Hamas opens a new, bloody chapter of an unholy war

There is a creeping sense of the familiar and an agonising sense of the unfamiliar.

History repeated itself, as finance ministers and central bank governors from 180 countries descended in Marrakesh, Morocco for the Annual IMF-World Bank Fall Meetings; incidentally the first time the meetings are being in Africa in 50 years. Call it an eerie coincidence that in 1973, the last time these meetings commenced on African shores, was just days before the start of the Yom Kippur War.

A few days back, on October 7, Israel wasn’t just surprised, it was shocked, and global shockwaves resonated through the world, as Hamas wreaked an unprecedented, sophisticated, and co-ordinated sea, land, and air attack. The assault was more than rockets and tunnels, which is quintessentially Hamas’ trademark.

Albeit likened to the surprise element of the Yom Kippur War, Israel wasn’t attacked this time by Arab countries. Instead, Israel was attacked by an adversary in embattled Gaza, which it holds under blockade. Meanwhile, Israel remains the strongest military-technological savvy force in the region, with formal diplomatic relations with most Arab neighbours.

Hamas, under the cover of a barrage of rockets, invaded Israel, and opened fire, ironically, on a music festival for peace killing 260 people, as the death toll mounts beyond 900 in Israel alone. Brazenly, Hamas operatives abducted and brought back civilian hostages into the Gaza Strip.

This marked the bloodiest day in Israel’s 75 years, and that’s a strong statement given the wars of 1948, 1967, 1973, and two Intifadas. Israel has dubbed the bloody October 7 massacre its ‘own horrific 9/11’.

Israel formally declared war on Hamas on October 8, the first time, in 50 years that the Jewish State has been in a state of war.

Incessant Israeli shelling and a clarion call for vengeance means Gaza, which has been described as an open-air prison with over 2 million residents in the densely populated blocked strip, has seen excessive loss of civilian life, including young infants. The death toll is mounting, and as I write this, the numbers are well over 700 in the strip alone. Hamas vows to execute hostages if civilian areas are targeted, or not given a warning.

There is much to introspect, starting with how the region’s and the world’s most sophisticated military tech carceral security state was left blindsided, as Hamas wreaked havoc. Mossad epitomises espionage, and yet, intelligent voices on the reasons remain flummoxed as to how the intelligence didn’t catch Israel’s radar, the way the Iron Dome thwarts Hamas’ rockets.

A Wall Street Journal report alleges Iran’s involvement, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), met with Hamas operatives and Hezbollah chiefs in Beirut in August. It’s uncertain if the symbolic date of the attack was chosen, but co-ordinated it was.

Some say, Tel Aviv has been caught in its own morass of political turmoil, as Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial judicial reforms led to scores of protestors clamouring that it was an assault on Israel’s democracy.

Meanwhile, Haaretz condemned the attacks, and said: “The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”

Similar to 1973, when the Agranat Commission, a national commission of inquiry set up to investigate failings in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Yom Kippur War, a similar investigation may get underway, once the dust settles.

Amidst the #IStandWithIsrael solidarity and Hamas’ heinous attacks, there is a wider picture of innocent Gazans, and Palestinians in the West Bank who have been deprived for years of the essential right to liberty and statehood. Palestinians and international scholars rightly point out that such hideous attacks haven’t occurred in isolation, but years of oppression and injustices inflicted on Palestinians based on what many call Israel’s settler-colonial occupation of the West Bank and Tel Aviv’s hard-handed military approach on everyday life for Palestinians continues to keep the region a tinderbox.

While Hamas’ atrocities must be condemned unequivocally, it is important to closely monitor the humanitarian urgency that will unfold in Gaza, as a decade of blockade has made the strip, to quote broadcast journalist Mehdi Hasan, a “hell on Earth”.

There is little to no political appetite for the two-state solution, as Netanyahu leads the most Right-wing hawkish government in Israel’s history. Furthermore, a normalisation between Tel Aviv and Riyadh, under the auspices of Washington, will likely not fructify anytime soon.

Apropos Washington, the US has been distracted with a containment strategy focused on China in the Indo-Pacific, the war in Ukraine, and an old adversary in Russia reignited in its new modern-day aggressor avatar. Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor would be wiping that metaphoric pie on his face, as he stated the region was “quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

India is not far from the region, and not far from the conflict. In 2021 when violence erupted in Gaza, nationalists in India extended support to Israel, in most cases oblivious to the nuances of the nearly eight-decade conflict, and to New Delhi’s policy towards a two-state solution. Today, many would say the Overton Window has shifted, as India’s foreign policy once deeply sympathetic towards the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the case for Palestinian sovereignty now finds itself recalibrated to suit 21st-century priorities from AgTech, to military hardware, and the India-Middle East-European Corridor (IMEEC).

One thing is for certain, Hamas started this skirmish, Tel Aviv has declared war, and scholars who have studied the region for five decades say ‘it’s difficult to tell when and how this will end’.

(Akshobh Giridharadas is a Washington DC-based public policy professional, and visiting fellow, Observer Research Foundation.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.