Editing Palestine (section)

===post-Partition (1948 - )===

=====1948 Arab-Israeli War=====
[[File:Armistice1949.gif|thumb]]
The 1949 Rhodes Armistice line drew out the original borders for the West Bank and the modern borders of the Gaza Strip.

With its borders now set, here are the basic conditions of the Gaza Strip. With a community living mostly on crops and fish, Gaza (as defined by the Armistice line) is a piece of land 25 miles long and 5 miles wide. It is roughly the size of Philadelphia or Washington D.C., with almost exactly the same land area as Las Vegas. The Strip is today the fifth most densely populated place on Earth, home to 2.1 million; this is more dense than any city in the U.S., including Los Angeles. As we will explain, throughout the rest of the post-Partition era, the Gaza Strip has been surrounded by walls, with the land made infertile, water undrinkable, people starved, and the airspace above (and land and sea surrounding it) militarized and controlled. Imports and exports are not allowed without Israeli approval and Israel routinely provokes armed conflict with Gazan paramilitary groups. Israel's goal, as we hope to demonstrate, is to either expel or kill the Gazans, whose territory would thus likely become a series of luxury beachfront tourist locations and oil fields on and off the coast. The Gaza Strip has thus been described as an "open-air concentration camp" since the early 2000s, by British PM David Cameron and by former Israeli Major General and director of the Israeli National Security Council Giora Eiland. In 1947, however, the Gazan population numbered only 80,000, and by 1950 rose to 250,000 due to immigration and births.
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With Israel declared a Jewish state, the 150,000 Arabs who remained in Israeli territory after the 1948 were second-class citizens. Though they received citizenship and the right to vote, Israel was a Jewish state-- and the majority of the Arabs were non-Jews. Nominally, and as Ben-Gurion painted it in 1947-48, Israel was supposed to be a liberal democracy, an "outpost" or "rampart" against the Arab world's "barbarism", and with a socialist tinge viz. kibbutzim. However, when push came to shove, liberalism was as easily discarded as it was declared.

Between 1948 and 1966 most Arabs were monitored under a military government (junta) which restricted their rights to free speech, to assembly, to movement, and so on. They were not allowed to join the Israeli trade unions federation until 1965, and 40% of the land was taken by the Israelis for their own use, which usually did not benefit the Arab citizenry. The Arab sector was and is afforded disproportionately less than Jewish Israeli territories in terms of educational, medical, infrastructural, and other public funding. Thousands of refugees tried to cross the armistice borders seeking their relatives, homes, and lost possessions. It is estimated that Israeli forces killed 2-5,000 people who tried to cross.

Throughout the 1950s and '60s, the Palestinian Fedayeen movement gained prominence as a band of decentralized rebel forces against Israel. In retaliation for the Yehud attack, in which a Palestinian Fedayeen squad attacked and killed a family in their home, the Israelis launched the Qibya massacre under Operation Shoshana (1953). Operation Shoshana was a revenge operation against Palestinian forces in the West Bank who resorted to violence against Israeli settlers in addition to the IDF soldiers who occupied the land. During the Qibya massacre, Israelis killed 69 Palestinians villagers (two-thirds of whom were women and children) and blew up 45 houses, a school, and a mosque. Ariel Sharon wrote in his diary later: "The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example for everyone." Original documents of the time showed that Sharon personally ordered his troops to achieve "maximal killing and damage to property", and post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting.

In 1954, Israel launched a failed covert operation called Operation Susanna (also known as the Lavon affair) in Egypt. A group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by the Mossad to plant explosives at civilian targets owned by Egypt, Britain, and the United States. The terror attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian communists with the goal of forcing Britain to retain its occupying troops around the Suez Canal. No one was killed as the plan was thwarted, but Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon was forced to resign and the Mossad cell was prosecuted in Israeli court.

=====1956 Suez Crisis=====
The Soviet Union provided huge Czech arms shipments to Egypt and Syria in 1955 and 1956, respectively. The Soviet Union also provided training to the Egyptian forces starting in 1955. From 1949 through the 1950s and onward, Syria was embroiled in protests, coups, and civil wars, and after the Suez crisis, in 1958, Syria was again absorbed by Egypt into the United Arab Republic (UAR), under Nasser.

In 1956 Israel struggled against the US over policy, culminating in the Suez crisis. Israel colluded with Britain and France to attack Egypt's nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser's platform was a secular socialist Egyptian state, in contrast to the MB's theocratic ideal. Having taken power with the anti-monarchical Free Officers movement in 1952, Nasser banned the Muslim Brotherhood (who allied with the Free Officers) in Egypt, which gained prominence anyway as a populist organization. Nasser announced the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, the Anglo (British-French) joint-owners of the Suez Canal since its construction in 1869. He offered Britain and France compensation, but instead they colluded with Israel to invade Egypt and take back the canal. Moshe Dayan led the Israeli forces, culminating in a 100-hour campaign against Egypt. 

In a swift victory, Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula after a week of fighting (October 29th - November 7th), demonstrating itself as an asset to the unipolar order. However, President Eisenhower was not convinced of Israel's usefulness, and was worried about Soviet support for Nasser. He ordered a full withdrawal, and Israel reluctantly obliged. Zionists claimed that Israel needed to keep the Sinai in order to give themselves breathing room against the "Arab hordes" of surrounding countries. Having not become aligned with either geopolitical pole, Egypt became a major player in Middle Eastern politics for itself, with Nasser a hero to "overexploited" undeveloped countries.

Israel Defense Forces didn't simply stop the extermination and expulsion of Palestinians during their military operation in 1956. Just before, on October 29th, Israel Border Police shot and killed 19 men, 6 women (one of whom was pregnant), and 23 children (not counting the pregnant woman's child) at Kafr Qasim after imposing an unannounced curfew the same day. The massacre of 275 Palestinians at Khan Yunis and its nearby refugee camp on November 3rd was documented by the UN. On November 12th in Rafah, the IDF rounded up males over the age of fifteen using force (including beatings and shooting over their heads; some were injured or killed from this alone), after which the IDF conducted interrogations and summary executions. The number of deaths in the Rafah massacre were disputed, with the UN claiming 111 casualties and Palestinian sources claiming nearly 200 casualties. Israel naturally claimed the refugees got uppity, so to speak, and had to be punished collectively for resisting the Rafah screening operation. Similar operations, though less deadly, were carried out by Israeli forces in the days between the massacres at Khan Yunis and Rafah, at multiple refugee camps; men between 15 and 60 years of age were detained en masse, interrogated, with some let go, some executed in secret and others imprisoned at Atlit or forcibly relocated to Gaza.

The UN stationed peacekeeping troops for the first time ever in the Sinai to secure the borders against escalation, and Israel was happy to serve the British and French as the protectors of imperialist trade through the canal. After all, this was the exact purpose for which Israel was supported by the British, and the French were the largest benefactors of Zionist organizations before the British. However, the Suez crisis was a nail in the coffin of British leadership of the unipolar world order; the US had been rising rapidly as its heir and ascended to rulership with Eisenhower's display of "tough love".

=====1967 Arab-Israeli War=====
The 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Six-Day war, or, in the Arab world, the June 1967 war, was another major turning point for Palestinian resistance. It marked the second major wave of Palestinian expulsion, the second part of the Nakba (''sensu stricto''), and the beginning of many different resistance groups founded in its aftermath. We here will cover the events which led to the war, its resolution, and afterwards the legacy it left to both Israel and Palestine moving forward.

By 1961 Syria broke away from the UAR led by Nasser, following a military coup. In 1964 Syria, still struggling internally, had a dispute with Israel over the rivers which flowed into the Sea of Galilee from Syria's Golan Heights territory. Israel was attempting to dig a canal which funneled this freshwater from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev Desert in the south. Syria disputed this exploitation of the water source, and moved to divert the upstream water away from the Sea of Galilee in 1964. Violent conflicts, though sparse, began in and around the northern DMZ that year.

In 1966, following the murder of a few IDF soldiers by the guerilla Fatah movement, Israeli forces raided the West Bank village of As Samu' in the largest military operation since 1956. They rounded up the locals, killed 18, injured over 100, and blew up dozens of homes.

By this point, Israel was on thin ice with its neighbors, and was still not welcome by the local populations. On May 13, 1967, the Soviet Union falsely warned Egypt that Israel was assembling its troops to invade Syria. Similarly, declassified CIA documents and then-Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban revealed that Israel lied about Egyptian troop concentration in order to secure U.S. diplomatic and military support for Israel and against Nasser. Under the Egyptian-Syrian defense treaty of 1955, both countries were obligated to protect each other in case of an attack on either. On May 16th, 1967, Nasser ordered the UN troops out of the Sinai, and-- to his surprise-- the UN completely withdrew. He threatened to obliterate Israel once and for all. Jordanian King Hussein joined the Egyptian-Syrian coalition against Israel, signing a mutual defense pact with Egypt and overseeing construction of the Syrian canal while the Egyptians amassed in the Sinai. Iraq soon followed Jordan in joining the coalition. Additionally, Nasser blocked Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. The superpowers repositioned their naval assets in the region that same week. 

On the eve of the 1967 attack, Israeli minister Yigal Allon wrote: “In … a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence [1948] … and must not cease fighting until we achieve total victory, the territorial fulfillment of the Land of Israel”. However, respective motives are debated even today.

Moshe Dayan, under Israel's third Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, led the Israeli forces as in the Suez crisis, and the Israeli air force prepared for intense fighting. The Egyptian air force sent patrols up to defend its airspace at dawn on June 5th, but left a gap in their timing which would cost them dearly. Eleven Egyptian air bases were destroyed in the Israeli morning assault, timed between patrol shifts and leaving the Egyptians scrambling and defenseless. 

Syria launched a sortie against oil refineries in Haifa, but were destroyed. Syrian airfields were flattened on the evening of June 5th. The Jordanian and Iraqi air forces were destroyed as well as they tried to move towards Israel. The Israeli air force then devoted itself to holding the Sinai to the south, the West Bank, and Golan Heights to the north. Following this, Egypt repositioned to attack. The Egyptians moved into the Gaza Strip and planned to meet Jordanian forces by cutting across and taking southern Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli forces sought to break through the flanks of the Egyptians. Ariel Sharon sent troops and helicopters for an assault on Egyptian positions. Fifteen-thousand Egyptian soldiers were killed in just four days. Many were captured, as well as hundreds of tanks and guns-- more than 80% of their equipment. By June 8th, Egypt was ready to accept a ceasefire. 

Jordan had multiple brigades in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, with others in Samaria to the north. By the morning of June 6th, the Israeli Jerusalem brigade was at war over Jordanian-held East Jerusalem. By mid-day on June 7th, Israel had taken the Old City amid calls for a ceasefire by the UN, which Israeli representatives tried to delay in New York and Washington, D.C. The Israelis took Latrun from Egypt from their position at Lydda airport, and the major cities of Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, and Jericho in the West Bank were taken by Israel. Throughout the war, under orders from future fifth Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli forces expelled 10,000 Palestinian villagers, destroying the villages in what could only be described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Yalu, Beit Nuba, and Imwas were among the most notable of targets; In the West Bank, the towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem were deliberately and systematically erased. 12,000 Palestinians were expelled from Qalqilya alone as "punishment", according to Moshe Dayan's memoirs.

On June 9th, Israel began its assault on the Syrian Golan Heights in the north, capturing it on June 10th, and coming within staggering distance of Syria's capital, Damascus. The UN assisted in peace negotiations; Israel signed a ceasefire with Egypt on June 9th and Syria on June 11th.
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The Israelis demolished the entire Mughrabi quarter of East Jerusalem on June 11th, which stood for 770 years prior. That night, the homes of over 100 Palestinian families, as well as the two mosques in the Mughrabi quarter, were destroyed using bombs and bulldozers in order to make an easily accessible plaza for Jewish worshippers in front of the (Western) Wailing Wall. The neighborhood was built by al-Malik, son of the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin as a Muslim waqf (an inalienable charitable trust under Islamic law). 

Many Palestinian refugees fled to Jordan across the river with very few personal belongings. The Israelis annexed Golan Heights and much of the West Bank, which eventually was reduced to its modern state of various disparate enclaves ("Bantustan-ization"). However, they refused to withdrawal from the Sinai-- instead, they planted secret weapons caches and mapped the territory, and soon after Egypt began a war of attrition against the Israeli invasion. Israeli shelling led to exorbitant civilian deaths in Ismalia, Port Said, and Suez, the lattermost almost completely destroyed. 

Prior to all this, in 1964 the Arab League convened in Cairo for its first summit, during which it authorized the creation of an authority representing the Palestinian Arab population, an umbrella organization of Palestinian groups called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The Palestinian National Council met for the first time in Jerusalem on May 28th, 1964, and the PLO was formalized on June 2nd, 1964 with its stated goals being Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine. That same year, the PLO authored a National Covenant to formalize their ideological line, which was later revised and replaced in 1968. 

The Soviet Union slowly recognized the PLO and its efforts viz. national liberation in the late 1960s. By 1974 the USSR supported the establishment of a Palestinian state and in 1978 recognized the PLO as the sole representatives of the Palestinian people.

The PLO is a united front of various groups who, at least nominally, act on behalf of the Palestinian people. They saw the 1948 war as an unsettled matter, and in the context of the popular Arab sentiments of anger and distrust which followed the Crusades, as well as both inter-imperialist (world) wars, these groups were founded. The umbrella includes eight groups during various periods, but they were founded with only a few. 

Here were will briefly discuss the origins and lineage of various prominent factions of the PLO. These groups were mainly founded after and/or influenced by the 1967 war.

Fatah is the most notorious and most powerful of the PLO factions. It is a secular nationalist organization first established by Yasser Arafat, a prominent leader of the Palestinian (Arab) community and its mass of refugees, in 1959. They were at first advocates of armed struggle, and in the mid-1950s were only a revolutionary mass movement which had no formal political hegemony or representation. Fatah participated in diplomacy with Israel and its allies, including via the Oslo Accords, and seeks a two-state solution along 1967 borders with absolute right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. In 1988, after renouncing terrorism, the party was taken off the US list terror organizations.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded in 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day war. George Habash, the main founder of four, was a Palestinian Orthodox Christian, a physician, and a member of Fatah until the Six-Day war. Habash wanted Fatah to take a stance more cooperative with Marxist-Leninism, and split to form the PFLP after the Six-Day war. Thus, they became Fatah's main opposition in the PLO. The PFLP was originally supported by the Soviet Union and some of its allies. Habash's co-founders are also important figures in Palestinian politics: Wadi Haddad, Nayef Hawatmeh, and Amhad Jabril. The PFLP opposes the PA and participation in its government, but has done so since 2006. The party opposes a two-state solution and instead calls for a democratic secular state to be won in historic Palestine through armed struggle. They are opposed to any kind of ethnonational or theocratic rule. It is listed as a terrorist organization by the US and EU. In their founding document (11 December 1967) and ''Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine'' (1969) they are very explicit; their enemies are Israel, the World Zionist Movement, World Imperialism, and "Arab reaction represented by feudalism and capitalism"-- not Jews. The PFLP bases it's political analysis on class, not race or religion.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) was a group which split from the PFLP in 1969, but retained its membership in the PLO. Nayef Hawatmeh is its founder (along with Yasser Abed Rabbo) and current leader. It is a Maoist party which organizes the National Resistance Brigades. Their founding goal is to "create a people's democratic Palestine, where Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination, a state without classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture." The DFLP is based in Damascus, Syria and was initially supported by the Soviet Union, Syria, and others.

Rabbo, who founded the DFLP, later split to found the Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA). They are a minor group in the PLO which supports the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Palestinian People's Party (PPP) was originally called the Palestinian Communist Party. It was founded in 1919, but after the war of 1948, the original party was dissolved and its members in the West Bank joined the Jordanian Communist Party. They re-established the Palestinian Communist Party in February 1982, just months before the 1982 Lebanon War. Later, when the Soviet Union fell, they changed their name to the PPP. The PPP constitutes a minor bloc in the PLO, which they joined in 1987.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - Central Command (PFLP-GC) is another offshoot of the PFLP. Founded by Ahmad Jibril in 1968, The PFLP-GC took a clear pro-Syrian stance in addition to its Marxist-Leninist line. They are opposed to peace with Israel and are designated a terrorist group by the US and EU, sharing the PFLP's vision for a secular democratic state across the region.

The Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) was originally the Palestinian Popular Struggle Organization (PPSO), founded in the 1967 by Bahjat Abu Garbieh, a former Ba'athist. Closely linked to Fatah, they became officially partnered with Arafat in 1971. In 1973, the PPSF split from Fatah and Arafat, rejecting the Ten Point Program of 1974 and subsequently leaving the PLO. Their Secretary-General Samir Ghawshah later elected to rejoin the PLO, accept the Oslo Accords, and form the PA. This led to a split within the PPSF, spawning another organization under the same name in 1991, which rejected the PLO and PA but takes part in military exercises and operations led by the PLO. Their armed wing, formed in 2008, is the Palestinian Popular Jihad Brigades.

Rejecting the Ten Point Program, aligning itself with Fatah, and rejecting the Wadi Haddad faction which carried out the Dawson's Fields plane hijackings, the PFLP split again during its Congress in 1972. The PFLP renounced the use of plane-hijackings, stated that the Haddad gang's adventurism gave King Hussein pretext for war on the PLO, condemned them as a "right-wing" element with ties to Egyptian, Jordanian, and Iraqi intelligence, based on intelligence provided by the Syrian Mukhaberat. Wadi Haddad, an agent of Saddam Hussein's intelligence service (Mukhaberat), formed the PFLP-EO (External Operations) and continued carrying out terror attacks. 

Syrian intelligence supported the PFLP's "Leftist faction", instigating another split. The Revolutionary PFLP (PRFLP) split because George Habash retained contacts with Haddad. The Syrian Mukhaberat disliked Habash for this reason, helping to set up the PRFLP. In the midst of all these splits from the PFLP, their spokesman, the author and artist Ghassan Kanafani, was killed by the Mossad, who accused him of orchestrating Haddad's attacks. 

The defeat of June 1967, also called the "Naksa" or "setback", changed the mass-sociopolitical state of Arab nations. Arab nationalism began to wane among the masses as a sort of "renaissence" period, and soon new-Islamic and other forms of resistance to the unipolar order emerged. The Arab populations of each respective country took on revolutionary attitudes, including Palestine, as evidenced by the founding of the many PLO factions and other resistance groups in its wake. Syria continued to be plagued by civil war, coups, and general factional and religious violence until the former general and Prime Minister Hafez al-Assad (father of Bashar) secured the Presidency in a bloodless Ba'athist coup in 1970, bringing with his administration statecraftsmanship and administrative security; the Jordanian monarchy carried on but was soon faced with violent opposition from the PLO, culminating in Black September of 1970 and leading to the PLO's expulsion to Syria and Lebanon the following year; Soon Lebanon would succumb to civil war, while Egypt under Sadat began to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and took kindly to Western influence.

=====1973 "Yom Kippur" War=====
When in South Africa the Bantustan territory was founded in 1970 to nominally solve racial and demographic issues, giving black South Africans enclaves of their own, it was a disastrous failure. However, future decades of Israeli leadership saw this as another model for how to carve up and control Palestinian territory, by breaking it into separate, easily surrounded and controlled regions. This has been referred to as the "Bantustan option" for "dealing with" the "Palestinian problem", as Israel and its defenders put it. First put forth during this time, this "option" is one tactic used by Israel and its allies over many years to curb peace talks and assert their right to the domination of the occupied territories. As we have already stated, the Bantustan option has been used since 1970 across the West Bank, destroying highways and setting IDF checkpoints between the enclaves. 
[[File:Palexpand.jpeg|thumb|Depiction of "Bantustanization" of Palestine over the years]]
At the end of the Egyptian war of attrition, the Israeli-Egyptian border did not move. Nasser died of a heart attack in September 1970, putting an effective end to the war as it was. Anwar Sadat took over as president. Israel continued occupying the Sinai while Egypt continued military exercises and operations, planning to retake the Sinai. Sadat offered Israel a peace deal in exchange for their withdrawal from the desert, but Israel's fourth Prime Minister Golda Meir rejected it. Sadat then turned to Assad, whose mission it was to liberate Golan Heights from Israeli occupation, as an ally.

In coordination with Syria, Egypt deceived Israeli forces of their intentions of invading and reclaiming Golan Heights and the Sinai, respectively. They chose Yom Kippur not for its religious significance, but for the fact that Israeli television and radio broadcasts don't air, nor do shops open or transportation run on the holiday. Thus Israel was unable to issue a 48-hour alert unlike in June 1967, which led to early successes for Egypt and Syria.

Sadat commenced Operation Badr on October 6th of 1973, crossing troops and armored vehicles over the Suez canal into Israeli-occupied territory. They captured the Bar Lev Line, a giant fortified sand wall on the banks of the canal. Syria, in the north, quickly crossed the 1967 ceasefire line and within two hours captured Mount Hermon. However, within 24 hours two Israeli armored divisions pushed back the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and pushed deep into Syrian territory themselves. Iraqi, Saudi, and Jordanian units moved in to help defend Syria against the counterattack, but Israel still managed to burrow towards Damascus. 

The Soviet Union supported the Arab states with funding and weapons, while the US supported Israel with the same. When their stockpiles ran low, each superpower would ship the necessary armaments and artillery to their respective beneficiaries. This conflict was one of the tensest proxy wars of the Cold War for that reason.

By October 16th, Ariel Sharon's forces penetrated Egyptian and Syrian defenses, and moved swiftly towards Cairo. Having nearly mobilized Israeli forces almost to both capital cities, the fighting came to a standstill. The next day, the Arab oil-producing countries under the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced production by five percent. They pledged to “maintain the same rate of reduction each month thereafter until the Israeli forces are fully withdrawn from all Arab territories occupied during the June 1967 War, and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people are restored”. They imposed an oil embargo on the US and its allies, which led to sky-high oil prices across the world and a US reassessment of support for the war. The embargo lasted from October 1973 to March 1974 and targeted Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Rhodesia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Finally, in the final week of October, both sides were ready to sign a ceasefire. Estimates of Israeli casualties at 2,600, of Egyptians at 7,700, and Syrians 3,500.

The 1973 hostilities were followed by Security Council Resolution 338, which called for peace negotiations between the parties concerned among other things. In 1974 the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and to return. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and conferred on the PLO the status of observer in the Assembly and in UN conferences.

Israelis were utterly traumatized by the war. Golda Meir resigned as Israeli PM the following year and her Labor party fell into decline. Yitzhak Rabin took over as Prime Minister. Henry Kissinger helped negotiate the peace settlements and prisoner exchanges, broking the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal and helping negotiate between Tel Aviv and Damascus. Partial territorial concessions were made, but Israel retained a portion of the lands it took in 1967. Meanwhile, Sadat cozied up to Israel and began a process of détente. 

After only four years, Sadat went to Jerusalem to give the Knesset a speech on peace with Egypt. In September 1978, President Jimmy Carter brokered the Camp David Accords between Sadat and Menachim Begin, which ended with Egypt as a cautious (better yet, precarious) ally of Israel. Sadat took some early cues from the waning Soviet Union in "opening up" Egypt to Western influence. This was the origin of Egypt's treating Israel with kid gloves, greatly influenced by Egyptian military losses in 1956 and 1967. The treaty was signed in March 1979 but never was enacted, with both sides blaming each other. However, the IDF did withdrawal from the Sinai, and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty served as the basis for the later Abraham accords. Golan Heights was formally annexed by Israel in 1981, though it is still considered to be occupied by Syrians and Palestinians alike. 

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 inspired many across the Arab world, especially Shias, and renewed a sense of civilizational unity. However, there also came intensification of certain contradictions in the Arab world which arose from this. Iran was asserting itself as the superpower of the Middle East, and has since emerged as the main pole of the region in the transition to a multipolar world.

Out of the Muslim Brotherhood came a splinter group: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which grew as a faction in the MB until it split in October 1981, following the Iranian Revolution. It was founded by Fathi Abd al-Aziz al-Shikaki, a physician from Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Its armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, was founded in 1992. Three years later, al-Shikaki was assassinated by the IDF in retaliation for a double suicide bombing. PIJ's fundamental program is the destruction and dissolution of the artificial state of Israel, on the basis of revolutionary Sunni Islam. Its sister group in Egypt was responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat on October 6th, 1981.

=====1982 Lebanon War=====
Lebanon was ripe for a civil war to the north of Israel. This was, in part, due to religious tensions between the three main groups of Lebanon: Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Christians. The Lebanese political system was designed to give all three power to share, in which each group is guaranteed representation in its assigned leadership position. However, Shia Muslims felt they were getting the worst deal of the three.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization was based in Jordan before King Hussein mobilized Jordanian forces to attack and expel them to southern Lebanon and Syria (known as Black September or the Jordanian civil war). The PLO launched mortars at Israeli territory from across the borders of all three countries. Israel's motive for invading Lebanon was to stomp out the PLO entirely-- not only those who perpetrated such attacks. The problem with the PLO was (and is) their moderateness in the eyes of Israel. They have consistently advocated peace based on the 1967 borders with a right to return for all displaced Palestinians. However, Israel saw this as too reasonable-- they'd rather go to war than return to the 1967 borders.

Various groups were vying for power, but by 1975 they succumbed to infighting and a civil war erupted. The Lebanese civil war lasted until 1990.

In 1979, the Iranian monarchy was overthrown and replaced with a republic led by the Shia cleric (Ayatollah) Ruhollah Khomeini. This revolution became a regional symbol of power, and Khomeini saw the revolution as extending beyond the borders of Iran. Some even say Khomeini saw this revolution as "pan-Islamic", extending beyond the limits of Shia Islam as well. Thus, in the mayhem of the Lebanese civil war, Iran used the situation to spread its influence.

The CIA attributed the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to the discrediting of Islamic politics as it developed since 1950, up until the Islamic Revolution in 1979-- which many feel gave Islam its proper modern political expression.

The following year the PLO sent multiple factions to train in the Soviet Union together. The PLO was funded and armed by the then-destalinized Soviet Union, under Brezhnev. At this point, the Soviets had been dragged through Khrushchev giving weight to claims of a "Soviet empire" with his foreign policy, as well as Brezhnev's attempts to dictate the foreign policy of other countries. Here, though, lay an unavoidable legacy of Stalin's reversal of policy regarding Palestinian self-determination, which Breznev was acknowledging in assisting the PLO.

The PLO attempted to assassinate Israeli Ambassador to London Shlomo Argov on June 3rd, 1982. It was in August 1982 when Israel sent tanks, troops, and bombs across the border in its invasion of southern Lebanon with the solitary goal of eradicating the PLO, who were beginning to fire rockets into northern Israel again, driving Israelis from their northern settlements along the border. This invasion is known as Operation Peace for Galilee, in which Israeli forces reached Beirut. After withdrawing to southern Lebanon, Israel occupied southern Lebanese territory until 2000.

The Israeli goal of destroying the PLO was essentially completed during this operation; the PLO was sent into exile in multiple Arab countries.

It was during this time, and in response to the Israeli invasion, that the Hezbollah political and military force-- a group of Shia Muslims inspired by the Iranian Revolution who came together to oppose Israel-- was founded. Hezbollah is led by Hassan Nasrallah (1960 - ), who joined and climbed its ranks throughout the 1980s, assuming command as General-Secretary in 1992. Hezbollah remains openly supportive of Iran as a unifying power in the region today, and Iran trains, funds, and arms Hezbollah fighters since 1982 through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), specifically its Quds (foreign ops) Force. This is overt-- both Iran and Hezbollah admit that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy against Israel-- and Iran had only attacked Israel through this or another proxy group until Israel's direct attack on the Iranian embassy in 2024. In 1985, Hezbollah claimed "the obliteration of Israel from existence" was a top priority, alongside taking control from US and French occupying troops acting as peacekeepers. Their tactics included suicide bombings and other terrorist acts until the 1990s. A major political shift occurred in the wake of the Lebanese civil war, and Hezbollah grew from an underground resistance force into a major political hegemon. They won their first seats in parliament in 1992. Since 2005 Hezbollah has had cabinet ministers running various different parts of the Lebanese government, and they became major providers of social services such as health, education, youth programs, and sometimes food vouchers in areas they control. Unlike other groups which participated in the civil war, Hezbollah kept its weapons, which it used to continue fighting the Israeli occupation, pushing them out of southern Lebanon and gaining a positive reputation among the Lebanese and international communities for it.
[[File:Lebanon.png|thumb]]

=====First Intifada (1987 - 1990)=====
By 1987, Palestinians realized they were not going to receive any external support against Israeli occupation. They engaged in non-violent civil revolt for two years before it was defeated by harsh Israeli repression. 15,000 Palestinians were jailed per year during the First Intifada. Amnesty International reported in 1998/9 that there were as many political prisoners in the occupied territories as in Iraq, but as a portion of the population the difference was astronomical. Amnesty, Bt'selem, Human Rights Watch documented "the systematic and methodical ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian detainees."

Hamas (or the Islamic Resistance Movement) was founded on December 10th, 1987, early in the First Intifada. It was founded by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a quadriplegic and partially blind Muslim cleric. It was at first a charity group-- also an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was committed to peaceful resistance to the occupation by Israel. Eventually, Hamas was pushed by the IDF's continuous murder of civilians to take up armed resistance.

Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni political party and military force which today controls the Gaza Strip. In its founding charter, the "Covenant" (1988), Hamas cited the Holy Quran in saying "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

However, as the Wilson Center points out:

"In 2017, a revised Hamas manifesto included three departures from the 1988 charter... First, Hamas accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state separate from Israel —although only provisionally. Its statement on principles and policies said, 'Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.' Second, it attempted to distinguish between Jews or Judaism and modern Zionism. Hamas said that its fight was against the “racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist” Zionist project, Israel, but not against Judaism or Jews. The updated platform also lacked some of the anti-Semitic language of the 1988 charter. Third, the document did not reference the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas was originally an offshoot."

Here we will mention briefly our view on the violent attacks which have taken place since 1989. Although Palestinian Islamic Jihad had carried out one suicide attack in 1989, and ''individuals'' from Hamas coordinated with PIJ on attacks in 1993, the overwhelming consensus is that Hamas (especially) and the PIJ didn't sanction use of terror or suicide attacks until 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron. On February 25th 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Zionist from the ultranationalist Kach party (1971-1994) made his way past IDF security at the holy site with a rifle and other armaments, opening fire on and killing 29 and 150 Muslims while they prayed. This led to the dissolution of the Kach party in Israel, but at the same time kickstarted the spell of terroristic violence which Hamas and PIJ considered a proportionate reaction to not only the actions of Goldstein and other armed Israeli settlers, but the state of Israel and its supporters as a whole for fostering these attacks in the occupied holy land. Thus, these attacks by Palestinian resistance groups were a response to Israeli occupation and settler violence. Not to be lost is the fact that many of these attacks targeted Israeli military, not civilians, and almost completely disappeared after the Second Intifada. 

Another brief excursion: Should we not support armed resistance? Should we oppose _all_ violence as a matter of "principle"? Infrared argues that we should support just wars on the principles of self-determination and popular sovereignty, especially as Americans. To take up arms against an invading force is rather to fight to the death for one's family, land, country, and lastly themselves. To take up arms against an invader is to be armed for defense, and against an occupier it is to be armed for liberation. Thus we support wars of popular sovereignty, of national liberation, of self-determination; in a word, those against. All criticism of such armed struggle should be secondary to this support since the basic precedent is a battle to the death between invader (or occupier) and invaded (occupied). The one-sided, rigid, and universal condemnation of violence lacks recognition of the world-historical development of class struggle and antagonism, which necessarily leads to violence on a major scale-- they are the progenitors of both violence which has no basis in the common sense notion of popular sovereignty, and, in turn, that which does. Meanwhile, in the 21st century, it has become more effective to manage both peaceful (diplomatic, civil, legal, etc) protest movements as well as online "discourse" (see [[Information warfare]]). 

By 1990, Palestinian opposition was defeated, and so was the Intifada. The Soviet Union was dissolved the following year, crippling the Palestinian resistance. Later, it seemed, the defeat of Iraq destroyed the main economic and political support for Palestine once and for all.

At that point, Israel gave the PLO an ultimatum: genuflect to Israeli rule or the PLO will be extinct. They thought Arafat was the toadying leader they were looking for, a "rebel" who was in a position of defeat, and tried to recruit Palestinian leadership as leaders of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gazan territories under the guise of Palestinian self-determination. This recruitment was known as the Oslo Peace Accords.

=====Oslo Accords (1993 - 1995)=====
Yasser Arafat signed a partial peace agreement with fifth Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. Arafat was being groomed to take over a group of Bantustan-ized Palestinian territories, and was offered leadership in return for a cessation of resistance. In the Oslo Accords, he and the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty while maintaining a call for Arab statehood/recognized sovereignty only in the continuously occupied West Bank and Gazan territories-- a key reason as to why Hamas and other Palestinian groups rejected the deal.

The Carter Center observed Gazan and West Bank elections thrice, beginning in 1996, with the election of Arafat and 132 members of parliament.

From 1993 to 2000, the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories nearly doubled from 200,000 to 400,000. The settlements encompassed 50% of the West Bank. This settlement was far more rapid under Labor than Likud, under PMs Rabin and Barak than others. In B'Tselem's 2002 report on the West Bank, a 200-page report, the investigators conclude: "Israel has created in the occupied territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two different systems of law in the same area, and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes of the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa."

It was during the negotiations in 1994 that the Palestinian Authority was established. The PA held elections separate from the PLO and rejected the PLO's rule unless it or its factions participated in the PA's elections and parliament. The PA has been led by Fatah and Arafat since the 2007 Palestinian civil war. Also in 1994 Israel signed a treaty with Jordan, after decades of cooperation.

In the 1990s, Sheik Yassin of Hamas gave an interview in which he explained his views regarding Jews. He said "We don't hate Jews and fight Jews because they are Jewish. They are a people of faith and we are a people of faith, and we love all people of faith. If my brother, from my own mother and father and my own faith takes my homes and expels me from it, I will fight him. I will fight my cousin if he takes my home and expels me from it. So when a Jew takes my home and expels me from it, I will fight him. I don't fight other countries because I want to be at peace with them, I love all people and wish peace for them, even the Jews. The Jews lived with us all of our lives and we never assaulted them, and they held high positions in government and ministries. But if they take my home and make me a refugee like 4 million Palestinians in exile? Who has more right to this land? The Russian immigrant who left this land 2000 years ago or the one who left 40 years ago? We don't hate the Jews, we only ask for them to give us our rights."

In a speech in 1997, he elaborated the same point: "I want to proclaim loudly to the world that we are not fighting Jews because they are Jews! We are fighting them because they assaulted us, they killed us, they took our land, our homes, our children, our women, they scattered us, we became scattered everywhere, a people without a homeland. We want our rights. We don't want more. We love peace, but they hate the peace, because people who take away the rights of others don't believe in peace. Why should we not fight? We have our right to defend ourselves."

The various factions of Palestinian resistance have differences-- secular vs. Islamic, nationalist vs. internationalist, recognition of the State of Israel vs. not, and so on-- however, they are bound together by a single thread: the fight for self-determination for the Palestinian people. They are also bound as a whole to the people, the land, and the rest of world history in various ways.

A product of Zionism, the state of Israel, and American foreign policy, the network of American Jewish organizations formed throughout the mid-20th century, gained extreme and swift prominence in America following the 1967 war, and served as advocates of Zionism and the state of Israel ever since. This NGO complex was dubbed "The Holocaust Industry" by liberal professor and author Norman Finkelstein, in the book of the same name. In said book, Finkelstein documents the NGO complex ("organized American Jewry") and the prominent public figures ("Jewish elites") in it, such as Chaim Weizmann, Elie Weisel, and Jocko Wilkomirski, among many others. He seeks to expose the Zionist-NGO complex's exploitation of the memory of "The Holocaust": a dramatized and dogmatic version of the Nazi holocaust which, to the Zionists, represents the culmination of an eternal Gentile hatred of Jews as well as the worst, most incomparable event in human history. These organizations, even including those which were state-sponsored such as the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., have "shaken down" various nations for millions by stealing reparations from Holocaust survivors and claiming both the survivors' possessions as well as assets held by state and private banks since the second World War. Of course, the American Jewish network is only a small subsect of the vast network of charities, universities, NGOs, PACs, and other institutions which serve as devices for funneling money from monopolists under the guise of philanthropy. As Marx wrote, this type of bourgeois socialism was worked into a full system by the mid-19th century, and later became consolidated and socialized by the ruling class well into the 21st century.

=====Second Intifada (2000-2005)=====
At Camp David in July 2000, President Clinton and Israel's tenth Prime Minister Ehud Barak conferred, and came up with an ultimatum for Arafat: either he was going to accept the Bantustan-ization, the surrounding and splitting up of many enclaves of Palestinian territory, or his career was over.  Continuing support for a two-state solution, Arafat wanted concessions such as land-swaps of equal value and right of return for displaced people. That was rejected and Arafat was again demonized as an opponent of peace, since this peace deal  (and Arafat's stay in power) was predicated on the Bantustan-ization of the occupied Palestinian territories. He again became a terrorist in the eyes of the Zionists and their American allies after having been rehabilitated as a statesman by Western diplomats and media. There is a lot of dispute on Camp David as nothing was written down and our knowledge comes from personal testimonies alone.

After the negotiations were axed, Palestinians felt again hopelessness and frustration. They were hoping for an end to the occupation and the right of return for refugees, but most likely neither was ever on the table. Later that year, on September 16th, 2000, Palestinians were mourning the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres which were executed in West Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war by the IDF. Israel's eleventh Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was the leader of the IDF at the time of the massacres, the victims of which were almost entirely Palestinian, the exceptions being Lebanese Shi'i. On September 28th, 2000, Sharon entered Al-Aqsa Mosque with a large delegation, which was seen as a provocation and an intrusion in the context of the Camp David negotiations and the anniversary. The month of September was rife with small skirmishes and violent incidents, but this led to a larger convergence of forces unified against Israeli occupation in the wake of the failed peace talks at Camp David. The protests were surpressed by the IDF using rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition. Within the first few days after the protests at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the IDF fired over a million rounds. Following peaceful rallies, the IDF opened fire on the protesters, killing seven. The demonstrations that followed were put down just as savagely. Civilians were murdered, including young children with their parents. This was the boiling point for Palestinians; they were furious. 

Diana Buttu, a Ramallah-based analyst and former adviser to the Palestinian negotiators on Oslo, told Al Jazeera: “Everybody, including the Americans, were warning the Israelis that the Palestinians are reaching a boiling point, and you need to calm down. Instead, they turned up the fire even more."

Many groups took up arms against the Israeli armed forces, as well as the population of Israeli settlers who continued encroaching upon their land. Suicide bombers attacked Israeli buses and cafes in a series of attacks. Israel launched its largest offensive on the West Bank since 1967. Over the following five years, 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed. However, on February 8th, 2005, a ceasefire was announced by Sharon and Abbas, after which the violence dwindled. Israel withdrew its military forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip, but imposed strict control of movement in Gazan airspace, seafront, and at its checkpoints. This was soon coupled with the enhancement of the wall between Israel and Gaza, originally a fence built in 1971, which has since been upgraded with technology and other structural features and dubbed "The Iron Wall" (after Jabotinsky's book). 

Operation Defensive Shield (April, 2002) was perhaps the most notorious IDF operation during the Second Intifada. During this operation, the IDF's use of human shields-- common during and since the 1967 war-- became official ("open") policy. Assaults and raids were carried out in major Palestinian population centers, and though the use of human shields ("neighbor policy") was challenged in Israeli High Court, regulation was circumvented and has been used ever since, though publicly condemned by the state.

Israel and its allies continued for years to blame Arafat and others for the uprising, claiming Palestinian leadership pre-meditated the violence "as early as" July 2000. Meanwhile, some Palestinians blamed Sharon personally for the violence on Israel's part, but overinflated his already significant role (as opposed to most Palestinians who blamed the IDF and Israel as a whole).

In March 2002, the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah put forward a peace pan for Palestine. However, his plan went even further than the international consensus in favor of Israel. For example, it called for "normal relations" on top of Palestinian and international recognition of Israel. This plan did not uphold the right of return, but used an even more vague expression. However, it was endorsed by every member of the Arab League as well as the Palestinian Authority. It thus became just another "failed" "peace" plan in Israeli history books.

That same year, the Israeli cabinet began the construction of the West Bank Wall, also known as the Separation Barrier. This wall was nominally supposed to stop Palestinians from entering the West Bank without a permit. However, it was also used to further the goal of Zionist Lebensraum policy. Not only was this barrier erected right through and between Palestinian communities which were culturally bonded for centuries; 85% of it runs through the West Bank, inconsistent with the 1949 Armistice "Green Line". This allows Israel to erect a fence without consequences in which the land occupied since the 1967 Six-Day war is developed into settlements, which are completely illegal under international law and which are often cited as a method of Israeli apartheid. This includes East Jerusalem, which was illegally annexed and occupied by Israel in the Six-Day war. When taken with the boxing-in of Gazans after the ceasefire and cessation of violence, the erection of the wall can be seen as part of the same plan-- the subjugation, annihilation, and (the eventual goal of) expulsion of Palestinians from all their territories.
[[File:Sep barrier.png|thumb]]
In 2005, following the Second Intifada, the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement was founded by over 170 Palestinian unions, professional and women's associations, refugee and refugee aid networks, and other organizations from Palestinian civil society. The BDS movement's roots lay in the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in South Africa. At the conference, which took place during the most tumultuous point in the Second Intifada, the discussions led participants to reaffirm popular principles of self-determination for all peoples, as well as an acknowledgement of Zionism and the similarities between the struggles of South Africans and Palestinians. The BDS movement has advocated international civil struggle via a) boycotts on Israeli companies and their products, b) divestment by national and international institutions from Israel, and c) calling for sanctions on Israel.

=====2006 Elections=====
Sheik Yassin, the founder of Hamas, was killed in a targeted helicopter strike in 2004. His bodyguards and nine bystanders were also killed. Soon after, his deputy Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi took over, but was soon also killed by a helicopter strike, along with his son and a handful of other civilians. Following this, Ismail Haniyeh, who appointed head of Yassin's office in 1997 and ran as the representative of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority's 2006 elections, took charge of Hamas.

Yasser Arafat died in 2005, and Mahmoud Abbas was elected to lead the Fatah party.

American President George W. Bush called for the Palestinian Authority to hold elections in Gaza in 2006. They did, and the PA thought Hamas wouldn't participate, leaving only the Fatah party (part of the PLO) to win.

Hamas won the election with Haniyeh as their leader, and have remained in power ever since, working in tandem with various other parties and armed forces in Palestine. The Carter Center and other independent international observers certified the election outcome as fair and democratic. This was the Carter Center's third time observing Palestinian elections in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Western governments refused to recognize Hamas as the winner of the 2006 elections, and designated the Islamic Resistance a terror organization. Hamas refused to recognize Israel while Fatah and the PA supported a two-state solution. However, the two camps met in Mecca and established a unity government in November 2006. Before long, the sparse violence that cropped up in Gaza since October 2006 led to Hamas raids on PA security compounds. In February 2007, Haniyeh and the Hamas-led cabinet resigned but was reappointed by Abbas, who attempted to establish a new unity government. In March of 2007 Israel vowed to continue the sanctions and military operations, causing Hamas to refuse cessation of rocket fire towards Israel. 

Finally, Hamas had taken control over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority by force after the election during a battle with Fatah in June 2007. The war killed over a hundred people, and injured more than 300 others. It was only after this unfavorable outcome in June that Israel imposed a brutal, vicious, and inhumane blockade upon the Gaza Strip as a form of collective punishment of Palestinians.  In response, Israel collectively punished Gazans by restricting movement/travel, blockading air, land, and sea; Israeli representatives boasted about putting Gazans on a "diet", which consisted of precisely calculating how many calories the average man, woman, and child needed to survive at the very minimum; and restricting imports on important foods such as meat and medical goods. Chocolate, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, fresh meat; paper, glass/plastic/metal containers, tractor and hatchery parts, fishing nets, heaters; horses, donkeys, cattle, chicks, and goats; as well as concrete, iron, wood, tar, and plaster for construction were all prohibited by the Israeli blockade, which continues to this day.

The Zionist blockade on Gaza could easily be compared to "Der Hungerplan", Hitler's plan to starve 30 million Ukrainians, Russians, and Slavs in order to resettle Ukraine and Czechoslovakia with Germans. The food surplus was redirected during the 1940-41 plan to German soldiers and civilians. The plan was to starve and evict the native population in order to realize Hitlerian Lebensraum policy. It has been established above that Zionists were highly involved with the Nazis and admired many aspects of their ideology both in theory and in practice, so the comparison is not especially taboo.

In 2006, Israel initiated the Second Lebanese war after Hezbollah rockets continued in the fashion of the PLO's rocket fire. Hezbollah's rockets were not hand-made, like most Palestinian mortars and bombs. These were the same Katyusha rockets used by the Soviets and their allies. The Israeli Air Force was regularly surveilling and flying over southern Lebanon, yet failed to stop Hezbollah rocket fire even after bombing Lebanese military installations and artillery. Hundreds of tanks were deployed but with no element of surprise; the IDF hadn't fought a ground war for decades and launched frontal assaults of Lebanese positions, taking no prisons and killing less than a thousand-- even the most mainstream Israeli historians call the operation "clumsy, heavy-handed, and slow", not to mention "disappointing." Israeli public opinion turned against the IDF (and by extension the IAF), albeit for stopping just short of a ground invasion. The war lasted 34 days, but had rippling geopolitical costs-- Hezbollah became more aggressive and their relations with Hamas and the PLO were strengthened. Israel quickly gave up the Lebanese land it was occupying after only a few weeks, during which fighting ceased. Over the next decade they would exact "revenge" on Arabs collectively for the Second Lebanese War by occasionally "mowing the lawn".

=====Operation Cast Lead (2008)=====
Israelis often use the phrase "mowing the lawn" to describe what they've done every so often in Gaza-- killing scores of people, terrorizing others, and destroying homes and infrastructure. In addition, another tactic is employed to justify doing so: the IDF purposefully kills Palestinians, including children, in order to provoke retaliatory attacks from Hamas. Once Hamas retaliates, the Israelis claim they can respond with such actions and claim they had no choice-- that their enemy (Hamas) is violent and does not want peace.

In January of 2008, Israel intensified its operations in Gaza. Twelfth Israeli PM Ehut Olmert swore to seek vengeance for Palestinian rocket fire. Food, water, fuel, and electricity controlled by Israel became scarce, and the IDF killed seven Palestinians. With the Strip's airspace completely locked down and checkpoint-laden walls erected in prior years, more and more air strikes on Palestine continued until the Israelis decided they needed a real show of force, following the shameful second Lebanese war operation. 

From December 2008 to January 2009, the IDF carried out a brutal assault on Palestine dubbed "Operation Cast Lead". Their goal was nominally to destroy the Palestinian armed resistance, similar to the stated goals of the 1967 war, the 1982 war, and the various sporadic crimes of the first and second Intifadas. 12 hospitals were damaged, 29 ambulances left damaged or destroyed, and 40 primary care clinics were destroyed; mosques, businesses, 217 schools and 60 nurseries damaged or destroyed, and a UN compound left in non-functional condition. 3,425 housing units were destroyed; 2,843 sustained major damage while 54,800 sustained minor damage. After 22 days of fighting, 1,387 Palestinians were killed-- 773 having been civilians and 320 children. On the Israeli side, only 13 were killed, including 3 civilians and four killed by friendly fire. Over 5,000 were wounded in the fighting. Hamas and Israel separately declared a ceasefire. 

Following this operation, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict, also called the "Goldstone report" commenced. This report (published September 2009) by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was authored by Jewish South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who worked to subvert apartheid in South Africa and worked for the international criminal tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; his co-authors were similarly credentialed figures from Ireland, Pakistan, and Britain. Israel's thirteen and current PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak refused to comment or explain Israel's motivation for the operation in Gaza; Goldstone and his colleagues were barred from entering Gaza via Israel, and they instead had to travel through Egypt to investigate. The IDF unilaterally declared its own internal investigation, and the report investigated crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas. Goldstone later effectively recanted his report, claiming he was too harsh on Israel and that Hamas didn't investigate and claiming he remained a Zionist-- even after investigating and confirming such Israeli acts as the murder of civilians carrying white flags, use of human shields including a nine-year-old boy, bombing a UN school which was being used as a shelter, and the intentional murder of 29 members of the al-Samouni family. Goldstone said in his op-ed that he never would have written the report had he known he'd be attacked, boycotted, censored, and vilified by the World Zionist movement in general, as well as the government of Israel and Jewish organizations in his native South Africa. The report itself, however, was a massive blow to Israel and its international diplomatic relations.

According to B'Tselem, of those killed during the period 2000-2010: 6371 Palestinian were killed by Israeli forces; of those 6371, nearly half (2996) were non-combatants, and 1317 were minors; 1083 Israelis were killed; of those 1083, 741 were civilians and 124 were minors. Further data is linked below.

Unable to form a unity government, in May of 2011 a deal was struck between Hamas and Fatah: Hamas would govern Gaza without oversight and Fatah would govern the West Bank under the PA. Meanwhile, throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the UN simultaneously supported Israel and Palestine, favoring Fatah and the PA's two-state solution as they have since 1947. 

The Iron Dome all-weather air-defense system was built and deployed in Israel in 2011. The US sponsored its production by Israeli weapons manufacturers, and continues to allot more than one billion USD per year to Israel for Iron Dome battery and missile production. As of June 2024, Israel possesses ten Iron Dome batteries. They were first employed after President Obama called for Congress to fund production in 2010. Israel routinely claims that Iron Dome deflects projectiles (the handmade mortars and rockets) at incredible rates, yet the undeflected projectiles cause virtually no damage. Even when thousands of them are ''not'' deflected by the Iron Dome system, these "rockets" are closer to fireworks than to V-2s.

Quite often, Palestinian armed resistance is met with international scorn, not only on the basis of violence but its perceived similarity to Islamic extremist groups. The US and Israel purposefully bolster such claims, including adding organizations like Hamas to terrorist watchlists. From the perspective of US hegemony, this is a no-brainer: by equating Palestinian Islamic resistance to armed Salafists they are able to discard all nuance and portray authentic armed struggle against unipolarity as terroristic, savage, and baseless-- not to mention that this action serves to keep the Muslim world divided as well as the American Muslim population. If we take a closer look, however, at such claims, we find that Hamas and other Islamic Palestinian groups are fundamentally opposed to such extremist action. 

In November 2008, the Islamic State (ISIS) group Jund Ansar Allah was founded with around 100 armed members in the Gaza Strip in Rafah. The following year, the group claimed territory and attempted to establish an Islamic Emirate in Rafah. Immediately, Hamas went to war with the Islamic State, and soon killed their leader and a few others in a series of raids, which destroyed the organization. In 2014, just five years after Hamas utterly destroyed the Islamic State Salafists, Israel funded and armed Syrian rebels in order to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's government-- to which senior Israeli officials have admitted. These rebels, whom the Assad government is still battling today, include the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and others. Syrian oil fields have been occupied since by Americans and their rebel allies, plundering the natural wealth of Syria. However, that is not th sole reason for Israeli arms and funding; they also wanted to counteract Iranian and Russian influence over the region, which is a threat to American interests in the Arab world. The prevention of formation of geopolitical poles other than the Anglo-American unipole is the primary contradiction in geopolitics since the turn of the 21st century, and the rise of contenders such as Russia, China, and Iran threatens US hegemony abroad-- hegemony which is exclusive and minimally if at all co-operative with such emerging poles.

=====Operation Pillar of Defense (2012)=====
With the Israeli occupation's end still not in sight, the Palestinian armed and peaceful resistance waged on. Gaza, so densely populated that one may fire a rocket into the Strip at random and hit a person or building, was home to the armed resistance, continued firing rockets and Israel continued striking from above, leading to skirmishes on the ground. This came to a head in Operation Pillar of Defense, November 14th-21st, 2012.

Israel launched a major ground offensive in Gaza after escalating events: On November 14th, the IDF killed Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari, which caused widespread protests. The airstrikes rained down on 20 other targets in civilian neighborhoods, which the IDF claimed were housing weapons. Ten were killed, and the airstrikes continued through the night. Hamas responded with rocket fire, but killed no one. 

A three-hour ceasefire was arranged on November 16th so Egyptian PM Hisham Qandil could visit Gaza to express support for Hamas and the people. Both sides accused the other of firing over the border, and under the cover of night Israel amassed 75,000 reservists on the borders of the Strip. By November 17th Israel destroyed PM Haniyeh's office with an airstrike. That same day the WHO categorically condemned the bombing campaign, stating that Gazan hospitals were overwhelmed with patients and running out of medical supplies and drugs. Haaretz quoted Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai in saying "The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages."

Over the following weekend, Israeli navy fired into the concentration camp, killing a young girl and her uncle. Journalists from Sky News, ITN, Press TV, and Al-Quds TV were injured when two buildings were targeted. Reporters without Borders notably defended Palestinian media in a statement, citing international law. The 19th of November also saw the mass murder of the Dalu family. A handful of Israelis were killed by further retaliatory rocket fire (still mostly crude, hand-made bombs), while Israeli airstrikes left scores dead and more injured. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Israel to speak with Netanyahu, but refused to meet with Hamas leaders citing their "terrorist" designation in the US. Israel, Egypt, and the UN Secretary-General brokered the ceasefire through Clinton, which was easily discarded before it was even announced after Hamas approved of a bus bombing carried out independently in Tel Aviv, injuring 28. When Hamas spokesman Zuhri called this bombing an act of revenge for the rampant death and destruction, including the Dalu family specifically, Israel began another spree of airstrikes. 

All in all, Israeli forces accepted a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Four Israelis and 174 Palestinians were killed in the week-long operation, including more than a hundred Palestinian civilians and dozens of women and children. Over 1,250 Palestinians were injured, almost 300 homes were destroyed and 1,700 homes were damaged. Despite the ceasefire's terms stating that both combatants were required to "stop all hostilities in the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals", Israel continued to regularly violate and re-violate these terms over the years.

The UN report on Operation Pillar of Defense was published on March 6th, 2013. The UN again admonished both sides of the conflict for failing to "respect" international law. Infrared views this equivocation of Israeli and Palestinian crimes as lopsided and ultimately flawed, owing to the nature of international law's application itself. To the UN both actors were equal-- they were not an occupied and occupier, even though Israeli settlements, land-grabs, occupation, war crimes, and massacres were condemned under international law and Palestinian right of return, self-determination, sovereignty, and other rights were nominally upheld-- and thus "both sides" were expected equally to follow international law without distinction or contextualization of events in their world-historical essence. International law was to be applied blindly, not impartially. Not to mention the fact that Israeli wars and crimes have led to far more death and destruction than any acts by the Palestinian armed resistance. In spite of these facts, the UN has admitted Palestinian representation multiple assemblies, which still does not bring about an equal level of representation as Israel is regularly defended by the US, including using its special veto powers to defend Israel at the UNSC.

In August 2012, the UNRWA issued a report stating that Palestine would be unlivable by 2020 for a multitude of factors imposed upon it by the Israeli occupation.

"Land restrictions imposed since late 2008 still remain, preventing Palestinians from accessing land located 500m to 1.5km from the Green Line. This restricted area on land is estimated at 15% of the total land mass of the Gaza Strip and 35% of its agricultural land: a sore restriction on the densely populated territory. Fishermen are prohibited from accessing around 85% of the maritime areas they are entitled to according to the Oslo Accords. These access restrictions are regularly enforced by Israeli military force over land and at sea when controlled areas are entered."

Around 2013 the unemployment rate skyrocketed due to the Israeli blockade imposed upon Gaza in 2007 as collective punishment. At that time about 23% of men were unemployed and 50% of young people.

=====Operation Protective Edge (2014)=====
The blockade continued and so did the occupation of Gaza-- conditions deteriorated, unemployment rose, drinking water became unsanitary, and farmland infertile. Imports and exports were still controlled by Israel, save for Hamas tunnels used to smuggle items including livestock, weapons, and other goods. They publicly stated that they sought to destroy said tunnels, thereby preventing attacks which could make use of them and cracking down on Gazan trade. 

Israel again created a precedent in their usual fashion: An IDF jeep was attacked, and "in retaliation" Israeli shelling killed four teenage boys playing soccer on the beach on November 10th 2014, while Western media was covering US election results and the world was watching the FIFA World Cup. After days of rocket fire between Hamas and other Palestinian brigades on one hand and Israel on the other, the latter launched an all-out attack on Gaza. In addition to the annihilation of Hamas, the Israelis again used retaliatory rocketfire as a ''casus belli'' for invasion.

On July 8th 2014, dozens were killed and dozens more were injured. Over the next seven weeks, Israel launched a major war on Gaza. 2,200 Gazans were killed (incl. 1,560 civilians, 550 children and 640 combatants), while 73 Israelis were killed (incl. six civilians, one child, and 67 combatants). 18,000 Gazan civilian homes and one Israeli home were destroyed; Gazan infrastructure damage numbered four billion USD while Israeli damages amounted to fifty-five million. Over 150,000 homes sustained damage which left them "uninhabitable". About half a million people were displaced by the assault, most of whom sought shelter in UN schools--which Israel struck anyway. 118 UNRWA installations were damaged, including 83 schools and 10 health centers. Israel formulated the military doctrine of "deterrence", which explicitly involves the large-scale destruction of buildings and other infrastructure and creating mass casualties as a means of "deterring" future attacks; this is a development of the state's plan since even before its founding. The death and destruction is intended to cause demoralization and fatigue which is meant to destroy the morale of Palestinian Arabs in turn, to force their surrender. 

Israel tank operators were quoted by The Guardian as having received orders to fire at whatever buildings were in front of them, sometimes as "revenge" for IDF deaths. Soldiers were told the night before their July 17th operations to fire on any Gazan closer than 200 meters. They also were reported taking Gazans as human shields, but no one was prosecuted. No human rights abuses were reported for the operation on the Israeli side; Hamas and resistance fighters were claimed to have attacked Israel in the vicinity of civilians, which is considered under international law to be "not taking ''all feasible'' precautions to protect civilians", as opposed to human shielding (intentionally putting someone between combatants). On this point, we recall the fact that Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, in which there is little open land. Amnesty International whitewashed much of Israel's actions in contrast to its previous reports on IDF operations.

The common features of Gazan occupation now have become sedentary, set in stone. The death toll continues rising with each operation, and in so doing the proportion of Palestinians to Israelis killed and injured remains a gulf of disparity; the ratio of Gazan civilians to combatants killed also rises. So too remains a disproportionate ratio in infrastructure damages in the respective regions. Still internally displaced, refugees and their descendants continue to live in tent encampments in the Strip, suspended in the limbo of internal displacement.

Beginning in 2018, Israel funneled millions through Qatari officials to fund Hamas. Though it would initially seem contradictory, there is a simple reason: Israel needed to keep Gaza and the West Bank disunified, and that meant propping up Hamas to a certain extent to guarantee Fatah is prevented from controlling Gaza. In reality this only hurts Israeli credibility, serving as further evidence that Israel manufactures enemies in order to justify itself and the necessity of a Jewish state in general. Fatah, as previously mentioned, is seen as a bigger threat by Israel due to it's (and by extension the PLO's) moderateness in having renounced armed struggle and recognized the state of Israel.

Between 2018 and 2020, Palestinians held massive peaceful protests in Gaza. Beginning on March 30th 2018, Gazans started marching in the tens of thousands to demand an end to the Israeli blockade as well as the right of return for refugees. Though some threw rocks or burned tires, most were unarmed peaceful protesters. In response, Israeli Security Forces (Israeli border security) used tear gas, rubber bullets, and even live ammunition. Haaretz interviewed Israeli snipers who routinely shot random Gazans; whether they were near the border wall or not. Children, pregnant women, and people as far away as 400 meters from the wall were shot with high-powered rifles-- often in the kneecaps or ankles with the explicit goal of paralyzation. Over 200 were killed and 8,000 injured. None faced consequences. 

President Trump helped to negotiate bilateral peace plans between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel and between the latter and Bahrain during this time. 
[[File:Jerusalem demographics.webp|thumb|Jerusalem's demographics as of 2023]]
According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2023 the Israeli population is about 9.8 million, made up of 73% Jews, 21% Arabs, and 6% others. Of the Jews, about 70% were born in Israel as ''second or third generation Israelis'', with the other 30% being immigrants (~20% from Europe and the Americas, the remaining ~10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab world). Thus Israelis, as we touched on earlier, are an entirely supplanted population today which is not organically based in the region.

West Jerusalem's population consists of 354,000 Israelis and 5,000 Palestinians as of 2023, having been Israeli territory since 1948. East Jerusalem's population is made up of 236,000 Israelis and 370,000 Palestinians. The Old City itself is divided into quarters, with the Temple Mount its own designated area. More than 140,000 Palestinians of Jerusalem have been psychically separated from the rest of the city by a 700km (435 mile) concrete wall, which Israel started building in 2002.

=====Operation Al-Aqsa Mosque (2023) and the subsequent Palestinian-Israeli war=====
In the middle of September 2023, Israel killed two Palestinians, one of whom was a child. On September 19th 2023, Israel injured seven Palestinians in Gaza, including three children. That same day the IDF raided the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp in Jenin, killing five and wounding thirty. On the 22nd the IDF murdered an 18-year-old boy in a dawn raid in the West Bank. Two days later they raided Bir Zeit University in Ramallah and arrested nine students. On October 4th IDF snipers shot Gazan protesters in the ankles, and October 5th, the IDF killed three West Bank Palestinians and prevented medical aid from reaching them. That same day an Israeli settler murdered two Palestinian farmers and desecrated their bodies. This all lead to the ignition of the major Gazan operation, codenamed "Al-Aqsa Mosque".

On October 7th, 2023, Gazan Palestinian forces broke through Israeli border fences and flew into Israel on paragliders. They attacked border checkpoints, (mostly) military bases, and Israeli civilian areas such as kibbutzim (illegal settlements in the occupied territories). These forces were comprised of mostly young men who have grown up within the confines of the Gaza concentration camp; they were led by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other brigades of armed forces. Israeli security, which is usually laser-precise and fast-acting, deployed ground troops in response at 7:45 am-- an hour delayed, with jets and helicopters deployed late as well. Shin Bet, Israel's domestic (homeland) security, ordered all available forces to go south at 9 am. Later it was revealed that Egyptian intelligence warned Israel of a possible Gazan operation a year beforehand, leading many to believe that Israel allowed the attack in order to obtain a prerequisite for annihilating the Palestinians once and for all. The evidence given for previous Israeli operations would indicate the nation-state is at least willing and able to use the "provoke-and-slaughter" strategy.

During the attack 1,200 Israelis were killed, about 850 of whom were civilians, 500 being security forces or military. While Western media has claimed the Gazan forces committed war crimes including mass rape, beheadings, taking hostages, and burning civilians alive, in actuality, only the claim that they took 200 hostages was true. They did so in order to open negotiations for freeing the over 1,000 Palestinian hostages detained in Israeli prisons without access to the evidence against them, without trial, and often without being charged. A great number of these prisoners are minors. The number of these Palestinian hostages has risen to 9,500 since October 7th, 2023. Many of the 200 Israeli hostages were later killed by Israeli bombing and gunfire, starved under the same conditions as Palestinians, or were exchanged in the two deals between Hamas and Israel; some of the remaining hostages, including young women, have been identified as IDF soldiers or security for the Nova music festival.

As for the other claims levied against the Gazan fighters, there is, as of June 2024, still no evidence of any beheadings on October 7th, according to the report provided to the ICJ conducted by independent international investigators. Claims of rape and Palestinian resistance burning people alive remain unsubstantiated and even challenged.

The Israeli response was one of "scorched earth". According to Israeli media interviews with IDF footsoldiers, tank operators, and air support, IDF soldiers trapped and fired on Israelis at the Nova music festival using rifles and mounted helicopter guns; Israeli commanders authorized tank shelling on civilian targets, helicopter machine gun fire on civilians, and airstrikes on at least one kibbutz. One Israeli woman taken from her kibbutz said she and many others wouldn't have survived the indiscriminate Israeli bombardment if not for the Palestinians taking them hostage. Israeli tank shells, airstrikes, helicopter missiles-- due to their sheer power and explosive nature, these are all likely culprits for the incineration of Israelis during Operation Al-Aqsa Mosque. 

In the days following these events, there were a few key statements by Israeli leadership. On October 9th, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a "complete siege" of Gaza. He continued, "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed... We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." On October 12th, Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett cited the firebombing of over 30,000 civilians at Dresden during WWII (Britain employing such force as a weapon of demoralization) as a precedent for Israel's military response. In an October 16th interview, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely stated that the Dresden attack was not only justified, but agreed with Bennett that it serves as a good example for Israel in its retaliation. Benjamin Netanyahu likened the Gazans (and, more generally, Palestinians) to the biblical Amalek who were wiped out by King Saul in the first Book of Samuel. The verse reads: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Ariel Kallner, a member of Israeli parliament from Netenyahu's Likud party, posted, "Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!" US politicians and other Israeli allies have asserted that they will do whatever possible to "turn Gaza into a parking lot."

Key reports, one by David Ben Zion claiming 40 babies were beheaded and another by the New York Times claiming mass rape on October 7th were debunked, leaving no evidence for either claim. The only photo of these burnt/beheaded infants was created by artificial intelligence, which was then circulated online. Additionally, the Mossad curated and edited footage captured by Palestinian GoPros during the attack. The Israeli government held 75 private screenings of the footage worldwide -- to which only a few hundred journalists were privately invited. Israel said the footage would not be made public. 

In the wake of the operation, Israel unleashed their arsenal upon the Gaza Strip. For weeks straight Israeli air forces, which have complete control over the airspace over the Strip, bombarded Gaza. Carpet bombing, airstrikes, artillery shells, and white phosphorus levelled half of Gaza's buildings, killing ~24,000 in the first 100 days of war. In five months time at least 30,000 were killed. According to Oxfam, Israel killed an average of 250 Palestinians per day for the first 100 days, without factoring in disease, malnourishment, and dehydration. How are we to know this killing is indiscriminate? The population demographics of Gaza are (roughly) as follows: 50% children, 25% men, 25% women. If we compare these figures to the data regarding Gazan deaths, the spread is about equivalent to the overall demographics of the general population of Gaza. Thus, we can conclude that the killing of Gazans was indiscriminate. 

While in the span of two years of war in Ukraine only 500 children were killed, within six months 13,000 Gazan children were killed.

Over the 6 months following October 7th, 2023, all 36 hospitals in Gaza were destroyed or made inoperable. Multiple hospitals were raided by Israeli soldiers in the north, with some footsoldiers disguising themselves as doctors to gain access in those still functioning and murder patients (yet another war crime under international law). As early as New Years 2024, only 9 of the 36 hospitals were still standing. 

Al-Shifa hospital was bombed under the media cover of Thanksgiving, the IDF having claimed the hospital housed a base full of weapons and tunnels used by Hamas. Such claims were debunked by Israeli propaganda video itself. On Christmas Day of 2023, Israeli forces massacred the Maghazi refugee camp under a similar media blackout. New Years Day of 2024 saw another opportunity exploited by Israel with the massacre of 156 Palestinians in 24 hours. Israel, having learned a lesson long ago when Egypt crossed the Suez in 1973 on Yom Kippur, choosing that date for its media blackout, Israel has consistently used worldwide holidays and events to commit heinous acts and escape immediate consequences. That was exactly what they did when Obama was inaugurated during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. 

Israel has destroyed multiple UN schools (in which thousands of civilians were taking shelter), churches (including some of the oldest in the region like the Church of Saint Porphyrius-- while housing civilians of all faiths), and other civilian infrastructure. Over half of Gaza's buildings are destroyed or damaged.

All crossings were denied to Palestinians, including the Rafah crossing into Egypt. While death reigned in the north, Israel warned the Gazans to move south toward Rafah. The goal was to either kill the Palestinians to take the land, or corral them like animals through the Rafah crossing and into the Sinai Desert, where they would live in tents and be Egypt's problem. The Rafah crossing reopened on October 21st, 2023, allowing in humanitarian aid trucks from Egypt and the United Nations. This aid was hindered by Israeli protesters who blocked the crossing at the other Egyptian-Gazan border, Kerem Shalom. Notably, over the past ten years, the Rafah crossing has been closed for more days than its been open. Since February 2024 the amount of aid decreased dramatically. This is around the same time that IDF forces withdrew from the north and started applying more pressure in the south, striking targets in such a manner as to move Gazans in the south towards Rafah.  

Meanwhile, the United States provided 20,000 munitions to Israel during the siege of northern Gaza, then dropping aid shipments into the Strip. Many of these airdrops killed Palestinians when their chutes failed to deploy. In the midst of humanitarian mobilization, the Flour massacre took place on February 29th, 2024. Israeli soldiers opened fire on civilians seeking food from aid trucks in Gaza City. 118 were slaughtered and 760 injured. The construction of a port has been controlled and prevented by the Israelis, though the project was sponsored by the Biden administration.

In the Arab world, Hamas has found allies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran.

The Houthis, a group which have taken up arms since the 1990s to defend Yemenis from U.S.-sponsored genocide at the hands of Saudi Arabia, see their struggle against US proxy states (and the US-led global unipolar order in general) as unified with the struggle of the Palestinians against Israel and the Western "rules-based order". From October 2023 to February 2024, the Houthis struck commercial ships headed through the Red Sea to Israel, as well as flying helicopters full of fighters onto the vessels in order to capture them. Not a single person during this five month period died from these attacks. It wasn't until a ship was attacked in March 2024 that a single person was killed. The Houthis continue to blockade and strike ships to hinder trade and bring immediate attention to the Palestinian struggle today with minimal casualties.

On February 15th 2024, after trading strikes over five months, Israel bombed southern Lebanon killing ten civilians. The Syrian branch of Hezbollah was hit by Israeli munitions as well. 200 Syrian Hezbollah fighters were killed; weapons caches and training facilities were hit. Hezbollah continues to fire on Israeli military bases from Lebanon, providing support to Hamas fighters.

Iran, which has openly supplied Hezbollah with training, arms, and money to fight Israel since 1982, was strong-worded but did not act on behalf of the Palestinians immediately. However, after an Israeli strike destroyed the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1st-- killing 7 IRGC officers, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and 2 civilians-- Iran warned of retaliation; for this was the first ever direct attack on Iran by Israel. On April 13th Iran launched more than 300 slow-moving drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at Israel as a show of force, 84% of which were intercepted with the help of the U.S. and Jordanian militaries and the British Royal Air Force. These barrages of missiles were targeted exclusively at Israeli military bases and stations, striking the most secure military bases in the world and only causing a single fatality. Meant as a show of strength as well as a warning, this attack was also bait to expose the allies of the State of Israel, which was only able to deflect the attack with assistance from the US military, the Kingdom of Jordan (which has its own Iron Dome defense system), France, Germany, and the UK, in addition to their own Iron Domes.

Outside the Arab world, there are multiple pillars of diplomatic support for Palestinians:

a) The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on November 30th, 2023 calling for a "comprehensive and lasting ceasefire", the protection of civilians, the assurance of humanitarian assistance, and diplomatic/political resolution wherever possible. 

b) Russia held talks in Moscow on February 29th, 2024 between Hamas and Fatah. Sergei Lavrov urged the two factions to unify on behalf of the Palestinian people. "One of the pretexts for postponing and rescheduling these negotiations is the lack of unity within Palestinian ranks. Sceptics have argued that it is impossible to negotiate when one does not know who speaks for the Palestinians," said Lavrov. "Jesus Christ was born in Palestine. One of his sayings is: 'A house divided against itself will not stand.' Christ is honoured by both Muslims and Christians. I think that quote reflects the challenge of restoring Palestinian unity. It does not depend on anyone but the Palestinians themselves." Lavrov said the Russian foreign ministry and Russian Middle East specialists were on hand to help and consult the delegates. He said he hoped the talks would foster "mutual understanding between all factions" and support for a unified government which represents the Palestinian people. 

c) North Korean F-7 RPGs are currently in use by Palestinian fighters.

The diplomatic response was intense. While Israel violated a heap of UN resolutions, Hamas consistently supported investigation of the events of October 7th, 2023 by independent experts from the UN. South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice (IJC), in which Israel was found guilty. The court ordered Israel to prevent its troops from committing genocide, but did not order a ceasefire as South Africa had hoped. Israel rejected the ruling and chided the court, calling it biased and saying the court isn't understanding Israel's right to security and duty to defend its people. South Africa then argued that Israel was carrying out apartheid on the Palestinians and occupying their land. Israel again rejected such claims, asserting that the ICJ had no jurisdiction over Israel.

Protests and other demonstrations took place all over the world, including all across America. American universities, including Ivy Legue schools, saw all peaceful tent encampments on school grounds, Zionists yelling racist chants to discredit the protests, and eventually violent Zionists attacking protesters and starting brawls. Eventually these protest encampments were washed away and dismantled by police, with some universities threatening students with expulsion and police arrests for trespassing on university property. President Biden floundered, supporting the students' right to protest but condemning violence and anti-Semitic rhetoric employed by people Infrared recognizes as wreckers, idiots, and Zionists. 

In May 2024, the BDS movement condemned armed resistance against Israel. BDS was then critiqued by the PFLP as having given up on the Palestinian people through their condemnation of armed struggle, as ''outmoded'' by armed resistance necessary under such conditions as the Gazans were facing. 

The Gazans were systematically made refugees again, herded from the northern end of the Strip down to the south, where they gathered in Rafah. Soon after, a peace proposal was brokered with the help of Cairo; though Hamas agreed to the terms, Israel intended to invade the Rafah refugee camp and therefore declined. On the same day as the Met Gala, when again US media was distracted, Israel launched a ground offensive on Rafah. At the massive refugee camp, on Memorial Day (May 27th), Israel bombed Palestinians indiscriminately, massacring 45 Palestinians and injuring two hundred. Biden initially claimed that the Rafah massacre was a red line, but backtracked. Following these events, Ireland, Spain, and Norway announced in a joint statement that they will formally recognize Palestine and support an immediate ceasefire. 

On June 8th, 2024, the US assisted the IDF in a massacre launched from the "aid pier" constructed with US funding. The reason given was a rescue operation for four Israeli hostages. During the joint Israel-American operation, some troops drove into the refugee camp disguised in humanitarian aid trucks, which were supposed the be carrying clothes, food, and water. They opened fire on arrival. Other special forces arrived earlier at the camp disguised as refugees and Gazan security forces. 210 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp were murdered during the "mission" under heavy bombardment by Israeli warplanes, and the hostages were flown out of Gaza via the floating pier. This abuse of humanitarian equipment is no surprise as similar war crimes have been committed since October 7th 2023-- such as Israeli special forces dressing as doctors to gain access to Ibn Sina hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin, whereafter they executed Palestinians they claimed to have been Hamas operatives (who were hospitalized and unarmed). Routinely Israel targets entire blocks full of residential family homes solely based on flimsy claims that a single person might have been working for Hamas in one way or another, or that Hamas was hiding weapons among the soon-to-be-rubble.

Between October 2023 and June 2024, 30-36,000 Gazans were killed (including 15,000 children) and more than 80,000 injured. In the West Bank, 532 additional Palestinians were killed (including 133 children), with over five thousand injured by IDF forces. Israel's death toll remained the same as it was on October 7th, 2023, barring Israeli revisions, which dropped the figure from 1,405 to 1,132, and IDF leadership targeted by Palestinian resistance. 8,700 Israelis have been injured since October as well. 

In terms of Palestinian infrastructure, (as of June 2024) more than half of Gazan buildings were damaged or destroyed, including 267 places of worship. 86% of Gazan schools, 60% of residential buildings, 80% of commercial buildings were either damaged or destroyed. 83% of Gaza's ground wells were left inoperable. Only 14 of Gaza's 35 hospitals were functioning in June of 2024, overwhelmed with injuries and casualties. 

The UN took on Hamas' invitation and conducted the first of multiple independent investigations into the events from October 7th to December 31st, 2023. The report was leaked on June 12th, 2024 on X (formerly Twitter), and found the following to be true: first, there is no evidence that Hamas committed or ordered sexual violence to be committed on October 7th; second, that Israel lied about sexual violence given the lack of evidence; thirdly, the investigation found that systemic and gender-based violence is part of the IDF's standard "operating procedures"; fourth, that sexual violence is inexorably tied to Israeli occupation; and finally, it found that Israel systematically targeted and subjected Palestinians to sexual abuse and torture, including forced public stripping, sexual humiliation, and rape. In addition to this report, it is clear from years of other independent reports that the torture and abuse of Palestinians, including sexual abuse, has been commonplace in Israeli prisons for "decades" prior to 1999-- even according to such mainstream and controlled sources as Wikipedia. However, its also true that IDF soldiers abuse Israeli prisoners as well. What's more, the UN's investigation found that Israel also committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, forced transfer, murder in response to Hamas' attack. 

The IDF employed the Hannibal Directive on October 7th 2023, a military doctrine first used in 1986, in which commanders authorize Israeli forces to prevent capture of soldiers "at all costs"-- including friendly fire. The directive was explicitly banned from Israeli media mention or discussion by the Mossad, until a partial hangout in 2003. The full text was never released, remaining only within the highest ranks of the IDF, while lower levels received differing oratory versions. The UN all but confirmed the use of the Hannibal Directive on October 7th 2023 despite its supposed discontinuation in 2016.

There was a degree of protest against Israel stemming from the state's actions both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was unprecedented since its founding. This was especially true in America, its long-time ally. However, among such protesters were genuine anti-Semites. Unabashed neo-Nazis who attempt to capitalize on anti-Zionist sentiment among American youth such as Lucas Gage and Nick Fuentes criticize Israel and its founding on the basis of "Jewish sovereignty" and the "[[Jewish Question]]" (the assertion that Jews run the world and own everything).

Israel tried to provoke Hezbollah and Iran in multiple ways over the summer of 2024: It bombed southern Lebanon, killed Lebanese civilians, and even constructed and employed trebuchets, launching firebombs over the border wall. But in addition to these indefensible acts, it assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while in Tehran as well as Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut in July 2024. Iran in August said they did not plan to retaliate after tensions ran high for weeks-- so high that Israeli and American media claimed a retaliatory attack was immanent within 24 hours for the entire week following the strike on Shukr.

Additionally, in July 2024 the Houthis launched two drone attacks on Israel, which outmaneuvered Israel's Iron Dome systems and did not trigger warning systems. On July 14th in the port city of Eilat, the Houthis carried out a drone attack in response to Israel's missile strike on about 400 Palestinians, 90 of whom were killed and 300 injured. Later, without Israel's allies helping to deflect these drones as they did in the earlier Iranian attack, one man was killed and 10 injured in Tel Aviv on July 19th. 

The US government continued to send massive bombs to Israel, even as some American politicians pandered and pretended to care about Palestinian civilians. The Zionist entity has used said bombs to strike schools between June and August 2024, which are some of the only presupposedly safe structures left in the strip, housing families, women, and children. In central and southern Gaza, in Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah ground forces intensified their ground occupation and bombing campaigns; residents of Khan Younis who fled the Israeli bombing campaign over the final week of July returned to find extensive and severe destruction left by the Israel withdrawl; 30 or more killed in Shufat refugee camp outside East Jerusalem, including small children; at least 40 killed in Deir el-Balah markets and schools, including a family of fifteen.

In early August, 10 Israeli prison guards were arrested for sexual abuse and torture of a Palestinian prisoner. This being a longstanding practice in Israeli detention centers documented by the UN, the arrest was a break with the Israeli judicial system regarding the topic only due to the video's dissemination online. When the news broke, Israeli citizens, ministers, and politicians took to the streets (and internet) to protest not the sexual abuse of prisoners (including Israeli prisoners), but calling for the freeing of the perpetrators and denying the accusations.

On August 13th, Haaretz reported that the Israeli military is using captured Palestinian civilians as human shields to test for booby traps and mines in the tunnels of Gaza, with permittance by senior officials. This, coupled with videos of human shields and hostages blindfolded and handcuffed– one even strapped to a car in July of 2024– reveal the extent to which the IDF hypocritically chides Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

In late August 2024, the IDF preemptively struck Lebanon after announcing it was their intention in a press briefing.

On the night of the second US presidential debate, September 10th, 2024, Israel struck Lebanon 16 times by air. On September 17th and 18th, Israel, having announced that one of their goals in the war was to eradicate Hezbollah (a far larger, better armed, and better trained force than Hamas comprised of many tens of thousands) in Lebanon, detonated a shipment of hundreds of pagers which were intercepted by the IDF and fitted with explosives before reaching Lebanon. Though 37 Hezbollah members were killed, civilian men, women, and children were also killed as the devices were detonated remotely in densely populated civilian areas, and nearly three thousand were injured over the three-day span. In Syria, a few Hezbollah members were injured by more pager attacks. This heinous tactic, including manufacture of the pagers, was prepared for fifteen years by Israel-- it was rejected for use by the CIA due to the high civilian casualty risk.

By September 19th, Israel air-struck southern Lebanon and Beirut over a hundred more times, damaging civilian infrastructure, killing about 360, and injuring over 1,200 people including civilian men, women, and children. This Israeli bombings marked the most intense campaign against Lebanon since October 2023. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah called this campaign against Lebanon a "declaration of war", and the next day the organization carried out bombings of northern Israel, targeting air defense bases. Further Israeli strikes came in the following days as Israel prepared for a ground invasion of Lebanon.

Meanwhile, on September 24th, 2024, Israeli forces began launching missiles into Syria which were intercepted by Syrian anti-air defenses.