A LOOMING INVASION: IMPLICATIONS FOR GAZA, HAMAS, PALESTINIAN CAUSE

Why in the News?

Israel issued a new warning to Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and offered a three-hour window for evacuation to southern Gaza, ahead of a launch of ground invasion against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

What will be the implications of an Israeli ground invasion for Gaza and Israel?

1. The Gaza Strip is a very narrow strip of land and among the mostly densely populated areas in the world shall pay the highest price with innocent lives.
2. Hamas military men will be hard to find, and yet the civilians will be easy targets.
3. An Israeli reoccupation of the Strip directly means more loss of lives on both sides.
4. It shall also lead to encouraging more resistance of smaller groups that would be splinters of Hamas.

Even if there is no ground invasion, what will be the situation as Israel is cutting off essential supplies to Gaza?

1. It may lead to ethnic cleansing of more than 1 million Palestinian as
   1. Israelis are pushing for a new expulsion of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and the Sinai desert.
   2. Israel’s focus on northern part of the Gaza Strip, maybe to reoccupy it and make it some sort of a buffer zone.
   3. Egypt rejects the Israeli plan, and says that it won’t open its borders for mass immigration. 
2. The unconditional support from the West, the US and Europe, to the brutality of the Israeli operation that amounts to war crimes is a surprising aspect.
3. The 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be trapped between a slow death and a quick death.

Role of Hamas in the life of Palestinians apart from a religious movement and a political party

1. Hamas is, and is seen by the Palestinians, as a multifaceted social, religious, political, and military organisation.
2. Its mother organisation is the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, that was founded in Palestine during the British Mandate in the 1940s. 
3.  It continued to exist under Israeli occupation after the creation of Israel in 1948, but it didn’t engage in resistance or confrontation against Israel, as other nationalist or Marxist Palestinian organisations.
4. In 1987, they changed their strategy and adopted resistance as their goal for helping their community.
5. The multi-dimensional and deep integration of the movement in Palestinian society differentiates it from other extremist groups that exist on the fringes.
6. After 2000, when peace talks between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) became fruitless, Hamas and its strategy of resistance gained more support with the Palestinians, leading to it winning the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.
7. After 2000, when peace talks between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) became fruitless, Hamas and its strategy of resistance gained more support with the Palestinians, leading to it winning the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.
8. Hamas has been internally evolved, and people see their sons, brothers, and friends part of it. 
9. If Hamas is eliminated, the alternative is most likely more extreme splinter groups.

The divide and Conquer strategy of Israel:

1. Since 2005, the Israeli strategy intended to create splits within the Palestinians and secure the environment that will sustain a deep Palestinian divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 
2. Their strategy succeeded and was indirectly helped by the rivalry politics among the Palestinian factions.
3. Israel planned that when balance of power tilting is to one side, it would ease some restrictions on the other side to keep both strong enough to compete with each other, and direct their energy away from resisting the root cause — the Israeli occupation.