Its the fourth day since Israel declared war against Hamas in Gaza Strip. This followed the weekend’s unprecedented surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, a worst breach in Israel’s defenses in decades.
On Saturday 7th 0ctober Hamas fighters stormed into Israeli towns, killing 700 Israelis and abducting dozens.
Their invasion involved a barrage of 3,000 rockets fired from Gaza that coincided with incursions by fighters who flew hang gliders, or motorized paragliders, over the border. The fighters used explosives to breach the barriers and then sped across on motorbikes. Bulldozers widened the gaps and more fighters entered in four-wheel drives, scenes that witnesses described.
Hamas had used an unprecedented intelligence tactic to mislead Israel over the last months, by giving a public impression that it was not willing to go into a fight or confrontation with Israel while preparing for this massive operation.
Israel conceded it was caught off guard by an attack timed to coincide with the Jewish Sabbath and a religious holiday.
“This is our 9/11,” said Major Nir Dinar, spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces. “They got us.”
In one of the most striking elements of their preparations, Hamas had constructed a mock Israeli settlement in Gaza where they practiced a military landing and trained to storm it, the source close to Hamas said, adding they even made videos of the maneuvers. Israel surely saw them but they were convinced that Hamas wasn’t keen on getting into a confrontation.
Since a 2021 war with Hamas, Israel had sought to provide a basic level of economic stability in Gaza by offering incentives including thousands of permits so Gazans can work in Israel or the West Bank, where salaries in construction, agriculture or service jobs can be 10 times the level of pay in Gaza.
“We believed that the fact that they were coming in to work and bringing money into Gaza would create a certain level of calm. We were wrong,” another Israeli army spokesperson said.
As part of its subterfuge in the past two years, Hamas refrained from military operations against Israel, even as another Gaza-based Islamist armed group known as Islamic Jihad launched a series of its own assaults or rocket attacks.
In the West Bank, controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group, there were those who mocked Hamas for going quiet. In one Fatah statement published in June 2022, the group accused Hamas leaders of fleeing to Arab capitals to live in “luxurious hotels and villas” leaving their people to poverty in Gaza.
Who are the Hamas
The group’s name is an acronym for Islamic resistance movement. The word Hamas means ”zeal” in Arabic. It was founded in 1967 as an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim brotherhood.
It formed a military wing for an armed struggle called the AL qassam brigades with the aim to liberate historic Palestine.
The group was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and it has politically controlled the Gaza strip since 2007 after driving out another anti-Israel group called Fatah.
Unlike Fatah, Hamas doesn’t give room for peace talks and doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty. It says it only accepts Palestine’s territory based on 1967 borders.
it is considered a terrorist group by United States Of America, Israel, Canada and the EU.
It is supported by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon who are all historical prime enemies of Israel for more than 2500 years.