It had been a long time since anyone had heard of the Palestinian Hamas militias. In the Palestinian conflict, it seemed as if Gaza did not exist. It languished completely closed by land, sea and air, and its citizens were coping with life with 50% unemployment and deprivation of all kinds. But they didn’t get up.
All the violence was taking place in the other major occupied Palestinian territory, the West Bank: the pogroms by Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians, the blood and fire assaults of the Israeli Army or the attacks of the new Palestinian militias, the youth of Lion’s Den. With more than 200 dead this year, it seemed that the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem were going to be the new Gaza, the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And, suddenly, by surprise, the Al Qassam brigades have launched the most sophisticated, deadly and cruel attack in its history, supported by the Al Quds of Islamic Jihad. Assaults on soldier bases by flying over the separation fence with motorized paragliders. Motorcycle raids on Jewish cities to kidnap or murder hundreds of Israeli civilians. They have taken advantage of the distraction and ineffectiveness of the Israeli secret servicesand that the main Army brigades had left the south of the country to reinforce the occupation of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory controlled mostly by Israel and occupied by between half a million and 700,000 settlers.
Why have they done it? Why this frontal attack if they know that the Israeli response will be relentless and deadlyand that the Israeli fighter-bombers can leave Gaza at ground level with its aviation and Hamas already decimated?
There are many reasons: reacting to the blockade and the humanitarian crisis generated by the Israeli lockdown and recover the leadership that is disputed with the PLO. But the main one is to send a message to the Arab countries that, one after another, are making agreements with Israel, with the mediation of the United States. This weekend Hamas sent a sort of telegram written in blood to Saudi Arabia in particular, which was close to reaching a historic agreement with Israel.
“It is possible that Hamas carried out a attack so merciless, cruel and abominable precisely to provoke such a forceful response from Israel that it makes it impossible for any Arab leader to dare to have his picture taken next to an Israeli ambassador or minister, or directly receive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” says the security and defense analyst. Jesus Manuel Perez Triana. “On a pile of rubble in Gaza, showing good relations with Israel would be very toxic.”
The Palestinian groups themselves have pointed this out clearly. “Absolutely. The assault is a message to the Arab Governments” that have normalized their relations with Israel, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Hamad responded to the Qatari network Al Jazeera, calling for them to immediately end their “shameful” ties. with the occupying Jewish State.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia party has described the attack by its Palestinian partners as a “heroic” act which is a “a message to the Arab and Muslim world, as well as to the international community, especially those seeking to normalize their relations with the enemy, that the Palestinian cause is not dying.”
The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, also assessed this Sunday the wave of attacks as a attempt to derail normalizationn of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Normalizing relationships does not solve the occupation
What remains to be seen is whether this pressure affects the Saudi dictator, Prince Mohamed bin Salmán, in any way. He is an autocrat who does not depend on the approval of his people to remain in power, among other things because he orders dissidents to be executed and dismembered, as happened with the critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“But, if Saudi Arabia continues to seek to establish itself as the leader of the Arab world and Sunni Muslims [una de las principales ramas del islam, frente al chiísmo iraní]now evidently cannot take the step towards the normalization of relations with an Israel that is foreseeably going to crush Gaza,” he points out. Haizam Amirah Fernandez, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute. “Arab public opinions understand that there is legitimate resistance to the occupation.” For much of the public opinion of the “Global South”, especially in the Arab world, the bulk of the actions of the Hamas militiamen are framed in the legitimate defense that is allowed within the 1949 Geneva Conventions for “armed conflicts”. in which peoples fight against colonial domination and foreign occupation and against racist regimes, in the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination.
For now, Saudi Arabia has reacted to the events with a statement in which it calls for containment in the region, but at the same time attributes the actions to the “continued occupation.” of Palestinian territory, the deprivation of Palestinian rights or the situation in holy places such as the Al Aqsa mosque, frequently attacked by Israeli soldiers or around whose surroundings Orthodox Jews walk heavily escorted in the astonished presence of Palestinian Muslims.
Previously, Mohamed Bin Salman said in a television interview that the agreement with Israel was close. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself assured last month at the United Nations that his country was one step away from a peace agreement with Riyadh. According to a leak to the Washington Post, the agreement, signed by the United States, would include guarantees from Washington to defend Saudi Arabia in the event of an attack, a kind of “article 5” of the NATO pact. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would recognize the right to exist of the Jewish State and obtain a commitment from Tel Aviv to allow the existence of the Palestinian State.
Gaza’s bloody awakening
The atrocities of the Al Qasam brigades in the last 48 hours have included the murder of unarmed civilians, according to verified video images uploaded to social networks. In one of them, you can see a road with three stopped vehicles and the bodies of massacred Israeli civilians inside. In another, the half-naked body of a young woman, displayed as a war trophy. It is, presumably, a German tourist who was participating in a music festival.
The West has condemned the events as “terrorist attacks.” The president of the Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, has given unwavering support to Israel in its response. “Israel has the right to defend itself, now and in the days to come.” She has ordered a huge panel on the institution’s building in Brussels to be lit with the Israeli flag, and has raised another on a mast next to the Union flag. The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has charged against the “terrorist” attacks. of Hamas.
“Those who believed that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab autocratic leaders would bury the conflict in Palestine were very wrong,” says Amirah Fernández. “As long as there is no solution to the conflict in Palestine, they will be able to make security and economic transactions, but there will be no reconciliation between peoples.”
The new stage of the conflict.
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The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has gone through several well-defined stages. After the partition of Palestine by the United Nations in 1948, came Israel’s wars with its Arab neighbors, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia itself (1948, 1956, 1967…). Then came the stage of the intifadas, Palestinian uprisings (1987-1993; 2000-2005) and the attacks on Gaza (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2021…)
Now, and with the peace made with the Arab countries, an uncertain stage arrives in the eternal conflict. “It is evident that we were in a historical moment in which we could see progress towards detente and peaceful coexistence between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would have consequences in the Middle East, due to the confrontation of both with Iran, a rival for one, an enemy for another,” recalls Amirah Fernández. “This could unbalance the power games in the Middle East.” The conflict could boil over. First, among the Arab population. This Sunday, an Egyptian police officer shot dead two Israeli tourists in Alexandria. The Lebanese militia Hezbollah has attacked Israel with rockets in “solidarity” with the Hamas offensive.