On Saturday, October 7, plumes of dark smoke clouded the skies of Israel as Palestinian militants infiltrated the streets, abducting scores of hostages and massacring hundreds of innocent civilians in their wake. Sirens resounded through the streets as terror rippled throughout the country. Families, paralyzed with fear, gathered in their homes as rocket barrages and incursions reverberated outside.
The early-morning onslaught by air, land, and sea stunned both Israel’s adept intelligence services and the world. Organized by Hamas, an Islamist terrorist organization known for its resistance to Israel, the coordinated assault was a culmination of long-building resentments and simmering conflict, which dates back to 1967 when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt. The Israeli military and intelligence apparatus, caught entirely off guard, found itself both humiliated by its failure to prevent the conflict and ethically stumped as it considered how to best structure its war effort in a time of unprecedented violence. Nonetheless, in an immediate response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war, giving the green light to put Gaza under complete siege.
The attacks on Saturday, designed to score a propaganda victory against Israel, were launched with the purpose of inspiring fear and invoking outrage. Hamas’s goal, to provoke Israel into a war of unparalleled magnitude, if played out as planned, would give its members a narrative to popularize: the condemnable brutality of the IDF in dealing with Palestinian conflict. By flaunting violent acts of terror, Hamas had the opportunity to achieve its desired gains in publicity, support, and legitimacy for its causes. Actually increasing their odds of achieving a Palestinian state, however, they know, is far less feasible.
While conflicts between Hamas and Israel have been sporadic for a while, the Hamas attack this past weekend has proven far from the typical dust-up. The war threatens conflict on multiple fronts, as the US diverts greater quantities of military equipment to Tel Aviv, pushing the proposed Saudi-Israeli normalization deal further out of reach. Moreover, if news comes out that Iran encouraged the assault in Gaza, troubles will brew between Israel and Iran and Tehran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
“There are moments in this life…when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” President Biden said in a speech October 10. The assault on Saturday, compared to the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda, is the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Reports of slaughtered civilians, raped and assaulted women, and slain families, including babies, Biden said, “has brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by a millenia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people.” As the death toll rises, Jews across the world feel a greater, more potent sense of helplessness and horror.
For the IDF, humiliation and disappointment set in when their $1 billion spent erecting a supposedly impenetrable barrier to border Gaza was dealt a telling blow. The Hamas military force, belonging to “the equivalent of Luxembourg,” managed to cross the border, allowing them to infiltrate 22 locations beyond the Gaza Strip and take hundreds of civilians as hostages. Believing Hamas lacked the resources and support to wage war, the IDF wrongly interpreted and underestimated the motives of the terrorists.
Moving forward, the IDF will have to thoroughly consider the impact of its advances on the lives of civilian hostages. This, according to the New York Times, “will curb Israel’s room for retaliation.” Though Netanyahu admits Israel is “fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly,” the situation is not to be oversimplified. “The unfortunate problem is if you are too thorough in destroying Hamas, you may create a worse successor,” Anthony H. Cordesman, an expert on warfare in the Middle East at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. And while Hamas refrains from warning Israeli civilians about impending attacks, the IDF has continued to warn civilians in Gaza to evacuate the enclave and seek safety as the military operation proceeds.
While there is hope on the horizon that the IDF will destroy most Hamas military capabilities, of greater concern is the idea–the motive. “You cannot destroy an idea,” Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. That is what’s most frightening. Just as antisemitism has outlived the Holocaust, the ideas that have driven the Hamas terrorists are likely to linger no matter the outcome of the attack.
