Israel is in a state of war again with Hamas. Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group that controls the Gaza Strip. On October 7, at 6:30 am, Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel. For Israel, there are certain areas of greater concern from a security standpoint: the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza are among them. While the Golan Heights are under Israeli military control, and West Bank areas outside of Israeli settlements are subject to the Palestinian National Authority, Gaza has been under Hamas administration since it ejected the Palestinian Authority in 2007.
Hamas’ attack left approximately 1,400 Israelis–mostly civilians–dead. According to the Israeli government, the attack left 33 U.S. citizens dead and another 10 unaccounted for, probably held hostage. The government estimates that Hamas has taken about 200 hostages. The State of Israel, which experienced the largest loss of civilian Jewish life in a single event since the Holocaust, has launched several weeks of strikes on Gaza, leaving perhaps 5,000 dead and 18,000 injured, although accurate figures are difficult to report amid the chaos.
This attack has surprised many. Usually, Israeli intelligence discovers information about an attack and preempts it, as it did before 1967’s Six-Day War, when Israel identified the location of Egypt’s air force and destroyed it before it could strike. This time, neither U.S. nor IDF intelligence picked up on the tell-tale signs of an invasion.
To be clear, Hamas is not Palestine. It is a terrorist group that took over the Gaza Strip. The tragic part about this war, as in all others, is the human cost. Civilians are dying in droves, first from Hamas’ attack and now from Israel’s air strikes. Hamas has seemed like ISIS in its methods, aiming to provoke a massive Israeli reprisal, which is exactly what has happened. The war will be prolonged. It won’t be like Ukraine, where two standing conventional armies face off. Gaza is highly urbanized, and Hamas will fight an asymmetrical war from its labyrinth of tunnels and hideouts. There may be street-to-street and building-to-building fighting.
Palestinians have sought recognition of Palestine as a nation. Efforts to create a two-state solution have failed, and factions on both sides seem to reject that answer altogether. It’s having a tragic effect on civilians in the region.
What I expect to happen is that if the hostages aren’t freed, the United States will respond with either more funding for Israel or even an actual intervention with American troops. A Rapid Response Team from the U.S. Marine Corps is currently near Israel. They might try to save the hostages, though they are more likely there as a show of force.
