The Palestinian Authority, the Siege of the Palestine, and the Beginnings of a War between Israel and the Palestinians: A Conversation with Sinwar
The Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank, has signaled that it is willing to take on a such a role. But it is making its participation contingent on a commitment by President Biden to plunge into a diplomatic challenge that has eluded several of his predecessors: an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians to create two sovereign states, living side by side in peace.
Hamas, meanwhile, effectively sought to undo history, starting with 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what would become Israel during the war surrounding the foundation of the Jewish state.
Violence continued to break out. Hamas began a war in 2021. in protest of Israeli attempts to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem as well as the police raids of the Aqsa Mosque.
When Mr. Sinwar became the overall head of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, he sometimes projected an interest in accommodation with Israel. In 2018, he gave a rare interview to an Italian journalist working for an Israeli newspaper and appealed for a cease-fire to ease the suffering in Gaza.
He said that he was not saying that he wouldn’t fight anymore. I say that I do not want war anymore. I want the siege to end. At sunset you walk to the beach and see a group of teenagers on the shore talking and asking what the world looks like across the sea. What life looks like,” he added. I want them to be free.
The Fate of Hamas: A State-Theoretical Breakdown of the Israeli-Migrant Peace Treaty and the Solution to the Gaza Problem
Hamas also issued a political program in 2017 that allowed for the possibility of a two-state solution, while still not recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
Israel granted some concessions, agreeing in 2018 to allow $30 million per month in aid from Qatar into Gaza and increasing the number of permits for Gazans to work inside Israel, bringing much needed cash into Gaza’s economy.
“The Israelis were only concerned with one thing: How do I get rid of the Palestinian cause?” Mr. Hamdan said so. They were heading in that direction and not thinking about the Palestinians. If the Palestinians did not resist, all of that could have happened.
The National Security Council and Israeli military intelligence thought that Hamas would avoid another war.
Many in Israel’s security establishment thought that the complex border defenses it has to shoot down rockets and preventinfiltrating from Gaza were enough to keep Hamas contained.
By Oct. 7, Hamas was estimated to have 20,000 to 40,000 fighters, with about 15,000 rockets, mainly manufactured in Gaza with components most likely smuggled in through Egypt, according to American and other Western analysts. They said that the group had portable air-defense systems and anti-tank missiles.
Mr. Sinwar had also restored the group’s ties to its longtime backer, Iran, which had frayed in 2012, when Hamas shuttered its office in Syria, a close Iranian ally, amid Syria’s civil war.
The negotiations so far have only been about releasing hostages. The Israeli soldiers held in Gaza may eventually be part of a separate track of negotiations, possibly to be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian women and minors who are held without charge in Israeli prisons.
The officials said that the ground attack was delayed to give time for the negotiations to be completed. The talks went forward, despite the fact that Hamas would bow to military pressure.
“There will be no pause without the return of hostages and missing persons,” Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said in a written statement to The New York Times this week. The only way to save the hostages is if Israel continues its ground operation.
On Oct. 31, an Israeli airstrike hit the densely populated refugee camp of Jabalia, north of Gaza City. The biggest refugee camp in Gaza is the topic of news reports. According to Israel, the attacks have killed dozens of Hamas commanders. At least 195 people died in Gaza according to the Health Ministry.
Israel has prevented fuel deliveries into Gaza, claiming that Hamas uses it for its rocket attacks and that it has stockpiled fuel meant for civilians. Aid organizations have said that fuel is the biggest need in Gaza, to provide for everything from bakeries to hospitals.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Wednesday that Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority once the war is over, offering a strong signal about what the United States sees as its preferred endgame in the fight between Israel and Hamas.
Mr. Biden wields leverage as a world leader who is strongly allied with Israel, and his administration has sought to rally Arab nations and others behind avision that looks beyond the fighting and the deep emotions that have divided the region for years.
The remarks by Mr. Blinken on Wednesday reflect a deep anxiety on the part of Mr. Biden and his aides inside the White House as the conflict enters its second month. What started in the days after Oct. 7 as an unambiguous rush to the defense of an ally has become a much more complicated diplomatic challenge for the president to help define an alternative to open-ended war in the Middle East.
Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel could keep a security role in Gaza after the war ended this week in another potential split. Mr. Kirby responded by saying that any re-occupation of Gaza by Israeli forces is “not the right thing to do.”
In the immediate hours and days after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and killed more than 1,400 people, Mr. Biden fully embraced Israel’s right to respond, a position that White House officials still repeat frequently.
The presence of Israeli forces in Gaza, home to about two million Palestinians, was not mentioned in the comments by Mr. Blinken.
There is still damage taking place in the northern Gaza region. The researchers noticed a comparative lull in damage from bombardments between Oct. 25 and Oct. 29, prior to Israel’s ground invasion that began at the end of last month. Damage appears to be widespread and growing in the most recent satellite data update.
Since the onset of the war, an estimated 27% to 35% of all buildings in the northern half of the territory have likely been damaged, according to analysis by Corey Scher of New York’s CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. In the Gaza Strip they estimate that between 12% and 18% of all structures have been destroyed or damaged.
Van Den Hoek, a satellite imagery and remote sensing expert who has studied this imagery since the war started, said “it’s just steadily increasing.” “There’s broad damage in areas where people live — cities, refugee camps.”
The U.S. is willing to accept a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Mr. al-Sheikh
The Gaza Strip is a narrow section of land situated between the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and Israel. Its footprint is roughly equal to that of the city of Philadelphia, but with a half million more people, many packed into concrete high-rises in tight cities up and down the coast.
The Israeli military ordered all of the residents of northern Gaza to leave their homes to south of the Wadi Gaza, which splits the Gaza Strip in two. It would be impossible for so many people in Gaza to move without causing significant damage to the community, said the UN.
The military denied hitting Gaza’s hospitals. According to witnesses and international aid groups, Israeli bombings on or near hospitals in the north of Gaza continue despite this.
The Palestinian Authority has told the Biden administration that it is open to a governance role in post-Hamas Gaza if the United States commits to a full-fledged two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a top official of its parent, the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Mr al-Sheikh said that Palestinian leaders wanted an American proposal that would force Israel to accept it. He added, “This current U.S. administration is capable of doing that.”
His message seems to be both a challenge and a relief to the White House, which has been stuck in the middle of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The authorities say 1,400 people died in Israel’s attacks on Hamas in October and American officials say the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in Gaza after that.
For three decades, peace negotiations have been stymied by unresolved issues like Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and the status of East Jerusalem.
The current Israeli government would not agree to those terms, said Mr. al-Sheikh. He asked where the partner was on the Israeli side.
Israeli-Israel Interactions in the Gaza Strip After the September 7th Attack: A U.S. Embedded Force Report to the White House
In the middle of fighting this week, residents of northern Gaza fled to southern Gaza using the Salah al-Din Road.
As was the case in the last few days, Israel has been allowing people to leave northern Gaza at a time along a single corridor south as part of the agreement. The White House said that the second corridor would be opened along a coastal road, and that the daily pauses would have at least three hours’ advance notice.
Mr. Kirby said the daily pauses would not only provide a greater opportunity for civilians to escape the fighting but also permit the delivery of more humanitarian supplies and possibly facilitate the release of some of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas, including a handful of Americans. The U.S. goal is 150 trucks a day, and 106 of them crossed into Gaza on Wednesday.
Mr. Biden asked for a longer pause than three days. The president was asked if he was frustrated by the amount of time it took for Mr. Netanyahu to agree. “It’s taken a little longer than I hoped,” he said. He said that they were still optimistic about the hostages.
But Mr. Biden has not joined the calls by some in his party and around the world for a full cease-fire, reasoning that Israel has a legitimate interest in destroying Hamas after its Oct. 7 terrorist attack killed more than 1,400 people. He ruled out a cease-fire on Thursday. No possibility.”
Mr. Kirby said they wouldn’t stand for a cease-fire at this point because it wouldn’t legitimize what happened on the 7th.