The recent attack

On Oct. 7, at around 6:30 a.m. local time in Israel, Hamas — the political and militant group that serves as the governing authority of the Gaza Strip — launched a surprise attack on Israel. Hamas is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Australia. The violence included large-scale breakthroughs of the Gaza-Israel border by Hamas, who gained entry into many Israeli settlements and army bases close to the Gaza border. The attacks, which targeted civilians throughout more than 20 Israeli towns and villages, and even an outdoor music festival, resulted in — in the first day alone — more than 1,300 deaths and the taking of at least 150 Israelis as hostages as of press time. Oct. 7, 2023 is now marked as the day that the largest number of Jews were killed since the Holocaust. Gruesome videos of the massacre have since been released and can be viewed on The New York Times' website, revealing the violence, bloodshed, and absolute terror that unfolded throughout the day. In addition to the unprecedented infiltration by these militants, Hamas fired roughly 2,200 rockets in its initial attack, according to the Israeli Defense Forces, Israel’s national military.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally declared a “state of war” on Sunday, Oct. 8 and began striking back, sending rockets into Gaza and bombing what the IDF refers to as military targets, places where they claim to have intelligence regarding the whereabouts of Hamas leadership. 

Netanyahu addressed the country during a speech on the night of Oct. 7.  “What happened today has not been seen before in Israel,” he said. He explained that the Israeli military was working on evacuating the Israeli towns near the Gaza border, and told Israelis to brace themselves; that “this war will take time … and will be hard.” He also said that “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” and warned those in Gaza to “get out.”

He referred to Hamas as “an enemy who kills children and mothers in their homes and beds.” Though he did not say what Israel's next steps would be, he told Israelis to prepare for a protracted campaign. “This war will take time," he added. “It will be hard.” Israel has called up 360,000 reservists to join the standing army of 170,000. While Gaza itself does not have a formal military force, Hamas does have a military wing, which operates as the de facto military for the region. According to an anonymous source quoted in an article by Reuters, this “mini army” is made up of roughly 40,000 people. 

“The Israeli generals say they are intent on wiping out Hamas as a political movement. I think that’s pretty much impossible. I don't know that militarily they have the capacity to do this and sustain the cost in terms of civilian losses and Israeli soldier losses to completely obliterate Hamas as they say they want to,” Prof. Eva Bellin (POL) said in an interview with the Justice on Oct. 13. Prof. Bellin is the Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics in the Department of Politics and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies.

The civilian death toll thus far is among the most devastating that both sides have seen in decades: 4,100 total fatalities as of press time, consisting of 1,400 Israelis and 2,700 Gazans, not to mention the tens of thousands of people who have been injured on both sides. It is unclear how many members of Hamas broke through the Gaza border, but according to NBC News, the IDF said that the bodies of an additional 1,500 Hamas terrorists have been found inside of Israel’s borders, which would attest to the significant force that Hamas was able to muster. As of press time, about 220 Israeli soldiers have been killed, according to the IDF.

In a 10-minute recording, Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ military leader, called the attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” “عملية طوفان الأقصى.”  He stated that Hamas’ reasoning for the attacks is so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.” In the recording, Deif identified Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the “defense of the Aqsa mosque” as two reasons for the attack, according to The New York Times. For both Jews and Muslims, Al-Aqsa Mosque holds deep religious significance. In Islam, it's the third holiest site in the world; for Jews, it's associated with the historic Temple Mount, making it a place of shared importance and historical connection. The area has also been a historical flashpoint, often witnessing clashes due to competing religious claims and political tensions in the region. Deif called the infiltration the “day of the great revolution,” and, according to the Times of Israel, called on Arabs within and around Israel’s borders to join in on the attack. “Enough is enough,” Deif said. “We warned the enemy not to continue its aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is only the first stage." 

According to Bellin, Hamas functions not only as a militant group and the governing body of Gaza, but as a social movement as well. As such, even in the unlikely event of Hamas' complete dismantling, institutions such as schools, mosques, and charities associated with Hamas may persist in the societal sphere, as people will remain committed to them. “There is support for Hamas — the ideology, the movement — among Gazans. And that’s even after 17 years of very bad governance in the area, so does that mean Hamas will survive after this? I guess my answer is yes, but maybe if the Israeli military is as militarily successful as they hope to be, maybe it won’t be a Hamas that will be able to directly threaten Israel the same way they had before,” Bellin said. 

This attack differs from previous attacks for multiple reasons, but perhaps the two most significant are the unprecedented number of people who were able to breach the border wall and the fact that Israel was caught completely off guard. The Washington Post released satellite images that pinpoint three breaches in the border wall, although according to the IDF, there were breaches at 20-30 different points. As of Oct. 10, the IDF had secured most of the border. Hamas employed drones to disable crucial cell towers that were critical to Israel's high-tech surveillance and defense mechanisms set up along the border. Disabling these cell towers disrupted and prevented communication between the border and the military regarding any potential breaches, and rendered inactive the machine guns on the border wall designed to automatically activate during such breaches, Bellin explained.

“There was a great deal of confidence that this electronic barrier would provide sufficient information and advance warning of any problem, so they did not have to amass a huge contingency of Israeli armed forces along the Gaza border,” Bellin said. Indeed, there was only one major unit of military forces guarding the Gaza border, and they were quickly overpowered due to the lack of advance notice and communication failures. According to Bellin, the IDF chose to prioritize deploying armed forces in the West Bank, as opposed to Gaza, due to ongoing tensions in the area. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two distinct Palestinian territories with separate geopolitical dynamics. “They felt ‘Well, we got the Gaza border covered because of this billion dollar high tech fence,’ and they were mistaken,” Bellin explained. 

Israel found itself unprepared due to another factor highlighted by Bellin: Hamas’ leadership has become technologically savvy. “The Israelis are so technologically advanced, and now Hamas is saying, ‘Well, we can work around that.’ And in their case, it’s not by using counter technology; it’s by avoiding technology altogether.” Rather than communicating plans for the attack via cell phone, which Hamas knows Israelis can track, they reverted to old-fashioned face-to-face communication, catching the Israelis off guard.

On Oct. 10, Israel ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza. Israeli warplanes have struck hundreds of sites in Gaza. At least 2,700 people have been killed in Gaza, of which roughly 724 are children, and thousands of others have been wounded by Israel’s retaliatory air strikes as of print date, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. 

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, said that every time an airstrike hits a Gazan “in their homes without warning,” they would execute a hostage — although according to Hamas, the hostages are being held in “safe places and tunnels.” While not all of the hostages taken by Hamas have been identified, there is a believed age range of 9 months to 85 years old. It is also believed that there are about 20 Americans among those held hostage, and the U.K. has said they are missing 10 of their nationals, although it is unclear whether they have been killed or are among those taken. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a press statement that 17 Americans are still unaccounted for in Israel. 

On Oct. 12, Israel dropped thousands of leaflets via military planes overhead Gaza, warning over one million civilians to evacuate northern Gaza. The warning and the buildup of Israeli soldiers near the northern Gaza border has led many to speculate that Israel plans for a ground invasion of Gaza, which has not been seen since the 2014 war, which was sparked by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas terrorists. A United Nations spokesperson in a statement to CBS News said that a ground invasion would be “impossible … without devastating humanitarian consequences.” According to CNN, Hamas has urged its citizens not to evacuate, claiming that the IDF is just using “psychological warfare” and aiming to “create confusion among citizens and undermine the stability of our internal front.” Though Egypt has agreed to provide Gazans with humanitarian aid during this war, Reuters has reported that Egypt has refused to provide a haven for any Gazan refugees, and as of press time, has not allowed anyone, Gazans or otherwise, to cross through their portions of the border. 

Bellin helped clarify why Egypt has refused to absorb any Gazan refugees, or even open their borders at all: “First of all, Egypt is in very bad shape right now. Economically, they are in a terrible position.” Because of a combination of debt, inflation, tourism levels that have not yet recovered since COVID-19, and the taking in of millions of refugees, Egypt doesn’t even have the capacity to provide for its own people right now, Bellin explained. The Egyptian government holds a negative stance toward Hamas and isn’t “too eager to see Hamas affiliates flood into the country … They are not looking for [a] new huge socioeconomic burden, and they are not looking for new political threats to come in,” Bellin said. However, she remains hopeful that despite Egypt not opening its border, there might be a possibility for the UN and the Egyptian government to establish refugee camps or designated areas for receiving humanitarian aid near the border.

Hamas’ October attack came 50 years and a day after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when an Arab coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. The coalition was led by Egypt and Syria. Egypt’s initial objective in the attack was to gain a foothold on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and to use this control as leverage to negotiate the return of the land that was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. These territories included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, the latter of which was traded for peace subsequent to the Yom Kippur War. In this war, Israel saw nearly 2,700 deaths. Hamas’ 2023 attack has been called unprecedented and unimaginable, and the scale of the attack is one that has not been seen in Israel since the Yom Kippur War.

A brief history of Gaza

To understand the complexity behind the fighting, it is necessary to understand the history of the Gaza Strip. The area became Israeli territory when it was captured from Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War. Though some of the other captured territories, such as the Sinai Peninsula, were later returned to Egypt after peace negotiations and the Camp David Accords, the return of the Gaza Strip was never explicitly addressed during these negotiations. According to Bellin, “Gaza was not historically part of Egypt, so better to leave that aside and make that part of the ultimate solution to the Palestine problem which [former president of Egypt] Anwar El-Sadat was committed to.” Egypt did not want to govern the Palestinian people, and Sadat believed that the Palestinians should have their own territory, Bellin said.

Israeli settlements were built within the area, and many Israelis moved there, but in 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, formerly the general who had led Israelis to victory over Egypt in 1973, proposed a complete disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The proposal was accepted by the government and approved by the Knesset in 2005. Though many Israeli citizens were against the idea of the withdrawal from Gaza — polls on public support for the plan have consistently shown 50–60% of the population in support and 30-40% in opposition — Sharon and many other Israelis deemed it a necessary step toward the ultimate goal of peace with the Palestinians.

The disengagement included the complete dismantling of 21 Israeli settlements within Gaza and the evacuation of all Israeli settlers and soldiers from the area. Many of the settlers, because they were so adamantly opposed to the idea, had to be forcibly evacuated from their homes, which were subsequently destroyed. A total of 8,000 settlers were evacuated. After Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians were given control over the area, except for the borders, the airspace, and the territorial waters, of which Israel maintained control, with the exception of the Egypt-Gaza border, controlled by Egypt. Gaza gets water from a combination of sources, including wells, a pipeline from Israel, and desalination plants on the Mediterranean Sea, and gets most of its electricity from Israel.

The Palestinian Authority, which was dominated by the Fatah party, initially had control over the area. In 2006, the Palestinian territories held elections for leadership, and Hamas won a majority of the seats with 44.45% of the vote and won 74 of the 132 seats, while Fatah received 41.43% of the vote and won 45 seats. 

In the election, “Hamas was not pushing itself as a radical movement at that point. It was emphasizing that [they] are going to deliver non-corrupt governance, [they] are going to deliver good governance to the people of Gaza, because the Palestine authority had been tainted with very poor governance and corruption prior to that … and they won on those rounds, which of course they have not delivered on,” Bellin said.  

The hand-off of power was complex and tumultuous, and there was factional fighting between the two groups until 2007, when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Fatah retains control of the West Bank. There have not been elections in Gaza since Hamas gained control of the area. 

Bellin cited a poll from the Washington Institute, which was put out in Oct. 2023. Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas, while 64% support Fatah. The majority of Gazans, 70%, supported a proposal for the Palestinian Authority to send in officials and security officers to Gaza “to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up separate armed units.” 62% of Gazans have endorsed maintaining a ceasefire with Israel, and 50% of Gazans agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.”

Hamas first began firing rockets into Israel in 2006. When Hamas took control of the area, Egypt and Israel worked together to blockade the Gaza Strip, with both countries strictly measuring the movement of people and goods, and Israel imposing a naval blockade. The two countries cite security concerns and attack prevention as the reasons for the blockade, explaining that the blockade allows them to maintain control over whether any weapons, ammunition, or militant groups can enter Gaza. Both countries deem Hamas as a terrorist organization and have sought to isolate the group. The relationship between Hamas and Israel has grown more and more violent over the years. Hamas has sent rockets into Israel every year since the blockade began, often justifying the violence by arguing that it is retaliation for the occupation, symbolic resistance, a call for national attention, or defense against Israeli military actions, which are frequently in relation to the al-Aqsa mosque. 

Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza since 2007. Israel provides almost all of Gaza’s liquid fuel and most of its electricity, and Gaza's only power plant runs on crude diesel imported from Israel. Israel allows some humanitarian supplies into the Gaza strip, but not “dual-use” items such as goods and software. The blockade has been a source of significant humanitarian concern, as it limits access to basic necessities and hinders economic and societal development within Gaza. Many international organizations and human rights groups have criticized the blockade, deeming it illegal and saying that it violates the Geneva Convention, a framework of international humanitarian legal standards for humanitarian treatment during war. Israel and Egypt both claim that the blockade is necessary for security reasons, and Egypt has thus far refused to allow any Gazan refugees to cross their border. 

As for the end of the war, Bellin says there is no way to predict what will happen. In her eyes, the best possible solution — one that she admits would be highly unlikely to occur — would be that “Israel makes some real inroads and manages to wreak some real damage to Hamas in the next, let’s say two weeks or three weeks, and then because there will be great civilian suffering, there will be a huge move by the United States and Egypt and Qatar and maybe Turkey — who knows — to come in and say we’ve got to negotiate something — and much of the Hamas leadership is killed,” Bellin said. These negotiations would be for the release of the hostages and for a new election in Gaza. “Maybe we could see a somewhat more technocratic elite come forward to govern … for the last 20 years, politics in the region in Israel and among Palestinians in Gaza at the very least have been seized by extremists and the center has just lost its hold, but that doesn’t mean that the majority of people, at least for now, are still not centrists,” Bellin said. 

Bellin explained that in the year 2000, the Israelis and Palestinians were very close to achieving peace and a two-state solution had the support of many Arab countries. U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat at Camp David in an effort to find a solution for peace. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter hosted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to negotiate a peace agreement, which ultimately resulted in a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel—  Egypt being the first Arab nation to officially recognize the state of Israel. There was a collective hope that the 2000 Camp David Summit could result in a similar outcome, but the Summit ended without an agreement. Though Barak expressed support for a two-state solution, Arafat dallied and in the end, refused to officially agree to any peace treaty. The failed agreement was a major setback for the potential for peace and presumably was the impetus for the Second Intifada in 2000, a major Palestinian uprising and wave of violence against Israeli civilians. Bellin believes that major Arab powers would exhibit the same support today as they did in 2000, feeding into her optimism for eventual peace. 

 — Editor’s Note: Justice Editor Leah Breakstone contributed to reporting for this article.