The current Israeli-Palestinian conflagration, for which Hamas alone is responsible, has entered a new phase. Israel will retaliate and Israel's response will focus on Gaza, which is set to suffer its fifth war in less than 20 years. This war could prove more devastating than previous ones, given the appalling human toll and the atrocities committed during the Hamas terrorist attack, which was launched on Saturday, October 7, and mainly killed civilians, and the humiliation suffered by the Israeli authorities, who were apparently completely taken by surprise. In addition to the air strikes that have already claimed the lives of hundreds of Palestinians, Israel declared a siege on this narrow strip of land that has been under a severe Israeli-Egyptian blockade for 16 years.
No country can allow a deliberate attack on its citizens to go unanswered. The aim of the response announced is to neutralize those responsible for killing civilians, the deadliest Israel has ever suffered. The lessons learned from previous Israeli offensives in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, underline the difficulty of such military operations, all the more so as Israeli soldiers are not confronting a regular army but a militia melded into the Palestinian population. Unlike the wars of 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, Israel must also contend with the presence of dozens of hostages captured on Saturday, whom Hamas intends to use as human shields in a despicable calculation.
Past offensives against Gaza have shown the limits of military response. Since the Israeli withdrawal in 2005 and the ousting of the Palestinian Authority two years later, the eradication of Hamas has become illusory. These wars have only resulted in the punctual destruction of its military capabilities and the elimination of some of its cadres and militiamen.
On the other hand, the lack of an alternative political approach meant that they did not lead to the ideological disarmament of Hamas, which meant that it was able to rebuild its forces each time with a view to the next confrontation. Saturday's unprecedented tragedy is the latest proof that Israel's strategy has reached an impasse, without even considering the risks of regional destabilization it may entail.
During these occasional flare-ups, the Israeli army claims not to be deliberately targeting civilians. And yet. Even when classified as collateral damage, the death of civilians remains the death of civilians, and we must fear the toll to come among the Palestinians. These deaths, these strikes that are already terrorizing the population, and the material destruction in a territory already on the verge of collapse, have always been the mainsprings explaining Hamas's resilience.
Among the inevitably imperfect historical comparisons that have been made to give substance to the seismic shift that October 7 has just constituted for Israel, the one with 9/11 has come up again and again. In light of the American reaction and its errors at the time, the only hope is that the Israeli response, in the interests of the populations concerned, does not fuel the perpetuation of the conflict.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.