2023-10-15 03:30:00
The surprise, ruthless and brutal attack by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas in southern Israel shook the geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East and has posed a dilemma for both the Jewish State and the international community, because the inevitable response to this aggression carries the danger of play into the hands of fundamentalist objectives and complicate the modest progress that had been made towards the pacification of the Middle East.
The world has been horrified by the grisly details of the operation of almost 1,000 Hamas militiamen by land, air and sea, in a level of coordination never seen before and that exposed Israel’s most important security failure in 50 years. Argentine expert Ezequiel Kopel highlights that the nearly 1,300 dead and 3,000 wounded “constitute the largest number of Israelis killed in a single day since the founding of the State of Israel 75 years ago” and the equivalent of the casualties suffered in 5 years of intifada. , in addition to the first loss of territorial control since 1948.
But it was not only the magnitude and coordination of the operation (which is estimated to have taken more than two years of planning and such a level of secrecy that it went unnoticed by Israeli intelligence) that shocked the world, but also its savagery and cruelty. The images, spread via social networks by Hamas itself, show defenseless civilians riddled with bullets in their homes and cars, children and women cornered and shot to death, beheaded or burned alive in front of their families. Almost 150 Israelis and foreigners, civilians and soldiers, were taken hostage and taken amid beatings and humiliation to the Gaza Strip, where Hamas plans to exchange them for militants imprisoned in Israel or use them as human shields.
After the initial shock and confusion passed, in a few hours the Israeli Government and Army took control of the situation and began to respond with air attacks on terrorist targets in Gaza, where more than 2,300 Palestinian deaths had already been recorded, many of them civilians and children, given that it is very difficult to attack only military targets in a city where almost 1.1 million of the 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip live crowded together. Israel gave 24 hours for this number of civilians to leave the north of the region, before what is presumed to be the beginning of a ground offensive.
The situation poses a complex crossroads for Israel. On the one hand, it cannot leave such aggression to its territory and its population unpunished, which demands from the government explanations for its errors and has united around a demand for security, while knowing that Hamas’s intention is to drag it towards a long and bloody guerrilla war and an escalation of general violence, which undermines not only the support and solidarity that Israel receives from the majority of the international community, but also blocks the progress made in years of negotiations to normalize its relations with Arab countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain or Morocco, and mainly Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and influential.
Putting together an intelligent strategy is complicated for a government like that of Benjamin Netanyahu, who to take office made an agreement with the most extremist religious parties and divided the country with his offensive on the Supreme Court, with the only goal of saving himself from corruption proceedings. Also his approach of despising the Palestinian National Authority, the legitimate government in the occupied territories and which, unlike Hamas, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, was put in check.
Israel’s right to defend itself and restore its deterrence capacity is clear: Hamas’ heinous crimes cannot go unpunished. But the crisis is also an opportunity for the country to reconnect with the best of its democratic values and avoid a total escalation of unforeseeable consequences, which is the trap into which its enemies wish to lead it. And, with the support of the United States and the international community, strengthen its ties with the Palestinians who do want a peace process, under the formula of two States capable of coexisting, and with the Arab countries willing to support this initiative.
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