The attacks perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7 and the subsequent bombings in the Gaza Strip have attracted media attention in recent months. Waves of demonstrations broke out here as elsewhere, and calls for a ceasefire and the release of hostages increased. Here are some keys that could serve as a basis for healthy discussions about this conflict during the holidays.
Tensions in the Middle East have lasted for almost a century
Although the deadly attacks by the militant group Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7 left their mark and focused the world’s attention on the Middle East, this is not the starting point of the Israeli conflict. Palestinian, far from it. Tensions in the region have lasted for decades. Israel has also been bombing the Gaza Strip for years, which has been governed by Hamas since 2007. The maneuvers of the Jewish state in the Palestinian enclave have, however, taken on a completely different scale since the attacks last October on the Israeli territory, which caused hundreds of civilian casualties.
The origin of tensions in this sector dates back mainly to 1917, with the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government supported the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, where a predominantly Arab population had lived for centuries. .
Thirty years later, in 1948, Jewish militias attacked Palestinian villages, forcing the exile of more than 750,000 of their inhabitants. An exodus now called in Arabic “ Nakba ” (” Disaster “). Over the following decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would experience several violent episodes, but its scale reached a strength rarely reached this year – with 1,200 deaths reported in Israel and nearly 20,000 in the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians.
Gaza is a small territory of 360 km²
The Gaza Strip covers 360 square kilometers, a territory smaller than the island of Montreal. Its current borders date from the Six Day War in 1967, at the end of which Israel, among other things, took control of this territory and the West Bank. The Jewish state then occupied the enclave. Several Jewish colonies were established there and remained there until 2005, the year which marked the complete withdrawal of Israel from the territory. The Israeli government subsequently imposed a military and maritime siege on Gaza, cutting the territory off from the rest of the world and significantly restricting its economic activity.
At the same time, Israel continues to build Jewish settlements deemed illegal by international law in the West Bank, and the proportion of Arabs in Israel is falling in favor of a Jewish population which today accounts for nearly 74% of the inhabitants, according to official Israeli government data. Canada has also denounced in recent days the recent increase in attacks carried out by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, a territory represented by the Palestinian Authority, currently led by Mahmoud Abbas.
The Hamas movement has grown with popular discontent
Twenty years after the Six Day War, in 1987, the Palestinians launched their first intifada (popular uprising) to denounce the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Acts of civil disobedience and violence were then committed against the Jewish settlers and the Israeli army, which responded with disproportionate force which led to the deaths of more than 1,000 Palestinians in the following years.
In the Gaza Strip, popular discontent contributes to the rise of the Hamas group, an Islamist movement which demands the end of Israel to return this territory to the Palestinian population.
Due to the acts of violence it resorts to in response to the Israeli occupation, the militant group, which took control of the Palestinian enclave in 2007, is considered a terrorist organization by several Western countries, including Canada and the United States. -United.
Peace negotiations have stalled for at least a decade
Peace negotiations have stalled since 2014, when the Palestine Liberation Organization temporarily allied with Hamas to form a national unity government. “Anyone who chooses the terror of Hamas does not want peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said at the time, when announcing the suspension of talks.
About twenty years earlier, in 1993, a wind of hope had blown over the region at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords, which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. However, tension persisted between Israeli and Palestinian governments, among other things because of the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A second intifada subsequently stretched over five years, from 2000 to 2005.
The rare discussions between Israel and Hamas now aim to determine the conditions of a possible ceasefire in Gaza, in particular in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.