Rude awakening

The morning of October 7, 2023 will go down in Israel’s history as a day of infamy. In an unprecedented act of aggression, Hamas militants, backed by a barrage of rockets, broke through Israel’s security barrier and rampaged through nearby communities.

Over 600 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — a massive toll not experienced in decades — with over 300 being killed in Gaza. The timing is telling as it occurred 50 years and a day after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel was shell-shocked by a complex assault carried out by Egypt and Syria to take back Israeli-occupied territories.

In northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is also backed by Iran, raised fears that the conflict could have broader implications. This is especially pertinent considering how Israel has been taking steps to normalise ties with Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and UAE.

There are also reports detailing how Hamas’ surprise attack by land, sea and air on a Jewish holiday in the Gaza Strip is symbolic of a colossal failure of Israeli intelligence. Security experts are probing how a nation like Israel, which was dependent on the muscle-power of its intelligence networks, including the Shin Bet, its domestic unit, as well as the Mossad, its external spy agency could not have anticipated this assault.

What is also worth understanding is how Hamas stockpiled missiles in such a large quantum that it had even overwhelmed Israel’s renowned all-weather air defence system, the Iron Dome. An average of 5,000 missiles had been fired at Israeli targets by Hamas on Day one of the assault.

Analysts specialising in Middle-Eastern affairs remarked that Jerusalem’s single-minded focus on countering the rhetoric emerging from Iran, especially Tehran’s nuclear programme, provided the proverbial cover-fire that Hamas needed for its incursion.

Iran-backed proxies have been increasing their threats elsewhere, which led to Gaza being relegated to the backburner. Sadly, it was only recently that Israel had agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas. Experts said even back then that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that such truces would only lead to Hamas strengthening its cadre.

While the bombardments continued, another battle was being waged in cyberspace, which is now being weaponised by militant organisations the world over, not just as a means of propaganda, but to even instil fear and panic among target groups.

On a microblogging site, sympathisers of the militant group retweeted shocking footage pertaining to the assault on the civilian populations of Israel that was carried out by Hamas. Footage of a German tattoo artiste killed by militants, who went on to parade her body in the back of a pick-up truck was not taken down by X, just like many other videos of a similar nature.

What we also got to witness was the manner in which news of Hamas’ assault was received in various pockets of the world. Videos of revelries in Istanbul and Tehran celebrating a win for Palestine stood in sharp contrast to proclamations of ‘India stands with Israel’ that were swiftly hijacked by several loyalists associated with right-wing Hindutva outfits in India.

Coupled with the war in Ukraine, the recent Hamas incursion has only set the stage for dark days in the global polity with a clear factioning of loyalties between the West and the Islamic world. The two-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict almost seems like an afterthought at this point in time.