By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and Operation Swords of Iron are military operations that began on 7 October 2023 when rockets were fired by Palestinian militants at Israel from the Gaza Strip, with the latter being the Israeli counter-operation. This was accompanied by militant infiltrations into kibbutzim surrounding Gaza and the Israeli city of Sderot, which included the taking of hostages. Palestinian media reported the kidnapping of Israeli families and elderly people to Gaza.

In response, Israel launched raids on the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved the call-up of reserve forces.

Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri stated that the "Mujahideen" had begun an operation to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque and liberate the prisoners. Al-Qassam Brigades published pictures of captured Israeli soldiers. Navigation traffic was disrupted at airports in central and south Israel.

The operation began with a surprise attack, which Hamas states is in response to Israel's "desecration of Al-Aqsa". And occurred only a day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, which also began with a surprise attack. It is also the culmination of a massive wave of violence in Israel throughout the High Holy Days.The attack began at 06:34 in the morning with a widespread launch of Palestinian rockets towards Israel, from Dimona in the south to Hod HaSharon in the north and Jerusalem in the east. Hits were observed in many places, and some resulted in casualties, especially in the Bedouin communities.

With the rocket fire, dozens of Palestinian militants infiltrated communities in the Gaza envelope, including through drones and breaches in the IDF fence, riding on motorcycles and ATVs. The IDF was caught entirely off guard by the attack. The Palestinian militants infiltrated Israeli towns as Sderot, Ofakim, and Netivot, killed several unarmed civilians, and took hostages in kibbutzim near the border. According to Israel's Police Commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, there are still 21 active hotspots in the southern region.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved a wide-scale call-up of reserves and declared a special state in a radius of up to 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip border. About an hour after the attack began, the IDF spokesperson instructed residents of the south and central regions to stay close to protected areas and within the Gaza envelope in a protected space. About two hours after the attack began, the IDF began its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas' military wing, presented the reason for the attack as the "Jewish ascent to the Temple Mount" during the Sukkot holiday and called on the residents of the Gaza Strip and Arab Israelis to join the attack, which he referred to as "Operation al-Aqsa".

In the Palestinian media, it was reported that bodies of Israeli soldiers were captured in the territory of the Gaza Strip, as well as Israeli military vehicles as "war booty." Israeli authorities did not confirm these reports.

Militants arrived at a nature party (outdoor rave) in the Re'im Forest, fired shots at participants, and threw grenades. They also arrived at the Priaon and fired many shots.

 

Background History

From a historical point of view, one could say that 'Israel' has manifested itself three times in history. The first manifestation began with the invasion led by Joshua. It lasted through its division into two kingdoms, the Babylonian conquest of the Kingdom of Judah and the deportation to Babylon early in the sixth century B.C. The second manifestation began when Israel was recreated in 540 B.C. by the Persians, who had defeated the Babylonians. The nature of this second manifestation changed in the fourth century B.C. when Greece overran the Persian Empire and Israel and again in the first century B.C. when the Romans conquered the region.

The second manifestation saw Israel as a minor actor within the framework of more considerable imperial powers. This situation lasted until the Romans destroyed the Jewish vassal state.

Israel’s third manifestation began in 1948, following (as in the other cases) an ingathering of at least some Jews who had been dispersed after conquests. Israel’s founding takes place in the context of the decline and fall of the British Empire and must, at least in part, be understood as part of British imperial history.

Israel’s reality today is this. It is a small country, yet it must manage threats far outside its region. It can survive only if it maneuvers with great powers commanding more significant resources. Israel cannot match the resources, so it must constantly be clever. There are periods when it is relatively safe because of great power alignments, but its normal condition is one of global unease.

On the other hand, the Arabs don’t care about the Palestinians other than for the destruction of Israel. For example, Gaza is a nightmare into which the Egyptians forced Palestinians (fleeing Israel).

The idea for what were de facto Arab-Muslims to call themselves 'Palestinians' came as a reaction to the Jewish migration to what is now Israel after WWI. When World War I ended, the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the Middle East, ended.

Shortly after the British took over in 1920, they moved the Hashemites to an area in the northern part of the peninsula, on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Centered around Amman, they named this protectorate carved from Syria “Trans-Jordan,” as in “the other side of the Jordan River,” since it lacked any other obvious identity. After the British withdrew in 1948, Trans-Jordan became contemporary Jordan. The Hashemites also had been given another kingdom, Iraq, in 1921, which they lost to a coup by Nasserist military officers in 1958.

West of the Jordan River and south of Mount Hermon was a region that had been an administrative district of Syria under the Ottomans. It had been called “Philistia” mostly, undoubtedly, after the Philistines whose Goliath had fought David thousands of years before. Names here have a history. The term Philistine eventually came to be known as Palestine, a name derived from ancient Greek,  which is what the British named the region.

The French region was further subdivided. The French had been allied with the Maronite Christians during a civil war that raged in the region in the 1860s. Paris owed them a debt, so it turned the predominantly Maronite region of Syria into a separate state, naming it Lebanon after the dominant topographical characteristic of the area, Mount Lebanon. As a state, Lebanon had no prior reality, nor even a unified ethno-sectarian identity; its main unifying feature was that demographically, it was dominated by French allies.

The British region was also divided. The Hashemites, who ruled the western Hejaz region of the Arabian Peninsula, had supported the British, rising against the Ottomans.

In return, the British had promised to make them rulers of some sort of Arabian Empire after the war. But in addition to the Hashemites, London was also allied with the French and with other tribes against the Ottomans and thus could not make the Hashemites the unquestioned rulers of all of Arabia (the Peninsula as well as the Levant). Furthermore, the Sauds in 1900 had launched the reconquest of Arabia from Kuwait and had gained control over the eastern and central parts of the peninsula. By the mid-1920s, the Hashemites lost control over the arm to the Sauds, paving the way for the eventual creation of Saudi Arabia.

But by then, the British had moved the Hashemites to an area in the northern part of the peninsula, on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Centered around Amman, they named this protectorate carved from Syria “Trans-Jordan,” as in “the other side of the Jordan River,” since it lacked any other apparent identity. After the British withdrew in 1948, Trans-Jordan became contemporary Jordan. The Hashemites also had been given another kingdom, Iraq, in 1921, which they lost to a coup by Nasserist military officers in 1958.

West of the Jordan River and south of Mount Hermon was a region that had been an administrative district of Syria under the Ottomans. It had been called “Philistia” mostly, undoubtedly, after the Philistines whose Goliath had fought David thousands of years before. Names here have a history. The term Philistine eventually came to be known as Palestine, a name derived from ancient Greek — and that is what the British named the region, whose capital was Jerusalem.

Significantly, while the people of this area were referred to as Palestinians, a demand for a Palestinian state was virtually nonexistent in 1918. The European concept of national identity at this time was still very new to the Arab region of the Ottoman Empire. There were clear distinctions in the region, however. Arabs were not Turks. Muslims were not Christians, nor were they Jews. Within the Arab world, there were religious, tribal, and regional conflicts. For example, tensions existed between the Hashemites from the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabs settled in Trans-Jordan. Still, these were not defined as tensions between Jordan and Palestine. They were ancient and genuine but were not thought of in national terms.

European Jews had been moving into this region under Ottoman rule since the 1880s, joining relatively small Jewish communities that had existed there (and in most other Arab regions) for centuries. The movement was part of the Zionist movement, which, motivated by European definitions of nationalism, sought to create a Jewish state in the region. The Jews came in small numbers, settling on land purchased for them by funds raised by Jews in Europe. Usually, this land was bought from absentee landlords in Cairo and elsewhere who had gained ownership of the land under the Ottomans. The landlords sold the land out from under the feet of Arab tenants, dispossessing them. From the Jewish point of view, this was a legitimate acquisition of land. From the tenants’ point of view, this was a direct assault on their livelihood and eviction from land their families had farmed for generations. And so it began first as real estate transactions, winding up as partition, dispossession, and conflict after World War II and the massive influx of Jews after the Holocaust.

As other Arab regions became nation-states in the European sense of the word, their views of the region developed. Those who adopted the Syrian identity, for example, saw Palestine as an integral part of Syria, much as they saw Lebanon and Jordan. They saw the Sykes-Picot agreement as a violation of Syrian territorial integrity. They opposed the existence of an independent Jewish state for the same reason they opposed Lebanese or Jordanian independence. Elements of Pan-Arab nationalism and Islamic identity informed this Syrian view but were not the key factors behind it. Instead, the critical factor was the view that Palestine was a province of the sovereign entity known as Syria, and those we call Palestinians today were simply Syrians. The Syrians have always been uncomfortable with Palestinian statehood, though not with the destruction of Israel, and invaded Lebanon in the 1970s to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah.

The Jordanian view of the Palestinians was even more uncomfortable. The Hashemites were very different from the region’s original inhabitants. After partitioning the British-administered Palestine in 1948, Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But there were deep tensions with the Palestinians, and the Hashemites saw Israel as a guarantor of Jordanian security against the Palestinians. They never intended an independent Palestinian state (they could have granted it independence between 1948 and 1967). In September 1970, they fought a bloody war against the Palestinians, forcing the PLO out of Jordan and into Lebanon. The Jordanians remain very fearful that the last vestige of the Hashemite monarchy could collapse under the weight of Palestinians in the kingdom and the West Bank, paving the way for a Palestinian takeover of Jordan.

The Egyptians also have been uncomfortable with the Palestinians. Under the monarchy prior to the rise of Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1952, Egypt was hostile to Israel’s creation. But when the Egyptian army drove into what is now called Gaza in 1948, Cairo saw Gaza as an extension of the Sinai Peninsula, as it saw the Negev Desert. It viewed the region as an extension of Egypt, not a distinct state.

Nasser’s position was even more radical. He envisioned a single, united Arab republic, both secular and socialist. He thought of Palestine not as an independent state but as part of the United Arab Republic (founded as a federation of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961). Yasser Arafat was partly a creation of Nasser’s secular socialist championing of Arab nationalism. The liberation of Palestine from Israel was central to Arab nationalism, though this did not necessarily imply an independent Palestinian republic.

Arafat’s role in defining the Palestinians in the minds of Arab countries also must be understood. Nasser was hostile to the conservative monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. He intended to overthrow them, knowing that incorporating them was essential to a united Arab regime. These regimes, in return, saw Arafat, the PLO, and the Palestinian movement as a direct threat.

Palestinian nationalism represented a challenge to the Arab world as well: Syrian nationalism, Jordanian nationalism, Nasser’s vision of a United Arab Republic, and Saudi Arabia’s sense of security. If Arafat was the father of Palestinian nationalism, then his enemies were not only the Israelis but also the Syrians, the Jordanians, the Saudis, and, in the end, the Egyptians.

 

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