“There is a triple dimension of air, land and sea, with attackers who have penetrated Israeli territory in its depths,” notes David Khalfa, co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory at the foundation. Jean Jaurès.
More than 5,000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip and commandos infiltrated by sea, air and land. The armed wing of Palestinian Hamas launched a large-scale offensive on Saturday October 7 against Israel, which responded with strikes. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke of a “war” and the international community condemned this Hamas attack. “We are heading towards a long war”fears David Khalfa, Middle East specialist and co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory at the Jean-Jaurès foundation.
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Franceinfo: why did Hamas attack Israel at this precise moment?
David Khalfa: The first aspect is symbolic, since it is the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. [déclenchée par une coalition militaire menée par la Syrie et l’Egypte contre Israël, le 6 octobre 1973]. Hamas has a sense of timing and aims, through this attack, to mobilize an Islamo-nationalist imagination which finds a certain echo among the radicals of the Arab-Muslim world.
The second aspect is linked to the situation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas’s record in terms of governance is disastrous. It is an authoritarian regime obsessed with its survival.
Finally, Hamas has identified the polarization of Israeli society as a weakness that it intends to exploit. The country finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented political-institutional crisis, with weekly demonstrations. And we must not forget the influence of Iran, which perceives the normalization negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as an affront and wants to damage Israel’s image internationally by forcing this country to enter into a bloody land war.
How is this offensive unique?
This operation is unprecedented in its scale and modus operandi. It is both massive and sophisticated, since we are talking about an infiltration by sea, air and land, with attackers who have penetrated Israeli territory into its depths. More than 5,000 rockets have already been fired towards Israeli territory in a desire by Palestinian Islamists to saturate Israeli anti-aircraft defense. It is also unprecedented in terms of the number of victims, the overwhelming majority of whom are civilians. Soldiers and civilians, including families with women and children, were also kidnapped by Hamas.
How can we explain that Israel seems to have seen nothing coming?
It is an unprecedented attack, and some in Israel are already condemning a historic failure of the army and intelligence staff. There is a real question about the level of intelligence preparation on the Israeli side, which is this country’s major asset. There is an effect of astonishment in the country. It is a catastrophic scenario with apocalyptic scenes and terror spreading through the population.
Israel is a high-tech military power, and what is striking is the slowness of the response and the apparent operational difficulty of the IDF [l’armée de défense d’Israël] to identify commandos who literally wandered the streets of the south of the country. It has been a country in a state of war and permanent alert since its creation, but that was not enough to avoid this scenario. Usually, it is Israel which dictates the tempo, here it is Hamas which chose the place, the time and the modus operandi.
Is a war inevitable after this major attack?
Hamas won a symbolic victory, but the medium and long term consequences will be terrible for Hamas and Gazans [les habitants de la bande de Gaza, qui compte environ deux millions d’habitants]. This will last several weeks, even several months. Israel responds with airstrikes, before the likely launch of a possible ground invasion. This is a real war that will drag on over time.