Israeli-Hamas War Enters Second Phase

Since the Hamas raid on October 7, 1,400 people have been killed and 229 kidnapped in Israel. Israel has been bombing Gaza in retaliation.

According to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza, more than 8,000 people have been killed since Israel’s retaliatory bombing. What is the second phase of the war? According to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, the war will be divided into three phases: the first phase of the operation will be aimed at destroying Hamas infrastructure; the second phase will see Israeli forces “eliminate pockets of resistance”; and, after the third phase, Israel will no longer be responsible for Gaza’s operations and will achieve a new level of security for Israeli citizens. A few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel’s ground operation in Gaza marked the “second phase” of the war with Hamas and that it would be a “difficult and long battle.

Israeli-Hamas war escalates

As the war enters its fourth week, the Israeli army’s ground offensive, backed by tanks, is moving deeper into Gaza.Earlier this week, Palestinians in northern Gaza said Israel was carrying out heavy air and artillery attacks on Gaza. The Israeli military confirmed that it had struck military infrastructure in Syria in response to Syrian shelling of Israeli territory earlier on Sunday. The Israeli military’s bombing and ground campaign against Gaza has been the most intensive to date since the conflict began, bringing the violence and suffering in this terrible crisis to a new high. There have also been a series of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, and a growing exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanese border. There are growing concerns about the regional impact of the Israeli-Hamas war.

A few days ago, Hamas Gaza leader Sinwar made his first statement on the organization’s official website, saying that he was ready to immediately reach an exchange of communications agreement and would be willing to release all hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Israel’s release of all Hamas prisoners in its jails. In response, Netanyahu said that Israel’s wartime cabinet had discussed a hostage-for-prisoner swap, but declined to give specific details. The hostage crisis has put new pressure on Israel’s leadership, with relatives and others calling for the safe release of hostages. But Netanyahu said the battle was “a 3,000-year battle for Jewish survival” that Israel must win. Destroying Hamas is his primary goal, securing the release of the hostages is secondary. This was a great disappointment to anyone who had hoped to hear the news that Israel was suspending its attack on Gaza to secure the release of the hostages.

Leaflets are once again flying over Gaza City, warning residents that the area is now a “war zone” and that they must go to the south. But the civilian population of Gaza remains cut off from the outside world, as Israeli attacks on telecommunication facilities and the subsequent shutdown of the Internet have left Gazans with no way of knowing what is going on, and all contact with the outside world has been severed. Outraged by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s accusations of war crimes, Netanyahu withdrew his country’s diplomats and called the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) a “moral army,” arguing that its military operations in Gaza were aimed at destroying Hamas and its infrastructure so that it could no longer launch attacks. At this point, does anyone really feel the endless pain and misery of the civilian population of Gaza?

Is it really an Israeli/Hamas war?

As it stands now, the Israeli army has entered the Gaza Strip, which Israel considers to be under the control of the Hamas organization. However, nominally, Gaza is the land of the State of Palestine, and Hamas is only a political party elected in Gaza in the 2006 election, not the government of the State of Palestine. Many Western countries regard Hamas as a terrorist organization, and Israel’s current attempt to eliminate Hamas, which is carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel, by killing a large number of unarmed Palestinians who are not attacking Israel, is clearly an atrocity that violates the basic laws of international war. The United States, Britain and Australia have not yet condemned Israel for waging war by killing innocent civilians even though it may have legitimate reasons to eliminate the Hamas organization. According to the Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, it is hoped that Israel would listen to its supporters’ “humane words to the Palestinian people”. These remarks in defense of Israel’s attack and the death of a large number of Palestinians have aroused national discontent and protests in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Israel blames the Hamas organization for using the Palestinians as human shields, but fails to acknowledge its responsibility for the humanitarian disaster of the blockade of Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of a large number of Palestinians by cutting off water, electricity, food and supplies, in clear violation of the United Nations human rights covenants. Both Israel and Palestine are signatories to a number of United Nations human rights conventions and are obliged to abide by them. On the contrary, the Hamas organization is not a state and is not governed by the treaties. The fact that the U.S., U.K., and Australia are not talking about this issue shows that politicians do not have moral courage, and that they do not care about the means to achieve their goals.

Co-operation or each with its own agenda

On October 27, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, leading to a cessation of hostilities and more aid to Gaza. This was the first UN resolution formally adopted since the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, but Israel angrily rejected the resolution. Since the conflict, Western countries have generally supported what they say is Israel’s right to self-defense, but there has been growing international concern about the casualties caused by the air strikes and increasing calls for a pause in the fighting in order to provide aid to the civilian population of Gaza. By this time, the fighting in Gaza had begun to spill over into the West Bank of the Jordan River, where tensions were exacerbating the challenges posed by the war in Gaza, and there was still no solution in sight to the Israeli-Hararem conflict. The response of the international community was particularly important.

While the U.S. recognizes Israel’s right and indeed its obligation to defend itself from terrorists, it has also continued to urge Israel to use all possible means to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas militants as it expands its military ground operations in Gaza. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støle, for his part, said that Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks went beyond the rules of international law on proportionality and expressed concern about the expansion of the war in the region. The United Arab Emirates, the first Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel by 2020, also expressed deep concern about the escalation of the Israeli military and the intensification of the humanitarian crisis, which could lead to more civilian deaths.”

Of course, there are also powers that smell a rare opportunity in this Israeli-Palestinian war – Moscow’s elevation of its role as a global power mediator and its challenge to the West’s efforts to isolate it over Ukraine. Russia has been cautiously critical of both sides, hoping that Israel’s war with Hamas will divert attention from the war in Ukraine and weaken Western support for Kiev. If Russia wants to be part of a multilateral alliance that provides security, it is important to maintain a balanced, nuanced approach that does not alienate either side. However, Moscow also runs the risk of jeopardizing Russia’s relationship with Israel. So far, Israel has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons.

China is also stepping up its efforts to position itself as a neutral mediator for peace in the Middle East as the Israeli-Hararean conflict intensifies, leading to a larger war. The most senior Chinese government diplomat called his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts last Monday to urge restraint. A Chinese envoy is traveling in the Middle East, promising to help avoid a wider war. But as China seeks to cool the conflict through diplomacy, anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment is surging on the Internet and in official media in China, undermining the Chinese government’s efforts to signal neutrality. News of the stabbing of a family member of an Israeli diplomat in Beijing has also been restricted by the government on social media. While China and Israel maintain some economic ties, Israel’s close alliance with the U.S. remains an obstacle to closer Sino-Israeli relations, and it is an indisputable fact that China’s ties with Arab countries have been strengthening in recent years as it seeks to deepen its foothold in the Middle East.

How to End the Eternal Dilemma?

Netanyahu has made clear Israel’s position on the ceasefire issue, calling it a “time of war” and ruling out calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. He has even gone so far as to say that, just as the US would not have agreed to a ceasefire after the Pearl Harbor attack or the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Israel would not have agreed to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the October 7 terrorist attacks, arguing that to call for a ceasefire would be to call on Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to the terrorists, to surrender to the terrorists, to surrender to the terrorists. Israel will not agree to cease hostilities with Hamas

after the October 7 terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist incident, Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they intend to uproot Hamas from the Gaza Strip, both militarily and politically. But it is unclear how this unprecedented ambition will be realized beyond the use of relentless, overwhelming military force. The only fact in the world is that the casualties on both sides have been horrific and dehumanizing on an unprecedented scale.

Organizations such as Save the Children and UNICEF are reviewing data from the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which puts the number of Palestinian child deaths at nearly 3,000, but the actual number is likely to be much higher, as hundreds more are unaccounted for and may be trapped in the rubble. As the war between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate, leaders around the globe will need to ponder this question in the coming days: is killing nearly 1,000 children a week self-defense? It’s a tough question that could pit Israel and its staunch supporters against the rest of the world. Albanese will be asked this question at some point. Six of Australia’s seven living former prime ministers have now issued a rare joint letter condemning Hamas, supporting Israel and calling for unity with Australian Jewry.

The six prime ministers’ letter, while concerned about the harm done to the Palestinians, did not hold Israel responsible for them, calling for peace and reminding Australians not to make enemies of each other through conflict overseas. Former Prime Minister Keating, who did not sign the statement, refused to sign the statement, which was presented to him by a Jewish lobbyist group, because he wanted to avoid being influenced by them to lose his neutrality. However, it has also been pointed out that the statement was written by former Prime Minister David Campbell, and it is believed that the incident will generate more discussion in Australia.

Regardless of how this war, now in its fourth week, will end, the book has turned a new page. In the end, Israel has not been able to escape the conflict that has haunted it since the establishment of its modern state in 1948: two groups – the Jews and the Palestinians – claim the same narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Its wealth, thriving startup culture, and growing acceptance in the Middle East will not always mask Israel’s fundamental instability. Particularly as a result of this blow, Israel is also facing a profound social and political upheaval. The question of when the fires of hatred between Israelis and Palestinians will be quelled and when the civilian catastrophe will end is far from being answered.

Article/Editorial
Photo/Internet