With Hamas’ devastating cross-border attack from Gaza Saturday, everything Israelis thought they knew – about their country and politics, security and the army, and place in the Middle East – collapsed.
The abject failure of Israel’s intelligence and military has shaken a public reared on the prowess of the vaunted Israel Defense Forces. The near absence of governmental authority in shattered southern communities in the first days of the war has undermined faith in the country’s leaders. The savagery of the attack on civilians has made clear that the enemy from Gaza was vastly underestimated.
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The Hamas attack Saturday is forcing a paradigm shift for Israelis, whose sense of security and faith in their government and army were profoundly undermined. Yet in their shared trauma, they are putting aside recent differences.
The unprecedented toll – more than 1,000 Israelis killed and over 150 taken hostage to Gaza – made it, by far, the heaviest single-day loss in Israel’s conflict-filled history.
Yet in its shared trauma, the country has drawn together, with the divisions and mass protest movement against the hard-right government put aside.
“It was a dramatic, epic event in Israeli society. Books will be written about it,” says one senior Israeli military officer. “[It will] change the paradigm.”
Says Adva Adar, whose 85-year-old grandmother, Yaffa, was taken captive from her kibbutz in southern Israel: “Even in our worst nightmare we couldn’t imagine that this was possible.”
Israelis went to sleep Friday night celebrating the end of the Jewish High Holidays, looking ahead to a return to work and schools, and, while apprehensive about their own politics, fairly confident that they were safe in their beds.
The next morning, with Hamas’ devastating cross-border attack from Gaza, everything they thought they knew – about their country and politics, security and the army, and place in the Middle East – collapsed.
The abject failure of Israel’s intelligence and military has shaken a public reared on the prowess of the vaunted Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Why We Wrote This
A story focused on
The Hamas attack Saturday is forcing a paradigm shift for Israelis, whose sense of security and faith in their government and army were profoundly undermined. Yet in their shared trauma, they are putting aside recent differences.
The near absence of governmental authority in shattered southern Israel in the first few days of the war has undermined faith in the country’s leaders.
The savagery of Hamas commandos, left unchecked for hours as they went house to house shooting civilians in communities near the Gaza border, has made clear that the enemy from Gaza was vastly underestimated.
Yet in its shared trauma, the country has drawn together, with the divisions and mass protest movement against the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put aside.
Like 9/11, but worse
The unprecedented toll – more than 1,000 Israelis killed, nearly 3,000 wounded, and over 150 taken hostage to Gaza, including women, children, and older people – made it, by far, the heaviest single-day loss in Israel’s conflict-filled history.
Even Israeli officials drew immediate comparisons to 9/11. But in relative terms it’s many times worse: Given Israel’s population, it would be as if more than 30,000 Americans were killed on that fateful day in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
“It was a dramatic, epic event in Israeli society. Books will be written about it,” says one senior Israeli military officer. “It’s a game-changer in society. … [It will] change the paradigm.”
Nearly every household in Israel has been impacted by Saturday’s attack and the ongoing fighting, now in its fourth day.
Survivors from an outdoor music festival held near the Gaza border that morning recounted on live television the subsequent massacre that took place, as Hamas militants fired indiscriminately at the young revelers. More than 250 bodies were later recovered at the site.
Funerals for fallen soldiers were held under rocket fire in Jerusalem Monday, as relatives of those captured or still missing held a press conference pleading for any information about their loved ones.
“I don’t think that anyone could have imagined that something like this was possible. I wanted to believe that … the IDF or other authorities would have the ability to know about it,” says Adva Adar, whose 85-year-old grandmother, Yaffa, was taken captive from her kibbutz in southern Israel. “Even in our worst nightmare we couldn’t imagine that this was possible.”
Hatem Ali/AP
The Israeli military claimed Tuesday that it had “more or less” secured the southern region bordering Gaza, and that its warplanes were striking expansively inside Gaza. Palestinian authorities said more than 900 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had been killed, and 4,000 wounded.
Water, electricity, and the entry of fuel and goods to Gaza have also been cut, Israeli officials said.
As some 360,000 Israeli reservists mobilize, analysts predict a major ground offensive deep into Gaza, a small, cramped slice of territory home to more than 2 million Palestinians. The goal, senior Israeli officials have said, is to completely dismantle Hamas and all other militant groups inside the coastal enclave.
“What will be done to our enemies in the coming days will resonate with them for generations,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a speech Monday night, girding the public for a “long and severe” campaign.
“This is a war for [our] home, a war for ensuring our existence,” he added.
Hamas was an “address”
That it has come to this with Hamas in Gaza has shaken Israeli political and military officials.
Despite multiple rounds of escalations and conflict in Gaza since the militant group seized the territory in 2007, the Israeli strategy for over a decade was to keep Hamas in control as an “address,” in the words of one senior Israeli security official, with which it could engage.
The bargain especially over the past decade was clear: Israel would ease the blockade around the territory, allowing in funds and more goods, and letting out thousands of Palestinian laborers to work in Israel. In return Hamas would, it was hoped, ensure quiet and nonbelligerence. This strategy, according to multiple Israeli officials, also collapsed over the weekend.
“Hamas made a strategic decision to [go] out of [its old] playbook,” said Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser, on a call with reporters. Mr. Hulata said that previously Hamas used military force to extract economic concessions, infrastructure improvement, and other assistance for Gaza, admitting that Israel indirectly negotiated with the militant group to achieve those ends.
There would now likely have to be an IDF ground offensive into Gaza that would claim many lives on both sides, with the goal being to end Hamas rule, Mr. Hulata added.
“We refrained from doing that for a long time because of the costs that will be coming out from this decision,” he says. “We [thought we could] manage the situation. … All of that has now changed.”
Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters
Wary eye on the north
More concerning than even this scenario is the possibility that the far larger and more powerful Hezbollah, a Shiite movement based to Israel’s north in Lebanon, will enter the fray. The Iranian-backed group, which Israeli officials now refer to as a “terror army” due to its vast rocket, missile, and drone arsenal, last fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006.
The prospects of a large multifront war from both south and north breaking out, with projectiles raining down on Israeli cities, are seemingly growing. Over the past two days, over two dozen rockets and missiles were fired at Israeli territory from Lebanon, and at least one cross-border infiltration raid was made by Lebanese-based militants into Israel, with fatalities on both sides. Retaliatory Israeli strikes into Lebanon killed several Hezbollah personnel late Monday.
“[Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah said more than once that if a soldier of his will be hurt, he will hit back. He already said that if Israel will enter the Gaza Strip with ground forces, he will react. As we see with Hezbollah and Nasrallah in the last years, everything he says – it’s being done,” said Eyal Pinko, a former senior Israeli security officer, on the call with reporters. “We need to take that seriously.”
Associated Press, New York Times
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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Amid the devastation and bloodshed – and with more feared – Israeli society has united, despite the deep cracks exposed over the last 10 months amid the Netanyahu government’s push to overhaul the country’s judiciary.
The mass protest movement has canceled its weekly demonstrations and begun organizing food and aid drives to those in need. The military reservists who suspended their service in protest at government policy have all returned to their units.
“The pain is terrible. … Everyone knows someone who is lost and won’t return, and everyone has someone who at this moment is on the battlefield,” Shikma Bressler, a prominent protest leader, said in a recorded video Monday.
Ammar Awad/Reuters
Unity government?
There are even talks offered by opposition leaders about joining an “emergency unity government” alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu, which mere days before would have been unthinkable.
“The people are united, and now the leadership needs to unite,” Mr. Netanyahu, formerly the most divisive figure in Israel, said in his address Monday night.
Recriminations and investigations can wait until after the war ends, say officials themselves. Analysts surmise that many top security officers will ultimately pay with their jobs, and even Mr. Netanyahu – who for years billed himself as “Mr. Security” – will not be left unscathed.
Even several days after the start of the war, government agencies still appear unresponsive; multiple relatives of captured Israelis say no Israeli official has yet contacted them. Talks for the release of the hostages have reportedly been rejected by both sides, at least for now.
For these reasons and so many more, the public anger and personal trauma inside Israeli society will likely take a long time to heal.
“The worst feeling of the last few days is that the country that was supposed to protect you just wasn’t there,” says Ben, a young father living in Tel Aviv who asked that his full name not be used. “Everyone I spoke to is distressed. I know another dad whose son asked him if someone is going to break in and kidnap them. How are you supposed to deal with that?”
Even worse, this latest war – the most devastating since 1948 between Israelis and Palestinians – will likely only harden the hate and distrust.
Similar to many Israelis, Ben, a political moderate, has been changed by what has transpired in recent days. Asked about the future prospects of coexistence with the other side, he says quietly: “Many years will have to pass for that to happen.”