On Saturday Islamist militant group Hamas, operating from Gaza, launched a brutal and unprecedented air, sea and land assault on the southern parts of Israel.
Nearly 1,000 mostly civilian Israelis were killed, and thousands wounded. As many as 260 young people were reported to have been gunned down at a concert for peace near the Gaza border.
The response by the Israeli Defence Force, which appeared to have been caught by surprise, was initially sluggish. Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has subsequently declared war on Hamas, and ordered Palestinian civilians to leave the areas that host the organisation. The retribution is bound to be equally violent.
Hamas’s clear intention to kill Israelis in their homes and kidnap and execute civilians, especially women and children, has to be condemned. Such brutish behaviour is inexcusable under any circumstances.
There are many other issues arising from this latest outbreak of conflict that are deeply concerning. How was it possible for Hamas’s relatively small force to execute such an assault without detection by Israeli or Western intelligence? Where did the extensive range of hardware used by Hamas come from?
Lastly, what is Hamas hoping to achieve by abducting and brutalising hundreds of Israeli civilians, including elderly women, girls and boys? These people hardly qualify as prisoners of war. The fighting must end, but Israel will inevitably do what it needs to rescue Israeli hostages and neutralise the threat to civilian life.
Since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the Israeli-Palestine conflict has largely fallen off the agenda of the international community. This is to a degree understandable — the world needed to face down Vladimir Putin’s aggression, which has both regional and global security implications.
However, this has also had unintended consequences, including allowing new players to enter the Middle Eastern fray. To be clear, it is to be welcomed that Israel seeks better relations with Arab countries such as the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Also, efforts by Saudi Arabia to play a mediation role in the region are to be welcomed.
However, the result has been that other polarising and destabilising forces, such as Iran and Hezbollah militants, have entered on the side of Hamas, if not necessarily that of the Palestinians. Hamas cannot be regarded as acting on behalf of a majority of Palestinians like, for example, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) did in its heyday.
Hamas’s posture and ideology are extremely problematic for those who genuinely seek a peaceful settlement in the region. Its oft-repeated aim is to eliminate Israel, and presumably the people who live in it. Its actions have shown that it means it.
For decades a two-state solution has been favoured by most of the world. However, over the years the situation has been complicated by Israeli settler land grabs and violence from both sides, and the world community has grown fatigued by their intransigence. This has been worsened by the rise of extremism in both Palestine and Israel. Moderate voices have been harder to hear.
This dark new chapter should be seen as an urgent opportunity for the world community to revive efforts to drive the two-states solution. It is in the interest of China, Russia, the Arab world, the developing world and the West to secure a durable solution to this conflict. This must start with an end to the current fighting and a return to negotiations.
While it may seem unimaginable at the moment, returning to negotiations will require concessions on all sides, including agreeing that both Israel and Palestine have an equal right to exist in peace.
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