2023 Israel–Hamas War

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The ongoing armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israel military forces began on 7 October 2023, 50 years after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas's coordinated surprise offensive, codenamed "Al-Aqsa Flood", began in the morning with a barrage of at least 5,000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israel, while some 2,500 Palestinian militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, massacred and set fire to civilian communities, and attacked Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military bases near the Gaza Strip. Hamas stated that its attack was in response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, continued Israeli settlements, and Israeli settler violence. Over 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed, including 260 people at a music festival in Re'im. Over 200 people, unarmed civilian hostages and captured Israeli soldiers, were taken to the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces began conducting retaliatory strikes before the Israeli government formally declared war on Hamas a day later.

The 2023 war, the fiercest since the Yom Kippur War, is part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which started in May 1948 and which since 2005 has seen most of its military exertions taking place in or emanating from the Gaza Strip. Hamas, which has been the ruling party of the Gaza Strip since 2007, avoided major engagements with Israel in 2022 and most of 2023. However, in 2023 before the offensive started, an uptick in Israeli–Palestinian violence saw at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners killed. Some sources say Hamas covertly prepared for a major offensive.

After clearing Hamas forces from southern Israel, the IDF conducted airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which to date have killed over 8,000 Palestinians, including women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, including more than 50 UN agency staff. A total of 6,000 bombs were dropped by Israel during the first six-days of the conflict, more than used by the United States over an entire year of operations in Afghanistan and double the number of bombs employed by the US-led coalition against the ISIS over one month. Fears of a humanitarian crisis were heightened after Israel cut off food, water, electricity, and fuel supplies to Gaza, which had already been blockaded by both Egypt and Israel. Israel urged 1.1 million Gazans to evacuate northern Gaza, while Hamas called on residents to stay in their homes and, according to the IDF, blocked roads leading south. The United Nations reported that around a million Palestinians, nearly half of Gaza's population, have been internally displaced.

There has been widespread killing of civilians, and human rights groups and a panel of United Nations special rapporteurs have accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. A vote at the United Nations General Assembly on 27 October saw an overwhelming majority of the world's nations calling for de-escalation and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. As of 28 October, Israel is expanding ground operations, Gazans have lost access to phone and internet services, and aid agencies are warning of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Background

The attack took place during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah on Shabbat, and a day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, which also began with a surprise attack.

Israeli politics

Benjamin Netanyahu had been Israel's prime minister for most of the two decades preceding the war, and was criticized for having championed a policy of empowering Hamas in Gaza. This policy was part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution by confining the Palestinian Authority to the West Bank and weakening it, and to demonstrate to the Israeli public and western governments that Israel has no partner for peace. This criticism was leveled by several Israeli officials, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, and former head of Shin Bet security services Yuval Diskin. Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority were also critical of Israel under Netanyahu allowing suitcases of Qatari money to be given to Hamas, in exchange for maintaining the ceasefire. The ''Times of Israel'' reported after the Hamas attack that Netanyahu's policy to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset had "blown up in our faces".

After Hamas's attack in 2023, Netanyahu proposed an emergency unity government, with the judicial overhaul and all other non-emergency legislation and policy indefinitely suspended. The Israeli war cabinet was formed on 11 October included opposition lawmakers, including Benny Gantz, the former Minister of Defense and former Chief of the General Staff.

Palestinian politics

The Gaza Strip and Israel have been in conflict since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, and a civil war between Hamas and Fatah in 2007 culminated in Hamas gaining control over Gaza. In response to Hamas's takeover, Egypt and Israel imposed an extensive blockade of the Gaza Strip that devastated Gaza's economy. International rights groups have decried the blockade as a form of collective punishment, while Israel defended it as necessary to prevent weapons and dual-use goods from entering the territory. Since the blockade, Israel and Palestinian militants have had several clashes and made preemptive attacks on each other. The Palestinian Authority has not held national elections since 2006. A March 2023 poll of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank indicated that a majority supported the use of "armed struggle", the creation of "militant groups", and an intifada against the Israeli occupation.

Hamas leadership

Ismail Haniyeh is a prominent figure associated with Hamas. He serves as the group's political leader and has been based abroad since 2019, with an unknown location. Haniyeh previously worked closely with Hamas's founder, Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an airstrike in 2004. Haniyeh was elected as the head of Hamas's political bureau in 2017 and was reelected in 2021. In 2018, the U.S. State Department designated Haniyeh as a terrorist due to his close ties to Hamas' military wing and advocacy for armed struggle, including against civilians.

Mohammed Deif, the commander of the military wing of Hamas, has a history of audacious and deadly attacks against Israel. He is known for his ability to outwit the Israeli military, such as by adapting to Israeli military advancements by deploying low-tech responses, and operate with a long-term perspective, including holding Israeli hostages to create public pressure over time. Deif's background and personal details are largely shrouded in mystery, and he operates from the shadows of Palestinian militancy.

Gaza tunnels

The tunnel network serves Hamas for storage, movement, and command. Hamas used hardwired phone lines within the tunnels for covert communication over two years, evading Israeli intelligence. The construction of these tunnels was a significant, multi-year effort involving Palestinian workers. Hamas initially began building its vast underground network of tunnels for smuggling in 2001, but they have since become multi-functioned. In 2014, Hamas employed 900 people for tunnel construction, funding came from commercial schemes with contributions from Iran and North Korea.

Events leading up to the war

Over the course of 2023, before the attack, at least 247 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, while 32 Israelis and two foreign nationals had been killed in Palestinian attacks. Increases in settler attacks had displaced hundreds of Palestinians, and there were clashes around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a contested holy site in Jerusalem.

Tensions between Israel and Hamas rose in September 2023, and the ''Washington Post'' described the two "on the brink of war". Israel found explosives hidden in a shipment of jeans and halted all exports from Gaza. In response, Hamas put its forces on high alert, and conducted military exercises with other groups, including openly practicing storming Israeli settlements. Hamas also allowed Palestinians to resume protests at the Israel-Gaza barrier. On 13 September, five Palestinians were killed at the border. According to The Washington Post, Palestinians were attempting to detonate the device, whereas Al-Jazeera reported that a Palestinian Explosives Engineering Unit was working to deactivate the device. On 29 September, Qatar, the UN, and Egypt mediated an agreement between Israel and Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip to reopen closed crossing points and deescalate tensions.

Egypt said it warned Israel days before the attack that "an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big". Israel denied receiving such a warning, but the Egyptian claim was corroborated by Michael McCaul, Chairman of the US House Foreign Relations Committee, who said warnings were made three days before the attack.

According to US intelligence reports, approximately 500 militants from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, received specialized combat training in Iran. The training was conducted by officers from the Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Senior Palestinian officials and Iranian Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, the head of Quds Force, were also in attendance.

Israel–Saudi normalization talks

At the time of the attack, Israel and Saudi Arabia were conducting negotiations to normalize relations. Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said normalization was "for the first time real". Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry said it had "repeatedly warned that Israel's ongoing occupation of Gaza would propel further violence". Following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état in which military general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi deposed president Mohamed Morsi