Understanding the Israel-Hamas war

NEC professors explain the Israel-Palestine conflict; and urge students to learn more

It has been nearly six months since Hamas, a militant group, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompting Israel’s retaliation. The attack killed 1,200 people, and more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

To understand this conflict, Craig Gallagher, NEC History Professor, said it’s important to recognize that the history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine is both very long and profound.

“It also is a good opportunity for students to learn about a conflict which is tragic, but nevertheless a place in the world with a deep and very complicated history that isn’t really shared in this country,” Gallagher said.

NEC Photography Professor, Yoav Horesh, was born in Israel in 1975 and grew up there until he moved to the U.S. at age 22. He returned to Israel from 2013 to 2016 before he returned to the U.S. Horesh said that in a complicated situation like this, people all have their own opinions, and there is no right or wrong.

“I will definitely encourage students, first of all, and everyone, not only students, to source their information from several different sources,” Horesh said.

Young people make impactful differences around the world, James Walsh, NEC History Professor said. He said it isn’t the older generations who led the American Revolution, the fight against the Vietnam War, the racial oppression in America, and countless other wars.

A close look at the geography of Israel and Palestine

Israel is a small country in the Middle East, located east of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the only state in the world with a majority Jewish population. In 1918, during World War I, Palestine was referred to as the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and much of this land is part of Israel, according to the United Nations.

The Palestinian territories include the West Bank, between Israel and Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, bordering Israel and Egypt. The Israeli military has been occupying these areas since 1967, Jordan and Egypt occupied these territories prior. According to the United Nations Press, more than 135 United Nations member countries recognize Palestine as an independent state, however, Israel and some other countries, including the United States, disagree with that testament. Israel and the surrounding Arab nations fought several wars over the territory.

Historical Perspective

The Israel-Palestine conflict stems from competing claims to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. According to the United Nations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back more than a century, with flashpoints building from the United Nations’ 1947 initial UN Partition Plan to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to the recent Israel-Hamas war sparked in October 2023.

According to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, most of what scholars know about Israel’s ancient history comes from the Hebrew Bible. Israel’s origins can be traced back to Abraham, who is considered the father of Judaism. For the next several centuries, the land of modern-day Israel was conquered and ruled by various groups, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes, Islamists, and others.

In 1917, the British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration,” which supported the establishment of Palestine as home to the Jewish people.

Walsh said that at the end of World War II Europe decided that Jewish survivors should have a homeland, which today is known as modern-day Israel.

“They said alright, you guys move back to your homeland, that’s yours. God gave it to you thousands of years ago. You can have it. They didn’t reckon on the fact that there were people living there and those people do not appreciate being bulldozed out of their homes and businesses, who would?” Walsh said. 

According to the United Nations, Palestine was among the former Ottoman territories placed by the UK administration in 1922. During the British Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, a large scale of Jewish immigration occurred. Neighboring Arabs demanded independence and showed resistance to immigration, which led to rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing violence from both sides. These territories eventually became fully independent states, except Palestine. In 1947 the UK turned the Palestine trouble over to the UN.

The UN proposed dismissing the mandate and dividing Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian-Arab and the other Jewish on Nov. 29, 1947, and adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution), according to the United Nations. Following the UN’s proposal, Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. That began the first Arab-Israel War. Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria then invaded Israel and the fighting continued until 1949.

In 1948, the war stretched to 77 percent of the territory of mandate Palestine. At least 700,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly women and children, fled their homes and hiked toward Arab-controlled territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, according to the United Nations. This is known to Palestinians as the nakba, which translates to catastrophe.

“It’d be easy to say that this was a religious war, but it really isn’t, it’s certainly not a racial war because they’re both the same people, it boils down to who rules what, and who gets the opportunities, who has the opportunity to succeed materially, in safety, in happiness,” Walsh said.

In the 20th century, Israel fought numerous wars with neighboring Arabs, Gallagher said, from the Yom Kippur War to the Six-Day War. In the Six-Day War, Israel won a decisive victory and while 700 Israelis died, its adversaries suffered nearly 20,000. Israel emerged with control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—areas inhabited primarily by Palestinians—as well as all of East Jerusalem, according to the Foreign Relations of the United States.

“In the meantime, the Palestinian Arabs within Israel see their territory slowly but surely overrun by Israeli settlers up to the point where modern Palestine is divided into two regions of the country, the Gaza Strip where most of the violence right now is happening and also the West Bank which used to be owned by the country of Jordan but which was acquired by Israel in 1967,” Gallagher said.

The clashing continued, and in 1993, according to the Foreign Relations of the United States, secret negotiations in Norway resulted in the Oslo Accords. Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) exchanged letters recognizing each other before the accords were signed. They agreed to create the Palestinian Authority to temporarily govern the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of the West Bank. The Oslo Accords foresaw a peace agreement by 1999.

Hamas and October 7

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, Hamas was formed in late 1987 as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group’s commission calls for establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and rejects all agreements made between the PLO and Israel.

Hamas has a military wing known as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades that have conducted many anti-Israel attacks in both Israel and the Palestinian territories since the 1990s. The attacks included large-scale bombings against Israeli civilian targets, small-arms attacks, roadside explosives, and rocket attacks, according to the NCTC. Dozens of countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, including the U.S.

Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections and in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority, according to the Free Speech Center. It covers more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“But the tragic part is that most of the people who live in Gaza were not eligible to vote in the election that picked Hamas back in 2006. A significant number of them were still children. At that point, Gaza is over 50 % women and children. And so, you have this tension between this idea of Hamas as the government of the Gaza Strip, but not necessarily representing the people of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians, and the Israeli government represented by Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister), who has come under a lot of criticism, both before the war,” Gallagher said.

A June 2023 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that one third of Palestinians consider Hamas the most damaging development for their people since the state of Israel’s 1948 creation.

On Oct. 7, 2023, according to Human Rights Watch, the attacks started in the morning after Hamas-led fighters breached the fences separating Gaza and Israel. Attackers moved from house to house, shooting civilians and taking hostages. Survivors said many bodies that were later found had bullet wounds, others were burned, and some were mutilated.

An open-air music festival was the scene of the highest number of killings as the number of rockets crashing down accelerated. By the time the Israeli military regained control of the affected areas, more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed and more than 230 men, women, and children were taken hostage, according to Human Rights Watch.

In response to the attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service, Israel formally declared war against Hamas on Oct. 8. Israel has initiated efforts to recover hostages, resulting in Israeli governments ceasing the supply of electricity, food, water, and fuel to Gaza. Before the conflict, Gaza already faced crisis-level economic and humanitarian conditions.

Current State of the Conflict

The past months of war have led to the mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. In February 2024, 1.7 million people were displaced, which is 75% of Gaza’s residents, according to the United Nations. The displacement has strained the humanitarian response and those in the area struggle with shelter, food, sanitation, and health.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, the speed of death and destruction in Gaza is unmatched, communities are obliterated, homes are demolished, families and generations are eradicated, and starvation is a widespread concern.

“You’re talking about more than 30,000 that are dead right now, and not all of them are Hamas, probably a majority of them are not,” Horesh said.

On March 15, Humanitarian Data Exchange reported 73,439 collective injuries, and an average of 149 people are killed daily.

The U.S. involvement

The United States is a country with many deep ties to Israel, Gallagher said. In the 1940s and 1950s, during the period when Israelis left their former home countries, many immigrated to the United States. The United States is the country with the most Jewish people in the world, Gallagher said.

“The United States is also a major diplomatic and military supporter of Israel. A significant amount of Israel’s existence relies on American military support. Historically, in many of the wars that I mentioned earlier that Israel was fighting with Arab neighbors, with Syria, particularly with Jordan and Egypt. A lot of the response of Israel to those wars was funded by American money and American military support,” Gallagher said.

“The money you pay in taxes, eventually, some of it goes abroad, whether to support Israel, or it supports Palestinians. It’s important for people to know that because it is their money,” Horesh said.

Walsh, Gallagher, and Horesh said this conflict has also caused issues in electoral politics in the United States. According to CBS News, a rising number of Americans want President Joe Biden to urge Israel to stop military actions in Gaza.

“It’s very clear for people to see what Biden supported and he’s not hiding it,” Horesh said.

“During the Democratic primary in Michigan, a significant rump of voters in Michigan, which has a very large Arab American and specifically Palestinian American minority, ultimately elected to vote what was known as uncommitted rather than vote for Joe Biden in protest of his support to Israel,” Gallagher said.

Walsh said that Americans should be standing behind the president like 9/11, however, he said there is too much division. According to reporters, during a pro-Palestinian protest in Detroit, the anger and frustration were adamant. Protestors voiced concern over Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hamas war.

Hamas is correct about resisting and struggling for a state for Palestinians, he said, and Israel is right that it must protect its citizens who were attacked. Israel not only has to defend itself but must make sure that it’s not happening again. Nonetheless, Horesh said, this is much more complicated than what’s on the surface. He encourages students to have opinions but first, be informed by the history.