Israel’s response to the massacre of October 7 is through the entry of the army into Gaza. And it raises the uncomfortable question of knowing what will be the future of a territory on which the Jewish State has practiced a blockade that lasts 15 years.
Between September 15 and 18, 1982, hundreds of militiamen of the Lebanese Phalange penetrated the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila, west of Beirut. They were armed with pistols, axes and daggers. There were murders of children, shootings of elders, summary executions and rapes. When they left the camp, they left 3,000 corpses behind.
The slaughter of Sabra and Xatila is the antecedent, in ferocity and ferocity, of the slaughter by Hamas on October 7 in the Israeli communities close to Gaza. Christian militiamen did the dirty work. And the Israeli army logistics. He handed over the jeeps to transport them and surrounded the perimeter to make their job easier.
Sabra and Xatila caused divisions within the government of Israel. It was one thing to momentarily invade Lebanon and another to let the Maronites in to carry out their revenge. But the Israeli hawks were uneasy about the Palestinians in Lebanon. They had just achieved the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the country. The killing could be the final file on the file.
Historian Lawrence Freedman says that in war it is important to align political goals with military means. No matter how competent the means are, if they do not achieve the objective sought, they must be reconsidered. The Israeli hawks may have thought that the punishment of the Palestinians in Lebanon was well worth Sabra and Xatila. But the relief was short-lived and the offensive left lasting wounds. Where there were OAP guerrillas before, those from Hizbullah soon arrived.
On October 7, Hamas surprised the Israeli army with an incursion that ended in the most significant massacre since the founding of the Israeli State in 1948 (1,400 dead). They broke through the Hebrew defense lines. They evaded their intelligence systems. And they sowed terror with all kinds of atrocities.
Israel has always thought that anti-Semitism is a universal evil that cannot be eradicated. And that no one will defend them better than themselves. That’s why, after the initial shock, they look for a response equal to the aggression.
Why the cruelty of Hamas? out of hate Because in the modern dirty war the facts are recorded and spread. Because Israel is divided. To end the idyll between Tel-Aviv and the Arab capitals. To tell the Israelis that they will never rest easy. To gain followers. To attract attention. And then? Very simple: kidnap the enemy to negotiate and wait for him to enter hostile territory. In other words, the martyrdom of the population on whose behalf he claims to speak.
There are Palestinians in refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. And populations in the West Bank and Gaza.
Gaza is the least powerful territory on the planet. The most isolated Without geopolitics to protect it. It has no state. There are 2.23 million people in a territory the size of the Maresme. Full of poor people and with an explosive demographic: the average age is less than twenty years (in Spain it is 41).
Until 1985 its economy was linked to Israel. The 2000 intifada and suicide attacks ended this model. In 1998 they inaugurated an airport. Israel shut it down months later. He also closed the fishing industry to prevent arms smuggling. In 2005 Israel left Gaza. I didn’t really know what to do with her. A year later Hamas won the elections.
Gaza was declared hostile territory. The blockade and periodic bombings are the only thing that half of its population has known in its entire life. Hamas expanded the tunnel economy to live off smuggling from Egypt. But that too ended in 2013. Today, almost a million people in Gaza live off UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Does anyone have a future in mind for Gaza? Hamas does not. Neither does Israel. He has always thought that the siege and oblivion could last forever. In addition, Israel is now very busy knowing how far it can go with the ground offensive. They come in to finish off Hamas and eradicate it. Without knowing exactly what this means and what the cost will be in lives.
The Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, assures that they do not plan to stay when the operation is over. But this is a reflection to get out of the way.
In circles of the Biden administration, they remember what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and emphasize what to think about the day after. Israelis, they reason, must not let themselves be blinded by anger and make the same mistakes that Americans made after the 9/11 attacks.
But this thought must seem alien to the Israeli government, full of extremists in favor of expelling the Gazans from their scarce land. Some talk about expelling them directly. Others to reduce the number by half. Or to confine them in an even smaller space. The Palestinians, meanwhile, fear another Nakba, an exodus like the one in 1948.
Danny Ayalon, an influential Israeli diplomat, asked about the fate of the inhabitants of Gaza, says: “We don’t tell them to go to the beaches or to drown. [we tell them] to go to the Sinai desert… there the international community will build them cities and give them food”.
Between Biden’s ideal and the temptation to get them out of Gaza, there must be a middle ground that avoids a regional war, that preserves the dignity of the West and saves the lives of the most unfortunate. The Palestinian count is now at 4,137 dead.
