Israel-Hamas, Why Now?

Written by Jillian Shaw | October 22, 2023

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Violence in the Gaza Strip and Israel began two weeks ago after a surprise attack was launched by the militant group Hamas, arriving on the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah and just a day after the 50^th anniversary of the Egyptian advance into Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. With the total death toll now surpassing 1,000 Israelis and 4,000 Palestinians, this war has quickly become one of the bloodiest moments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the violence expands further out of the Levant each day. In an intense political issue with a history stretching back hundreds of years, why was this most recent strike planned now, and what made it largely unexpected?

The recent uptick of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has heightened tensions in the last year, notably including the Israeli raid of the Al-Asqa Mosque in April of this year.  The raid, and other movements by Israeli forces further into East Jerusalem and the West Bank, were found by the United Nations to have caused the displacement of over 1,100 Palestinians and an average of three settler-related incidents per day over the course of the last year, according to a report released last month. The commander of Hamas’ military, Mohammed Deif, named this month’s attack Operation Al-Asqa Flood as a reference to the Jerusalem mosque, which exemplifies how pivotal this raid was in the recent memory of Palestinian occupation.

Additionally, the Israeli government has had many recent internal issues since the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2022. There have been countless Israeli protests against the Netanyahu administration, largely in response to judicial system reforms, which highlighted a divide between the Israeli government and its people. This divide also reached into the administration itself, with the appointment of two controversial cabinet members, one of whom has convictions of supporting terrorism and inciting racism. These cabinet discrepancies are also viewed by many experts as the explanation behind Israel’s communications failure between its security forces and its military. 

This attack also breaks up a period of strategic Israeli foreign policy within the Middle East. Just last month, Israeli and Saudi Arabian officials were discussing the possibility of formalized relations between the two states, as the next progression of the Abraham Accords. Israel had already reached success in reaching diplomatic relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco in 2020, but a successful relationship with Saudi Arabia would hold the possibility of normalizing Israeli-Arab relations across the region. The King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has a long history of supporting Palestine, and Israeli-Saudi relations threaten Palestinian movements and continued Arab support. This month’s attack has been interpreted by experts as a blockade to further relations, as the nature of this attack has made Israel determined to “completely push Hamas from power” in whatever way possible. The severity of Israel’s counteroffensives to this attack is likely to have put Israeli-Saudi diplomatic relations on hold for years to come.