Israel has been at war with Hamassince October 7, 2023, after approximately 3,000 Hamas militants crossed into Israeli territory and attacked Israeli civilian communities (kibbutzim) and military bases. (Hamas—a designated terrorist organization by Israel's Western allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and others—explicitly calls for Israel's destruction in its 1989 charter). More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were brutally murdered and 251 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Gaza. Israel responded by declaring war on Hamas. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israel responded the next day by declaring war, beginning with air strikes on Gaza and soon after a ground incursion.

It appeared Israel was surprised by the invasion and distracted by a previous year of "intense debate and political brinkmanship over the government's proposed judicial reforms." Hezbollahdid not fully join the Israel–Hamas war, likely because Israel quickly mobilized 350,000 reservists and evacuated 120,000 civilians living close to the northern Lebanese border.

Background to the Israel–Hamas War

After Israel won the 1967 Six-Day War, it occupied Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip (formerly occupied by Egypt). In the 1970s, a period of normalization existed between Arab countries and Israel. Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, then staged a coup in 2007 and took over governance of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority (PA). (There have been no elections since.) Since that time, Hamas has bombarded Israel with rockets, mortars, and terror attacks. But whenever Israel rightfully responds, the Jewish State is usually blamed for the violence. Hamas' attacks on Israel leading up to October 7 have included using tunnel warfare, firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel, and sending incendiary fire balloonsinto Israeli territory. There have been several failed attempts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians (including the 1993 Oslo Accords) because Hamas refuses to recognize the State of Israel. Hostilities in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021 occurred and usually ended in cease-fire agreements.

Tensions continued to intensify between Israel and Gaza, while Israel's government grew politically divided. Finally, on October 7 at 6:30 a.m., Hamas launched over 2,200 rockets into Israel in less than 20 minutes and militants proceeded to enact their barbaric acts on civilians and soldiers—all on the last day of Jewish people's last and most joyous feast of the year: Sukkot.

Worldwide Impact of October 7

After the horrific events of October 7, 2024, Jew-hatred that had appeared somewhat dormant erupted around the world in the form of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish protests on college campuses and in the public square, the burning of synagogues, and violent attacks. The kind of antisemitic tropes used in Nazi Germany flooded social media. Antisemitic incidents against Jewish students on college campuses dramatically increased by 700 percent over the same period last year.

Falsified Death Toll in Gaza from "Israeli Aggression"

For months after the war began, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza (Hamas, the ruling authority in Gaza, controls the Ministry of Health) declared thousands upon thousands of civilians had been killed by Israeli military forces. But from the beginning of the war, world leaders questioned the reliability of the data it produced, like President Joe Biden who said he had "no confidence in the number" that the Palestinians were using. Nearly seven months after false numbers had circulated in media and supported by the United Nations, it began sharing a demographic breakdown of the people who had died in Gaza, affirming a significant reduction in the number of women and children who had died. The United Nations halved the estimate of women and children killed in Gaza. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy report in January 2024 showed discrepancies in the Gaza MOH fatality figures, saying "such discrepancies were most likely caused by [Hamas] manipulations" and a March 2024 report said Gaza fatality data has become "completely unreliable."

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