Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, fired hundreds of rockets at southern Israel on the morning of the Jewish Sabbath on October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, “We will be victorious in this war, paying an unbearable price.” The announcement of this statement effectively made war between the two sides official. In addition, Hezbollah, a militant group based in southern Lebanon, said, “We are in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.” On October 7, tensions increased further by attacking military bases in northern Israel. This war is expected to be the most significant conflict since the ‘Yom Kippur War’ in 1973.
Why did Hamas attack Israel? Gaza is a Palestinian autonomous region ruled by Hamas since 2006. As Hamas seized power in Gaza, Israel began a blockade to deal with it. Therefore, the land and sea of the Gaza Strip were blocked, resulting in isolation through exchanges, restrictions on travel within the region, and restrictions on international exchange. As a result, the Gaza Strip suffered from difficulties providing food, medicine, and essential daily necessities, and through the economic downturn, income declined and unemployment increased. Furious at Israel’s blockade policy, Hamas launched rockets into Jerusalem from private homes with Palestinian civilians as a shield and infiltrated terrorists into Israeli private homes to carry out indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. Israel, which suffered heavy civilian casualties caused by Hamas, attacked the Gaza Strip, the stronghold of Hamas. However, the military strongholds of Hamas that Israel struck included hospitals, schools, and media outlets. This constitutes undeniable war criminal acts. Hamas used it to build arsenals near hospitals and schools and to intimidate civilians into standing over Israeli air strike targets.
The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intense and prolonged. The land of Israel over 3,000 years ago was without an owner, and Abraham formed the people of Israel with the revelation of God. However, due to wars of aggression against neighboring countries, Jews were forced to become enslaved and wander around the world. Therefore, Muslims and Arabs settled and lived. As time went by, the Jewish discrimination and massacre took place at the center of the Nazis. The decisive territorial conflict took place from here. During World War I, British High Commissioner to Egypt McMahon declared to Arabs that he would support establishing an independent nation if they helped Britain. This led to the recognition of Palestine as an independent state. After the McMahon Declaration, British Foreign Minister Belfour admitted to Jews the creation of Israel in the Palestinian region in 1917. Therefore, Britain promised to establish two countries on one land, leading to a conflict between the two countries. As a result, Britain handed over the territorial issue to the United Nations and refrained from intervening in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Israel occupied much more territory by fighting four Middle East wars than the territory initially determined by the U.N. Palestine’s territory, which gradually became smaller and divided into the ‘West Bank’ and the ‘Gaza Strip.’ As a result, Palestinians flocked to a narrow land and lived in enormous population densities.
Each country’s position on the conflict point in this territory is as follows. Israel argues that there is a justification for ownership of the territory. Since they have lived since B.C. and have established a kingdom for some time, on the other hand, the Palestinian position is not quickly acknowledged. Because Jews lived with other people before settling, and they left the territory too long ago. In addition, ‘Jerusalem,’ the core area of the territorial dispute, is a holy place for Judaism and Islam, so they cannot give up on each other. When the U.N. took charge of mediating the division of the territory, it was divided into East Jerusalem, the current Palestinian territory, and West Jerusalem, the current Israeli territory. Therefore, from Israel’s perspective, East Jerusalem cannot be lost, and Palestine cannot lose East Jerusalem, a sacred site, so the conflict over this place is growing.
