strategy, revenge,” he said, “cannot be a policy.”

Very quickly, the images of numerous civilian victims and massive destruction in Gaza sparked a wave of condemnation abroad and support for Israel crumbled over the weeks. By committing the massacres of October 7, Hamas pushed Israel to overreact and, in fact, thus delegitimize it in the eyes of part of international opinion. Are Israeli leaders, political and military, showing “moral insensitivity” in the face of the tragedy of civilian victims? The term was used by the Israeli judicial commission of inquiry into the massacres in the Sabra and Chatila camps in Beirut in 1982 to condemn the attitude of the Israeli military who had allowed the Phalangists to massacre Palestinian refugees.

It must be said that the Israeli public very rarely sees images of Palestinian suffering in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. Television news editorial staff censor themselves and broadcast them as little as possible. The atmosphere is one of patriotism. On the right, the tone is set by the government, the most annexationist in the history of Israel. We find there in particular Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and delegate for colonization at the Ministry of Defense, and also the Kahanist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, and therefore in charge of the police. Both are messianic and deeply anti-Arab. They dream of rebuilding the colonies evacuated in 2005 in Gaza. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, affirms that there is no question of this, but still refuses to place this territory under the control of a Palestinian Authority, even a reformed one like the the Biden administration is proposing. Saying yes to the American President would help advance the idea of a two-state solution, which Netanyahu does not want, whatever the cost of his refusal.

After five months of war, no solution is on the horizon. The impasse is political, diplomatic and military while the human toll continues to rise. In Gaza, there are at least 30,000 dead and tens of thousands injured. For the vast majority of civilians. Entire neighborhoods are destroyed. Under international pressure, faced with the major humanitarian crisis, the Israeli leadership ended up admitting the absolute necessity of allowing as much food and medical aid into the enclave as possible.

Despite almost daily losses, the army continues the fight. She has still not succeeded in finding the 134 hostages still held by Hamas. Only half of them are still alive...