It was 20 years ago this week that Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza, setting off a chain reaction that may be partly responsible for the state of the territory today.
Two decades on, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to reoccupy Gaza, bringing it back full circle and, if he follows through, dealing a significant blow to hopes for an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Equally ominous is the Israeli leader's declared wish to see Palestinians leaving Gaza to settle elsewhere, a vision shared by US President Donald Trump but condemned by Arab states and European powers.
After Gaza was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, the 2005 withdrawal from the strip was a realisation of a dream long entertained by Palestinians there: to be rid of Israel’s heavy-handed, 38-year rule and have a chance of self-rule that had eluded the strip since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Israel's prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, saw the removal of Jewish settlements in Gaza – which was hugely controversial in Israel – as a way of lowering tension and forcing the strip to show itself capable of self-rule.
However, peace has remained elusive during five wars between Israel and Hamas – Gaza's rulers since 2007 – with the latest 22-month offensive by Israel leaving the strip in ruins.
Hamas rule
In 2007, Hamas seized control of Gaza after a brief civil war in which its fighters chased operatives of rival faction Fatah out of the strip. The mainstream Fatah dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
With Hamas ruling the strip alone and with an iron grip, the group has since fought five wars against Israel, including the current one. Each of them exacted a heavy price on the territory’s civilian residents and its modest infrastructure.
The Hamas takeover also subjected residents to a life of hardship after Israel and Egypt, Gaza’s neighbour to the west, closed their borders with the strip. A network of underground tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border once allowed a wide range of goods to reach the enclave, with Egyptian authorities turning a blind eye until they finally demolished them a decade ago. Israel believes that some continue to exist.
It was a Hamas-led attack against Israel in October 2023 that caused the present war, when the assailants killed about 1,200 people and took hostage another 250, of whom only 50 are believed to be still in captivity.
With the magnitude of the human and material cost in mind, analysts are divided in their verdict on whether the attack was a strategic blunder.
“It was suicide on the part of Hamas,” said Palestinian political scientist and academic, Ayman Al Raqab. “It is obvious now that there has been no co-ordination between the group’s military wing and the political leadership when the attack was being prepared.”
Israeli bombardment
After almost two years of Israeli bombardment, Gaza today lies in ruin, with more than 61,000 Palestinians dead and more than twice that number wounded – with civilians the vast majority in both cases – according to figures from the strip’s Health Ministry. The UN views these figures as reliable.
A dire humanitarian crisis has gripped the area, with most of its 2.3 million residents facing hunger – with Israel resisting pressure to allow more food to enter – while many are cramped in about 25 per cent of the enclave’s land mass.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday it had approved the framework for a new offensive in Gaza. The announcement comes days after Israel's security cabinet called for the capture of the Palestinian territory's largest city – Gaza city – following 22 months of war.
Some analysts believe Mr Netanyahu’s threat to reoccupy Gaza is a bluff designed to force Hamas into capitulation.
“If he could not protect Israel’s 1948 borders in October 2023, how will he protect his troops in Gaza?” asked Nazar Nazal, a Palestinian analyst.
“He will not be able to see Hamas flying the white flag. He is merely recycling his failure to appease the extremists in Israel.”
But others see Hamas’s insistence on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a long-term ceasefire as something that may be playing into the hands of Mr Netanyahu and his government.
“Israel benefits from Hamas’s rejection of proposals to pause the war and free the hostages. It gives Netanyahu hope for his political survival,” said Tamara Haddad, another Palestinian analyst.
Weakened by Israel’s relentless military operations in Gaza, Hamas has now been reduced to fighting for its very survival as a military and political force, according to sources in regular contact with the group's leaders.
Holding 50 Israeli hostages is by far the strongest card in Hamas’s hand, a far cry from the days of raining rockets on Israel or making light of its heavy border security and sending hundreds of fighters inside Israel as was the case in October 2023.
The sources said Hamas has already laid bare its weakened state when it suggested to mediators from Egypt and Qatar that it was open to staying out of postwar governance, reconstruction and for its leaders to leave the strip and live abroad in exile.
It has also quietly conveyed to the mediators its readiness to discuss laying down and storing its weapons under international supervision. However, it has publicly stuck to the hardline position of only disarming when a Palestinian state is born.
