This is the latest manifestation of Islamic extremism: pogromist jihadism. For hours on Saturday, October 7, and Sunday, October 8, Hamas fighters seized part of Israel. In about 20 small localities along the Gaza Strip, they stalked the population, with one objective: kill, kill as many as possible. They left over 1,200 dead, according to the latest count. Children, women, men of all ages, sometimes entire families.
These killers didn't say "Israeli." They said "Jew," just as they speak of the "Zionist entity," not of Israel, which they don't recognize and whose disappearance their charter promises.
They massacred dozens of people attending an open-air rave party and kidnapped young girls as well as children and the elderly, transferring some 60 hostages to the Gaza territory. Each day brings more details, each more atrocious, on the slaughter experienced by Israel on these dark days.
No matter how well-founded, contextual analyses of the Hamas attack on Israel must not prevent us from stating the facts, precisely so as not to add to the tragedy. In the realm of mass terrorism, Hamas has unleashed a singular barbarity against a civilian population, with indiscriminate murders and hostage-taking that constitute crimes against humanity.
Vacated in 2004 by Israel, which had seized it in 1967, the territory of Gaza is a sandy strip of some 360 square kilometers bordered for 40 kilometers by the Mediterranean coast. It is home to over 2 million Palestinians, who have been living under a double punishment since 2007: the Hamas dictatorship and a merciless Egyptian-Israeli blockade. Created in 1987, Hamas is the Islamist wing of the Palestinian national movement, competing with Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Among the multitude of questions raised by the aftermath of the bloodbath, two stand out: Can the war spread? And are the Abraham Accords dead? [ The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on September 15, 2020.]
For Israel, engaged in what promises to be a long and bloody campaign against Hamas in the south, the danger also comes from the north. For more than a year, contacts between Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, a subsidiary of Iran's Defense Forces, have been increasing in Beirut. Also armed by Tehran (and financed by Qatar), Hamas has renewed its ties with Bashar al-Assad's Syria, an Iranian protectorate.
Iran loudly welcomed the massacres of October 7 and 8. Did it know in advance? Without necessarily being convincing, this is what is claimed in two articles published on October 9, one in the Wall Street Journal, the other in the Lebanese daily L'Orient Le Jour. The Iranians deny this and, to date, neither the United States nor Israel have accused Iran of being directly involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
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