Graphic by Gabby Gagnon ‘24.
By Shira SadEh ‘25
Global Editor
Content warning: This article discusses mass death and state-sanctioned violence.
A surprise military attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas has prompted a declaration of war by Israel.
On Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, at 6:30 a.m. local time, Hamas fired rockets into central and southern Israel, although, as ABC News reported, the exact number is disputed — Israel claims 2,200 while Hamas has said 5,000. At the same time, bulldozers driven by Hamas militants tore down a section of the fence surrounding Gaza, allowing Hamas militants into southern Israel. More militants floated in on paragliders, and Israeli soldiers exchanged fire with Hamas motorboaters on the coast.
As the Israeli Defense Forces were taken by surprise, Hamas fighters fired at civilians rushing toward bomb shelters, entered homes to target families and took men, women, children and elderly individuals as hostages into Gaza.
According to NBC News, the death toll on Oct. 9 accounted for roughly 1,100 known deaths — 700 in Israel and 424 in Gaza. By Oct. 19, those numbers had risen to 1,400 known deaths in Israel and 3,800 in Gaza, CBS News reported.
AP News stated that the leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, referred to this invasion as “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” in a recorded video.
“Enough is enough,” Deif said in reference to the violence and discrimination Palestinians have faced from Israeli security forces in both Israeli and Palestinian territories. He cited several inciting events such as a 16-year-long blockade of Gaza enforced by Israel and Egypt, violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque — which is located at a disputed holy site in Jerusalem — and Israeli raids in the West Bank, AP News reported.
Reuters reported that by Thursday, 360,000 Israeli military reserves had been summoned, most of whom were already in Israel. Several, however, were out of the country and quickly returned to Israel.
According to The Washington Post, Iran is said to be involved in Hamas’ recent attacks, though it is unclear to what extent. Sohail Hashmi, professor and chair of international relations at Mount Holyoke College, stated that “there’s definitely a connection between Iran and Hamas.”
He explained that despite their differences — Hamas is a Sunni organization and Iran is Shia — they share a common enemy: Israel. Whether this means that Iran was behind Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, however, remains unclear.
“Hamas gets a lot of weapons and supplies from Iran. And more than likely, they got some kind of training somewhere for the current attack that they mounted this past weekend,” Hashmi said. “But whether Iran masterminded the whole thing or whether they even knew the operational details, no one has been able to show that at this point.”
While Iran’s level of direct involvement with Hamas is not clear, Professor and Director of Program in Middle East Studies at Smith College Steven Heydemann explained that another regional concern for Israel is the involvement of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group. “What we know … is that Iran is now looking to bolster the military capacity of Hezbollah, even beyond its current very impressive levels,” Heydemann said. “It is principally through Hezbollah, I think, that Iran is exerting military influence on this conflict. And I suspect that there is a great deal of discussion happening between Iran and Hezbollah about how to calibrate Hezbollah’s military reaction to what Israel is doing in a way that doesn’t lead to an all-out confrontation, which I think Iran does not want, and which I think Hezbollah would probably be reluctant to get involved with.”
Hashmi explained that Hezbollah emerged in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. Since then, it has remained an independent militia within Lebanon located right above its southern border with Israel.
“In Lebanon today, you have Hezbollah acting almost like a mini-state within the state of Lebanon,” Hashmi said. “And the reason why they were given this concession is because they vowed to keep Lebanon safe from any further Israeli incursions. So Lebanon now has this kind of very bizarre situation where the [Lebanese] government cannot really control what Hezbollah does — Hezbollah is as armed as the Lebanese army pretty much.”
When asked about the link between Hamas and Hezbollah, Heydemann responded that the two groups tend to collaborate because their political goals often align closely.
“Hamas and Hezbollah [both] proclaim themselves to be the principal anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli, anti-Western, anti-American actors in the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean. So in the sense that Hamas and Hezbollah kind of share a strategic conception with respect to Israel, there’s opportunity there for cooperation and collaboration,” Heydemann said.
According to Reuters, since Oct. 7, Israel has placed Gaza — which has a population of approximately 2.3 million — under a total siege and released an “unprecedented” amount of airstrikes on the strip. Officials in Gaza reported that by Oct. 13, 1,900 people who live in Gaza had died.
On Oct. 13, Israeli officials advised 1.1 million residents in the northern part of Gaza to evacuate to the south, while Hamas told residents to stay, saying they would fight “to the last drop of blood.”
Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons for the United Nations, stated in a press release that Israel must rescind this evacuation order, saying that “forcible population transfers constitute a crime against humanity, and collective punishment is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
In a public address given on Oct. 13 and posted to the Associated Press Archive YouTube channel, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, stated that Israel’s goal is to “obliterate Hamas terror capabilities.”
Research Associate Alexander Palmer and Senior Fellow Daniel Byman from CSIS have explained, however, that this goal would be difficult to execute through a blockade or an ongoing air campaign. This means that a ground invasion into Gaza remains the most likely avenue through which Israel will attempt to eradicate Hamas.
This ground invasion would be catastrophic for Palestinians in Gaza and potentially complex for the Israeli military to conduct because Gaza is a densely populated urban space. Furthermore, should this invasion unfold, Israel will have to decide whether to severely weaken Hamas or to destroy it. Weakening it might leave room for future altercations, but destroying it may allow another militant group to take its place, Palmer and Byman explained.
Palmer and Byman went on to recall the 2014 incursion into Gaza, in which the IDF could only advance a few kilometers after two weeks of fighting. During this operation — Operation Protective Edge — over 2,000 Palestinians, 66 Israeli soldiers and six Israeli civilians were killed.
Heydemann echoed their reservations about an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.
“I think the likelihood of a ground operation happening is almost 100 percent. I think it would be very difficult to dissuade Israel at this point that it should not conduct ground operations. I also think, though, that [Israel creating] the expectation that it’s going to destroy Hamas and eradicate Hamas is quite unrealistic,” Heydemann said.
Heydemann clarified that it would be inaccurate to say that all Palestinians in Gaza support or work for Hamas. “Even though it is very much the case that many Palestinians in Gaza may not approve of Hamas and the way it governs, … it still has a wide base of support,” Heydemann said.
As evidence for this, he recalled the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, in which Hamas won by a majority of the vote. Heydemann explained that the operation to destroy Hamas, therefore, would likely be unsuccessful, instead leading to mass civilian casualties in Gaza. He also predicted that it would be politically unfavorable among Israeli citizens because of its infeasibility.
According to Time magazine, many state leaders — including those from the United States, China and Ukraine — have condemned Hamas’ attack and, as the situation escalates, have increasingly called for restraint to be shown by all parties involved. On Oct. 15, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres requested that Israel allow “unimpeded access for humanitarian aid” into the Gaza Strip and that Hamas release all the hostages back to Israel. According to the United Nations, Guterres’s statement “comes as clean water and other vital supplies are dwindling inside Gaza in the wake of Israel’s blockade.”
Human rights groups echoed these sentiments in their statements. Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard stated, “The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population amounts to a war crime — it is cruel and inhumane. As the occupying power, Israel has a clear obligation under international law to ensure the basic needs of Gaza’s civilian population are met.”
Representatives from other humanitarian groups and non-governmental organizations have also weighed in.
“War crimes by one party don’t justify war crimes by the other,” Program Director at Human Rights Watch Sari Bashi wrote on the nonprofit’s website. “International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, lay out obligations that parties to a conflict owe to civilians, no matter what the other side does. The fact that Hamas-led fighters targeted civilians doesn’t allow the Israeli military to target civilians or flout its obligations to protect them.”
U.S. President Joe Biden expressed very strong support for Israel immediately following the attacks on Oct. 7, according to The New York Times. However, he warned that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be “a big mistake.” Biden has been unequivocal in his belief in Israel’s right to retaliate against Hamas and, according to BBC News, has moved U.S. warships closer to the region.
The New York Times also reported on a “60 Minutes” interview in which Biden appeared. “[Israel] has to go after Hamas. Hamas is a bunch of cowards. They’re hiding behind the civilians. They put their headquarters where civilians are and buildings and the like,” Biden stated. He did not, however, explicitly endorse a ground invasion and acknowledged the importance of leaving a path to a Palestinian state through the Palestinian Authority.
Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst David Mednicoff spoke about the relationship between Israel and the United States, saying that “even with the Biden Administration’s — and many liberal Jews’ — revulsion for the pre-Oct. 7 Israeli government, there are strong affinities of politics and history that connect Israel and the U.S., which have led to significant support in the wake of the Hamas attacks.”
“I assume that, behind the scenes, many American diplomats are involved in trying to limit casualties to civilians in Gaza,” Mednicoff said. He further explained that the fact that there are some Americans whom Hamas has taken hostage increases the “U.S. government’s enmity towards Hamas.” However, he believes that the American reaction likely would have remained similar regardless.
“This certainly increases … the need for Washington’s intervention to help with the hostage crisis, even as it doesn’t change the general deference that is being given to Israel because of the nature of the Hamas attack on Israeli territory,” Mednicoff said.
According to POLITICO, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on Oct. 16 that the president will travel to Israel in a show of solidarity. He also planned to arrive in Amman, Jordan, to meet with world leaders, including the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt.
However, on Oct. 18, POLITICO reported that the summit in Jordan had been canceled in light of an explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of people. The White House stated that the meetings with leaders from Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt will be postponed.
According to The New York Times, the cause of the hospital explosion is still being contested, with neither Israel nor Palestinian Islamic Jihad — the group accused by Israel of being behind the explosion — accepting responsibility.
A panel discussion on the implications of this crisis is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 5:30 p.m. at Hooker Auditorium.