Waking up to thousands of rockets flying over ahead, slamming into every city block, home, business, building, killing your friends and family. Hundreds of innocent citizens died in only a few hours for no apparent reason. The only motive, hatred. That’s what it was like only just over a week ago in Israel.
The ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’ Hamas, fired thousands of rockets upon multiple Israel cities Saturday morning on October 7th. Soon after the rockets hit, Hamas broke through multiple points in the border and attacked. In a few short hours hundreds of people were killed, mainly consisting of civilians going about their weekend, according to The Washington Post.. People were pulled from their homes and places of work to be taken as a hostage or executed. This continued over the entirety of the weekend, it is estimated by CNN and the UN that up to 1,200 people in Israel have been killed and up to 3,000 injured in the attacks.
In recent years there has been lack of contact relations between these two countries. Since May 21st, 2021, Israel and Palestine agreed on a cease-fire, organized by Egypt, after Israel launched missiles on the intended target of the Gaza strip. Instead of hitting the strip, Israel hit residential buildings, media head-quaters, and non-military infrastructure. This led to an 11 day war, killing over 260 palestinians and Israelians, injuring over 2,000 total, and displacing 72,000, according to CNN. This war ultimately led to the cease-fire in 2021, which was broken by Gaza on October 7th, 2023.
Hamas has been in control of Gaza since 2007 after winning Gaza’s legislative election in 2006. Since the late 1990’s, Hamas has been internationally recognized as a terrorist group. Over the past 40 years Hamas has reaped over 25,000 members and counting, the majority from in-country. There have been multiple leaders of Hamas, the main one reigning since 2017, Ismail Haniyeh. Ismail Haniyeh has been the leader of Hamas since 2017 and formally one of 2 disputed prime ministers of Palestine.
As the war rages on in Israel, thousands more are expected to die from the conflict between these countries. With the deaths following displacement, Israel has ordered 1.1 million citizens of northern Gaza to evacuate, while Gaza is urging them to stay in their homes. Joe Biden, the United State’s President, said this, “I think they have to know that the President of the United States of America cares deeply about what’s happened to them. Deeply.”