Israel and Palestine: aggravation of the conflict

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Arab-Israeli conflict has entered a "hot" phase again: hundreds of rockets are fired at Israeli cities from the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli army is launching air strikes at targets that they say are being used by terrorists - there are already many dead and wounded on both sides … Here's what you need to know about the current confrontation.

What's happening?

On the evening of Monday, May 10, a hail of rockets launched from the Palestinian enclave, the Gaza Strip, hit Israel: in total, more than 200 such launches were reported. Some of them even reached the outskirts of Jerusalem, where another the anniversary of the annexation of its eastern part by Israeli forces during the 1967 Six Day War.

In response, Israeli forces have launched strikes at targets that they claim are being used by terrorists. The BBC reports on statements by the Hamas ruling group in the Gaza Strip that their militants on Tuesday fired 137 rockets at the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon in just five minutes and that they are ready to continue the fight - as a result of these attacks at least 95 Israelis were injured … Nevertheless, the Israeli military reports that approximately 90% of all missiles fired by the militants were intercepted in the air thanks to the Iron Dome air defense system created a decade ago.

About a fifth of Israel's citizens are of Arab origin. The outburst of violence could not but affect their mood. In Lod, about 20 kilometers southeast of Tel Aviv, home to a mixed population, unrest has led to the loss of control over the city: the mayor spoke about burning buildings and cars, describing what was happening as a civil war.

A state of emergency was declared in the city. As reported by AP, it all started with the fact that thousands of participants in the funeral of an Arab man, who was allegedly killed in the clashes by an Israeli, began throwing stones at the police.

Tel Aviv became the main target of attacks by militants from the Gaza Strip: most of the rockets were fired at the city and the surrounding area. According to AP reports, schools in Tel Aviv were closed due to incessant missile attacks. One missile was reported to have hit an empty school in Ashkelon, five kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas says it is launching rockets at Tel Aviv and its environs in response to "the enemy targeting high-rise residential buildings."

Israel responded by saying that 80 aircraft were bombing in Gaza, and infantry and armored vehicles were also sent to the area to reinforce tank units already on the border. On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a 13-storey residential building in one of the districts of Gaza - although there were no casualties, since all of its residents and residents of neighboring buildings had been evacuated in advance after appropriate warnings from the Israeli side.

The Israelis said the building housed numerous Hamas offices, including a military intelligence office. According to AP, on Wednesday morning the Israelis fired warning rockets from drones in one of the areas of Gaza, and then razed to the ground several nine-story residential buildings with an airstrike. Also, the Israeli military announced the elimination of the leader of the Islamic Jihad unit of the Islamic Jihad group, Samih al-Mamluk, and other representatives of the organization's military leadership, which was confirmed in the group itself.

36 Palestinians, including 10 children, have already died during the clashes, Reuters reported, citing health officials. The Israeli authorities reported two dead Israeli women and one citizen of India.

How did it all start?

The conflict began again because of one of the main stumbling blocks in relations between Jews and Palestinian Arabs - East Jerusalem, where the old city with the shrines of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is located. Israel claims sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, but the Palestinian Authority, the UN and the world community, with the exception of the United States, do not recognize the legitimacy of Israeli rule over East Jerusalem.

The first clashes between local Palestinians and Israeli police were triggered by a recent court ruling to evict several Arab families in the Sheikh Jarrah area: their houses are to be demolished and new housing built in their place. Israeli settlers call the area Nahalat Shimon and have previously demanded the resettlement of about 70 Palestinians.

“There are two questions that touch upon the very essence of the identity of Jews and Palestinians: resettlement and Jerusalem. And they are all present here, in the limited space of Sheikh Jarrah, and as soon as they meet, a nuclear reaction occurs,”Israeli lawyer Daniel Seideman described the essence of the conflict for The Washington Post.

Serious clashes began on Friday, May 7, on the Temple Mount, where the shrines of Islam - the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque - are located. Israeli police used special equipment to disperse crowds of Palestinians - rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear gas. Then, according to the Palestinian branch of the Red Crescent, more than 300 Palestinians were injured. On the Israeli side, 21 police officers were injured.

The ruling Hamas movement in Gaza has demanded that the Israeli authorities remove police from the Temple Mount and from the Arab region of Sheikh Jarrah, where local Palestinians have lived for decades. The next day, Saturday, the police did not allow buses with Palestinians who were planning to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque - hundreds of them had to walk the rest of the way. And all this happened at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, only fanning the discontent of Muslims.

Has this happened before?

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank were occupied by Egyptian and Jordanian forces after the Israeli War of Independence. However, in 1967 the territory was occupied by Israel, since then the Palestine Liberation Organization under the leadership of Yasser Arafat has been actively fighting for independence there. All this resulted in two intifadas - large-scale confrontations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, accompanied by an active use of violence on both sides.

The first intifada, which began in the late 1980s, led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. The second intifada, which unfolded in 2000, ended in 2005, when Israel began to implement a plan for the unilateral disengagement and withdrawal of troops and parts of its settlements from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A new surge of violence in 2015-2016 was nicknamed the "Intifada of Knives" in the media, when a significant number of terrorist attacks against Israelis were carried out by Palestinians with the use of cold weapons.

The current exacerbation, although one of the most serious in recent years, is far from unique in its kind. In general, after the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, rocket strikes from there on Israeli territory became more frequent, and the shells themselves were more and more improved - their range was increasing. In 2008, 2-3 thousand rockets were fired into Israel, which led to the military operation "Cast Lead" in the Gaza Strip. The bombing and overland incursions resulted in thousands of Palestinians killed and wounded and hundreds of Israeli military and civilian injuries.

Reuters calls this exchange of air strikes between Israel and Hamas the most intense since 2014, when Israel conducted Operation Unbreakable Rock in the Gaza Strip. In that year, Israeli forces carried out the invasion, the operation lasted for about a month and a half and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,100 Gazans. Then 73 Israelites were killed.

It is worth noting that it is not only Hamas that organizes periodic rocket attacks from Gaza. In November 2019, Israeli forces conducted Operation Black Belt against the Islamic Jihad group, the second most popular and powerful group in the region. Then, in two days, more than 30 Palestinians were killed and more than a hundred were wounded, although the Israeli authorities said that most of those killed were militants.

How does the world react?

General Secretary UNAntónio Guterres, in a statement, expressed deep concern over the escalation of violence in Gaza "in addition to increased tensions and violence in occupied East Jerusalem." He called on the Israeli military to "exercise maximum restraint and regulate their use of force," while noting that "indiscriminate launches of rockets and mortars at Israeli populated areas are unacceptable." The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the participants in the confrontation to "redouble efforts to restore calm."

International committee Red Crosscalled on both sides to end the violence and reminded them to abide by the laws of war, which are invariably violated during conflict.

As reported by The New York Times, representatives of the presidential administration USAJoe Biden on Tuesday publicly called on both sides of the conflict to show restraint, previously calling missile strikes on Israel "unacceptable." Among other things, it was reported that some pressure was exerted on Israeli and Palestinian politicians by the United States in order to persuade them to avoid escalating tensions. In general, the publication believes that recent events may challenge Biden's desire to shift the focus of American foreign policy from the Middle East to China.

As reported by Al-Jazeera, the President TurkeyErdogan, in telephone conversations with the Palestinian leadership, promised "to do everything in his power to mobilize the world community, starting with the Islamic world, to stop Israeli terror and occupation."

Foreign Secretary IranJavad Zarif accused Israel of taking away "land and houses from the people", creating an "apartheid regime", refusing to vaccinate Palestinians and shooting at "innocent believers" inside the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Representatives of The EU, Great Britain, Germany, France.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova called on Israel and Palestine to show restraint and advised them not to take steps that could escalate tensions.

- Moscow perceives such a dangerous development of events with deep concern. We strongly condemn attacks on civilians, regardless of their nationality or religion. We call on the parties to show restraint and not take steps fraught with further escalation of tension, the statement says.

Who are Hamas?

Hamas is an Islamist organization founded shortly after the outbreak of the first intifada, which advocated the elimination of the State of Israel and the creation of an Islamic republic on the territory of Israel and Palestine, although there were earlier statements of readiness to recognize Israel within the pre-1967 borders.

In Israel, as well as in the EU, the USA, Canada and Japan, it is recognized as terrorist, while Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Paraguay consider only its military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam a terrorist organization. Some Hamas members have said that the model of the Islamic government that the movement seeks to emulate is the regime of Turkish President Erdogan.

In 2018-2019, Hamas organized anti-Israeli demonstrations on the border of the Gaza Strip and Israel. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have clashed with the Israeli military and police, resulting in more than a hundred deaths and thousands of injured.

In 2006, in the first elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas received more than half of the mandates, and the leader of the movement, Ismail Haniya, became prime minister. This ultimately led to an armed conflict between Fatah, the successor to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose ideology is more likely based on secular nationalism.

Hamas's relations with the Fatah administration and current President Mahmoud Abbas have not been friendly since then - the two organizations actually went through a civil war in 2007, when there was open hostilities between them, and Ismail Haniya was assassinated by Fatah militants. Then, in 2007, Hamas managed to seize control of the Gaza Strip. Since then, the territory has been in a de facto blockade by Israel and Egypt, which at times is intensified and weakened.

More than 2 million people live in an area smaller than the city of Minsk, and unemployment is rampant due to economic constraints. Aid from foreign donors is an important source of income for the Gaza Strip. It was once Iran, which funded Hamas, but after the movement backed Sunni factions fighting against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, aid was cut. Turkey and Qatar are currently considered the main allies of the organization, and China is also showing its favor in the international arena to the government in Gaza.

Hamas is now seizing the opportunity to present itself as defenders of Jerusalem and local Palestinians, hinting at the Fatah administration's inaction. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya blamed Israel for what was happening, stating that the militants from Gaza "defended Jerusalem" and that Egypt, Qatar and the UN tried to mediate in the negotiations on a ceasefire, but Hamas representatives told them that "the Israeli occupation set Jerusalem on fire and the flames reached Gaza."