On Oct 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza Strip.
Hamas militants fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of fighters into Israeli towns near
the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented early morning attack. Backed by a barrage of rockets, dozens of
Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and carried out indiscriminate killings.
It is believed that several Israelis including IDF personnel have been taken hostage.
Israel is fighting back with aerial and ground offensive.
While the situation is fluid, certain aspects can be dissected right now.
In this video, Defense Updates reports on Hamas's attack on Israel.
Let's get into the key aspects one by one.
The scope of this infiltration attack indicates a huge level of planning and preparation spanning
months or years. Around 5,000 rockets seem to have been deployed and fired within about 30 minutes.
It is also unclear how Hamas fighters were able to get in through very
strong border defenses without much counter-fire from Israeli forces.
The militants penetrated the Israeli territory by land, sea,
and air, taking civilians hostage and waging urban battles in densely populated areas.
Hamas fighters used motorcycles, pickup trucks and boats in a highly coordinated manner.
In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel.
It is highly likely that a foreign entity has helped Hamas plan this.
Such a number of ammunition can’t be accumulated in 1 or 2 days and
a significant number of Hamas fighters must have been involved. Given the elaborate preparation,
Israel should have been able to detect this through human,
signals or electronic intelligence. There are no two ways about it - this is a massive
intelligence failure. The last time Israel was blindsided this badly was the '73 war.
The failure is augmented by the fact that Israel should have anticipated some sort
of provocation given that they were close to a peace deal with the Saudis.
Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage
such a huge and coordinated attack — without triggering Israeli intelligence apparatus.
The outbreak of violence is occurring during a challenging period for Israel,
marked by the largest protests in its history. These protests are in response
to Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposal to curtail the powers of the Supreme Court,
while he is concurrently facing a corruption trial.
This protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of attempting to consolidate power,
has deeply polarized Israeli society and triggered internal unrest within the Israeli military.
In a statement posted on X, the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for a
de-escalation of violence but said it "holds Israel solely responsible for the ongoing
escalation due to its ongoing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people."
A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Saudi Arabia was "closely monitoring
the unprecedented developments between various Palestinian factions and the
Israeli occupation forces, resulting in an escalation of violence on several fronts".
It further noted that Saudi Arabia had issued repeated warnings of a possible escalation in
light of "the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of
their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations
against their sanctities". The statement continued, “the latest of which was the
repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police,"
Given the widespread support for the Palestinians being voiced by various Arab governments in
the region - the progress of the Abraham Accords has suffered significant damage.
The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between
Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on September 15, 2020.
Mediated by the United States, the initial announcement of August 13,
2020, concerned only Israel and the United Arab Emirates before the announcement of a
follow-up agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020.
In December 2020, the Israel–Morocco normalization agreement was signed.
On January 6, 2021, following up on the Israel–Sudan normalization agreement,
the government of Sudan signed the "Abraham Accords Declaration"
in Khartoum, witnessed by American treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The U.S.-Saudi-Israeli deal is also shaping up. Several experts have pointed out that the timing
of the attack is not coincidental but is designed to derail the U.S.-Saudi-Israeli arrangement.
An adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei said Iran
supported the Palestinians’ attack, the semi-official ISNA news site reported.
“We congratulate the Palestinian fighters,” it quoted adviser Rahim Safavi as saying. “We
will stand by the Palestinian fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem.”
Some Israeli experts have already pointed figures at Iran for this attack.
Iran supports numerous proxies & militias in the region,
including Hamas & Hezbollah. There is the possibility that Hezbollah could also jump in,
if Iran directs it so. Their participation would pose a dual-front challenge for
Israel and introduce a substantial number of additional hostile forces into the conflict.
The extent of brutality witnessed so far, including verified executions of Israeli soldiers
and civilians, public displays of deceased IDF personnel (including one female soldier),
and indiscriminate violence against Israeli civilians, means that the Israeli leadership
has no maneuvering space when it comes to formulating the scale of response.
Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, “We will turn all the places in this evil city where Hamas
is hiding into ruins. What happened today will not be seen in Israel and
I will make sure it does not happen again. The IDF will immediately use its full force
to destroy Hamas' capabilities. We will avenge this black day.”
It is not hard to imagine that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) will respond aggressively
and this will be very damaging for Hamas. Make no mistake, Israel is very strong militarily.
According to SIPRI or Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
Israel is a key global supplier of advanced weaponry, including drones,
missiles, radar technology, and other weapons systems. In 2020,
it was the 12th-biggest arms supplier with more than $345m in weapons sales to 16 countries.
Israel has military might and history tells us that
the country has mental toughness needed in this kind of situation.