The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians have intensified on Tuesday night, as Israel targeted Hamas officers in Gaza City and fighters in Gaza fired rockets at Tel Aviv.
By Tuesday night, 35 Palestinians had been brutally killed in Gaza, while 203 others remained critically wounded. According to Israeli health officials, five people lost their lives due to the rockets fired at Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, and Lod, whereas over 100 were injured.
This Israel-Palestine conflict is by far the worst since 2014 and has brought an overwhelming sense of fear amongst millions of people living in Gaza and Israel. Despite the magnitude of the fighting, the two have managed to create a questionable pair: Hamas, an Islamist militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Hamas’s role in the Israel-Palestine conflict has allowed it to present itself as the group that safeguards the rights of Palestinian worshippers in the city. With the unanticipated Israeli police raids on the Aqsa Mosque, Hamas retaliated by firing rockets at Israel. As far as President Netanyahu is concerned, the Israel-Palestine conflict has given him an opportunity to stay in power, just for a few more days.
Ghassan Khatib, a politics professional at Birzeit University, has offered a new perspective to the situation. “A story of every precious war” between the Israelis and the Palestinians, where governments find a blessing in disguise and the people of Gaza end up losing all they ever had.
The first few hours of the conflict have only brought a sense of renewed fear and immense loss. Even the conflict itself is unfair on different levels – Palestinians have only bolstered a few rockets, while the Israelis are armed with fighter jets and a high-tech anti-missile defense system.
Most Israeli airstrikes have hit their targets, killing some civilians in the process. One such case is of Osama Soboh, a 31-year-old civil servant of Gaza, who lost his mother and brother in an Israeli attack on their apartment building that was originally aimed at militants. Soboh expressed a profound sense of grief by phone on Tuesday, stating that it’s a hard thing to “say farewell to the most precious person you have on earth.”
At present, the Israel-Palestine conflict has intensified where rockets and airstrikes are just being fired on the go. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli spokesman, declared that 15 militants had lost their lives in jet strikes and drones.
The result of the conflict has been tragic, to say the least. The vast majority of civilians are left grieving for the loved ones that they lost during the war. In Beit Hanoun, an al Masri family put two young boys to rest. Ibrahim, 11 and Marwan, 7, had been engrossed in their play outside their home when a missile struck, as affirmed by their uncle, Bashir al-Masri, 25.
For the 25-year-old Masri, the attack was the manifestation of Israel’s lack of concern for civilian life. He further declared how people in Gaza have been known as terrorists when all they want to do is just ‘live in peace.’
The next junction of the Israel-Palestine conflict is unbeknownst to humans. The sudden surge to high-value targets could imply a bigger conflict is in the making or it could also mean a final blow before the fighting comes to a halt. However, Colonel Conricus has said that the air campaign of the military is still in an early stage, pointing out at the possibility of more fighting in the days to come.
