Kate is a Senior Trends Reporter at HuffPost UK, covering the day's most compelling stories. She has worked in the national news since she became a qualified journalist and was previously a reporter with Express.co.uk
Palestinians celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.The shocking brutality of this crisis has already stunned the international community – but, it is a conflict which has been ongoing for decades.Critics of Tel Aviv claim they are fighters who are liberating the Palestinian territories in an act of revolution against Israeli occupation.
At least 2,200 rockets and mortars were launched into Israeli territory on Saturday morning, and bulldozers were used to knock down the physical barriers around parts of occupied Palestinian land. Hamas also didn’t join in with another Gaza-based islamist armed group, Islamic Jihad, when it launched attacks against Israel – meaning Saturday’s offensive caught Tel Aviv completely unaware.It’s also a notable attack because most battles between Israel and the Arab states have also been fought outside of its borders, or through rocket artillery.Immediately after the offensive, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known.
This part of the Middle East has been torn apart with tensions for decades, and there have been many failed attempts to establish peace.It ultimately comes down to a dispute about who the land belongs to – Israeli Jews or Palestinian Arabs. The region is holy to both populations . But once it gained independence, Israel immediately faced pushback from five neighbour Arab states. When this conflict was resolved, Israel had more land and more Jewish occupants from surrounding countries, while more Palestinian Arabs had fled.A subsequent war in 1967 saw Israel occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Today, the West Bank is controlled by the Palestinian Authority but under Israeli occupation, while Gaza is controlled by Hamas but under Israeli blockade.
He pointed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank – dating back to 1967 – and the detention of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails as motives for the attacks. It may have been strategically timed as well. Israel has been facing a difficult domestic period, because of the far-right government’s efforts to reduce the judiciary’s powers.The US, the UK and the EU – among others – have openly voiced their support for Tel Aviv and reiterated its right to defend itself against “Hamas terrorists”.
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