Israel-Gaza: What could happen next? – 20 October 2023
ISRAEL has been urged to protect innocent people in Gaza as its conflict with Hamas continues.
Hamas is an armed Islamist group that controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Two weeks ago, it launched a shocking attack on Israel, killing around 1,300 people. In response, Israel began hitting Gaza with airstrikes, causing widespread destruction in the territory.
Hamas’ aim is to destroy Israel, while Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that every Hamas member is a “dead man”. The conflict has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. As First News went to press, around 2,800 had been killed there and its population of 2.3 million people were in desperate need of aid.
The next stage of the conflict is likely to see Israel launch a ground assault on Gaza, which is when soldiers enter a territory to fight on land. Ahead of this, Israel told the 1.1 million civilians in the north of Gaza to head south, including 2,000 patients in local hospitals. The World Health Organization criticised this demand and called it a “death sentence” because many of the hospital patients depend on life-support machines and incubators.
Israel previously cut off Gaza’s fuel and water supply and left the territory without electricity. Amnesty International said this was “illegal and inhumane.”
The UK and the USA have supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, but Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said: “The way that Israel does this matters. It needs to do it in a way that affirms the shared values that we have for human life… taking every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians. Civilians should not have to suffer for Hamas’ atrocities.”
A safe route is expected to open up that will allow civilians in the south of Gaza to escape across the border to Egypt. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi thinks Israel has gone too far. He said: “The [Israeli] reaction went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza.”
Israel’s planned ground assault on Gaza is complicated by the fact that it says Hamas is holding 199 hostages. It’s feared one British girl may be among them, after her sister and mother were killed. The United Nations (UN) has ordered Hamas to release these hostages “without conditions”. So far, 14 UN workers have been killed in Gaza.
The conflict is leading to protests around the world. France has banned pro-Palestinian protests, as they see them as a threat to the wider public. In the USA, the conflict motivated a landlord to attack his Muslim tenants in a hate crime, killing their six-year-old son.
Here in the UK, anti-Semitic attacks (targeting Jewish people) have quadrupled since Hamas launched its attack and some Jewish schools in London shut last week over concerns for pupils’ safety.
Published Friday 20 October 2023
Picture credit: Getty
