The Israel-Gaza conflict, briefly explained

Tuesday, October 10, 2023:

Hey readers,

Today’s Sentences will center on the Israel-Hamas war.

Do you have questions about what might happen next in the war? Let us know here.

—Izzie Ramirez, Future Perfect deputy editor

Peace between Israel and Palestine seems further away than ever.

Sameh Rahmi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Israel and Hamas — the political and military organization that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 — are involved in their worst conflict in decades. It’s one that has already claimed over 1,700 lives, and likely will claim many more. Here’s what you need to know:

The lowdown: Over the weekend, Hamas fighters launched a large-scale attack across Israel's southern border with Gaza, killing and capturing Israeli soldiers and civilians. 

• The fighting in southern Israel is ongoing, with reports that Hamas has brought at least 100 Israeli hostages back to Gaza, including women, children, and elderly people. 

• Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes have already killed more than 800 Palestinians, though it’s not clear how many were civilians. More than 900 Israelis have been killed. Those figures will likely only grow.

• The Israeli government declared “full” war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, “our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known.” 

The unprecedented scale, arguably, is the biggest difference between today’s war and previous moments of tension, says reporter Ellen Ioanes.

“The size of this attack, the number of Israeli civilian casualties, the fact that Hamas was able to completely evade Israel's very strong security and intelligence apparatuses — that was monumental,” she explained to me. 

The stakes: The international community has largely abandoned efforts to find a political solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian territorial dispute, and the humanitarian crisis that’s resulted. Now, there is likely to be a long, bloody conflict involving significant deaths on both sides, with Palestinians set to bear the brunt of the casualties and destruction going forward.

“There is no military solution to this crisis, and the international community has been unwilling or unable to invest in the institutions that would make a political settlement possible, thus breaking the cycle of horrific violence,” Ellen told me. 

For more, read Ellen, Zack Beauchamp, and Jonathan Guyer’s piece that answers 7 big questions you might have about the Israel-Hamas war.

Read their explainer here. 

More on the unprecedented strike on Israel

Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Nothing like this has happened in the modern history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Vox’s world and politics teams are here to help you understand the war, the history behind it, and what it means for the people living in Israel and Gaza. We’ve created a hub for updates here — bookmark it to keep track of developing stories. 

• Background reading: What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting? Here’s a handy explainer for understanding the tensions between the two. 

• Why did Hamas invade Israel? We can start by examining the conditions that made Hamas possible, writes ideology and democracy reporter Zack Beauchamp.

• This Gaza war didn’t come from nowhere. The ongoing reality of the occupation hasn't been top of mind for Western or Arab leaders in recent years, and that’s led to the current conflict, explains foreign policy reporter Jonathan Guyer. 
   
• Benjamin Netanyahu failed Israel. The prime minister’s “mowing the grass” strategy — a.k.a. breaking the will of Palestinians, with violence when necessary, while keeping Hamas within acceptable parameters — didn’t work. 
   
• What a “complete siege” of Gaza means for Palestinians. Gaza already was under one of the world’s most restrictive blockades, with Palestinians living in what humanitarians call an “open-air prison.” The war will make an already bad situation worse. 

Israel, Hamas, and how we got here

This Israeli-Palestinian war is unlike the ones that came before it, says Haaretz’s Allison Kaplan Sommer. But it was years in the making, says Vox’s Zack Beauchamp.

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