On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched an unprecedented terrorist attack against Israel, killing around 1,200 people, marking the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust. This attack was a substantial escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian decades long conflict and has since led to severe geopolitical repercussions.
Hamas, known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has been designated as a terrorist group by many countries including the UK and the US. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, and its goal is to create an Islamic state and to eradicate Israel, regardless of any damage it will cause in the process. Hamas has stated that its attack was retaliation for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Despite Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas has conducted numerous attacks on Israel since 2007, though far less severe compared to the October 7th attack, with Israel retaliating against these.
In the early morning of October 7th, Hamas began an attack against Israel by firing thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli cities and towns. The overwhelming number of rockets launched into Israel weakened the Iron Dome system, reducing the effectiveness of Israel’s defence system in response to the attack. After this initial attack, thousands of Hamas terrorists entered Israel in an unprecedented ground assault, utilising explosives to break through the security fences to enter the border. Many terrorists entered by ground, others by motorised paragliders, and began attacking neighbourhoods and numerous kibbutzim, including Yahini, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza and Be’eri, carrying out mass shooting and abducting large number of residents. One major assault on that day included the attack at Supernova Festival, an outdoor music festival attended by several thousand young people in southern Israel. Hamas terrorists opened fire on the festival attendees, killing over 360 people and abducting around 40 hostages. In total, on October 7th around 250 were taken as hostages and 1,200 people were killed.
As a result of this terrorist attack, Israel retaliated by taking part in a large-scale campaign of air strikes on targets in Gaza. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated his goal of destroying Hamas and returning the remaining Israeli hostages kept in Gaza. The attack on October 7th has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis, as well as had devastating consequences politically and internationally, and the conflict persists, showing no signs of resolution a year later.
Thumbnail: Nizzan Cohen, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
