Israel-Hamas War of 2023
On October 7, 2023, at 6:30 AM local time, a Palestinian and Islamic fundamentalist group known as Hamas announced the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, stating that it had fired over 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel within 20 minutes.
Hams launched over 5,000 rockets due to the limitations of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, an ante missile defence system that can stop some missiles but not all due to the number of missiles launched by Hamas into the world’s only Jewish state.
During the attack and its aftermath, a second operation was launched by Hamas with ground, sea and air assaults into Israeli civilian areas to capture civilians for prisoner exchange.
The Palestinian militants also committed atrocities on Jewish civilians. The crimes include rape, murder, executions and taking children, babies and others as prisoners.
A key motivator for Hamas taking civilian prisoners was that in 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged 1000 Hamas prisoners for one Israeli soldier.
This decision has made Israel vulnerable to other bad actors within the Middle East, believing that this kind of exchange is possible again to get financial or prisoner exchanges from the Israeli government.
Once you show your neck to a tiger or present any vulnerability to a mediaeval-based culture, they will keep coming repeatedly because they only understand strength and only show weakness at your peril.
As of writing this on 16 October 2023, Israel has over 5200 prisoners from Palestine and Hamas. The previous and current leadership, Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas, may believe they can secure prisoner release.
Why Hamas Attacked Israel
Hamas is mostly motivated by three factors that contributed to their choice to launch an attack on Israel. The first is the potential threat of normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
With the war between Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas and the majority Muslim state trying to reclaim Muslim holy territory, which is controlled by a non-Jewish state in a region surrounded by Muslims, the governments within Saudi Arabia will feel pressured by their population and the more religious fundamentalism attitudes of the Middle East.
For people living in the Western world, particularly in English-speaking nations or the Anglosphere, our Christianity has been very much neutered, and religion is seen as a force that should not interfere in secular politics.
Unfortunately, religion still plays a critical factor in political and social life in the Middle East, and it is very hard for nonreligious people to understand how that impacts their day-to-day lives.
The second reason Hamas attacked Israel on 6 October 2023 was that it was the same start date of the Yom Kippur War or the fourth Arab-Israeli war (1973), with the primary antagonists against Israel being Egypt and Syria.
This also led to Israel taking the Golan Heights from Syria and securing its northern border, having superior high ground.
Israel’s victory led to the normalisation of relations with Egypt in 1980.
Due to Israel’s diplomatic and military successes, Hamas has become desperate and launched their attack to galvanise support within the Middle East and prevent the normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia if possible.
The final reason Hamas attacked Israel was that Iran allegedly supported Hamas and potentially pushed them to launch their attack on Israel to destabilise the region and prevent Saudi Arabia and Israel from entering an alliance that could threaten Iran’s geopolitical interests.
Furthermore, this could be the last chance in the Palestinian mind to attempt to reclaim the West Bank, which Israeli citizens have increasingly settled and the fear on the part of the Palestinian fundamentalists, and this is the last opportunity they can get to reclaim what they perceive as their homeland.
