How do I make sense of the Israeli-Gaza War of 2023?

Background

There are two indigenous peoples who cherish the same land, Jews and Arabs.

Both were offered statehood. The Jews said we’ll give coexistence a shot and accepted. The Arabs said, no way, we want a winner takes all, fight to the death. And there has been death ever since.

October 7 sparks a war

On October 7, Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel that had been years in the planning.

For years, they had been gathering intelligence on Israel’s border and kibbutz security arrangements through Gazans employed by Israelis as agricultural and domestic workers.

By utilizing the latest use of drone warfare techniques learnt from the Russo-Ukrainian War, approximately 3,000 militants largely neutralized Israel’s frontline security and attacked communities up to 15 km within Israel.

The attacks were marked by indiscriminate, mutilations, rape, executions, abductions and acts of spectacular cruelty. Extensive video recordings were taken by the attackers, showing considerable glee and joy as they carried out their crimes against humanity. Up to 1,210 murders were carried out and up to 250 were taken hostage.

Israel’s government faced with the its duty to:

1. Protect its vulnerable citizens
2. Punish wrongdoing
3. Prevent further wrongdoing

Had no choice except to declare war to ensure that a further attack would not occur, to deter other organizations from repeating similar attacks and to reassure its citizenry that they could be safe.

The Israeli-Gaza War 2023

This is primarily a propaganda war with civilian fatalities as its foundation

Hamas lacks Israel’s military resources and infrastructure. It must fight an assymetric conflict knowing it cannot win a conventional war.

Its objectives are therefore to survive and take advantage of Western cultural repugnance toward fatalities among women and children and ignorance of what war involves to undermine world support for Israel.

To expedite this objective, Hamas infiltrates mainstream media outlets with “independent” journalist contractors, controls what can be released to media and actively seeks images, and video footage of wounded, dying or dead children.

Media coverage of this conflict is disproportionately represented by such images and video footage when compared to other conflicts currently underway in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.

Casualty figures are produced by the Gaza Ministry of Health which itself is controlled by Hamas, yet Western media nearly always publishes these figures without cautionary statements, as if they can be accepted at face value.

Hamas holds strongly to a religious tradition of martyrdom and sees civilian fatalities as a necessary price for victory.

Victim’s bodies and hostages are used as trophies to demonstrate to the Arab world their continuing resistance and to undermine Israeli prestige.

Their propaganda messaging has evolved as the war progresses:

1. “War on children”
2. “IDF is committing genocide”
3. “Israel is withholding humanitarian aid to cause famine”
4. “Israel will cause a humanitarian disaster if it attacks Rafah”

To the Arabic speaking world the messaging is quite different:

1. “We are the brave underdog resistance fighters against the hated Jews”
2. “See the Israelis are beatable and we are superior.”
3. “We will never give up the good fight entrusted to us by Allah to destroy the Jews, even if it means sacrificing our people as martyrs“

In reality,

• Civilian fatality rates even based on Hamas’ figures are spectacularly low compared to other urban wars.  
• Markets have sprung up to sell food and other humanitarian aid hijacked by Hamas and criminal gangs.
• Food and other supplies have become so abundant that Hamas has had to announce price drops.

Tunnels, human shields and using UN facilities and hospitals are Hamas’ prime tactics

For many years, Hamas has built up to 700kms of tunnels beneath Gaza leaving very few city blocks without tunnels underneath them. Each block contains multiple exits.

Hamas’ tactics include

• Using civilians as human shields
• Using civilian structures such as homes, schools, hospitals and UN facilities for battlefield cover
• Using civilian structures homes, schools, hospitals and UN facilities for operational centers, munitions storage, and food storage.

Under the Geneva Convention doing so, relieves these structures from their immunity from violence, and thus the IDF has entered schools, hospitals and UN facilities whenever they have evidence that Hamas has operated from them. The Western public unaware of this dynamic have voiced outrage.

Unfortunately, in war, and in particular urban warfare, civilian fatalities are inevitable. In all conflicts, experts have said up to 10% of civilians will refuse to evacuate.

In 2022, the UN said in recent history, for every combatant killed in urban warfare, 9 civilians die. Israel has taken more steps than any other modern military force to minimize civilian deaths.

They do this by forewarning the civilian population before beginning operations in a particular neighbourhood. This allows civilians to evacuate but it also means Hamas evacuates too as human shields are not effective unless they are in close proximity.

This minimizes civilian deaths but also has the effect of prolonging the conflict.

How will it end?

Even after Hamas has been defeated, its leadership in exile, and all hope of any remaining hostages extinguished; the hatred, prejudice and intolerance is so deeply ingrained among Palestinians and Arabs that it will take at least a whole generation of re-education to dislodge it.

Evidence of how deeply ingrained these beliefs are include:

• The mass celebrations in the 48 hours after October 7 were widespread, yet they only ended once news that Israel was massing several hundred thousand troops to enter Gaza, and the prospect of widespread devastation became apparent.
• Children’s drama and education teach antisemitism
• Reports of Palestinians who have realized that Jews are not demons after all, Hamas’ authoritarianism is the real enemy of the Palestinian people.

There are likely to be several phases before a stable solution can be fashioned.  The war is an opportunity for the civilian population to be freed from Hamas’ tyranny:

1. A short-term period of Israeli administration while law and order is restored.  The more guerilla attacks from the tunnels etc there are, the longer they will likely stay.
2. A period of UN administration while Gazan civilian society re-organizes itself and democratic elections can be held.
3. The re-organization must include an independent police, an independent militia and an independent civil service.  To establish these institutions, the period of UN administration could be lengthy.