On October 7, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing 1,300 civilians and taking 150 hostages. In response, Israel has sustained an unprecedently brutal assault on the Gaza Strip that has so far killed over 5,000 Palestinians, including more than 2,000 children, displaced half of Gaza’s population, and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure in the territory.
Azzam Shaath explores the logic behind Hamas’ “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, arguing that although it caught Israel and the outside world by surprise, its underlying motives were not unforeseen. Reham Owda, on the other hand, suggests that the fighting between Hamas and Israel may quickly expand to other fronts—including the West Bank—in line with a coordinated strategy of Palestinian armed resistance known as “wihdet al-sahat.”
Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood": What Were Hamas’ Motives and Objectives?
Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 marks the beginning of a new phase of confrontation between Palestinian factions in Gaza and Israel.
Azzam Sha’ath
During the past five years, Hamas refrained from joining Palestinian Islamic Jihad in three separate rounds of confrontations with Israel. As a result, the group was criticized by both its supporters and opponents for accepting Israel’s policy of neutralization, in which it was limited to ruling over Gaza rather than resisting Israeli occupation. It now appears, however, that Hamas strategically deceived Israel in the lead-up to the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation, which revealed the brutal force of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades and caused Israel unprecedented losses.
There is no doubt that Hamas, which had prepared a force of fighters to confront Israel on land, sea, and air, had its own objectives for launching “Al-Aqsa Flood.” In the early hours of the operation, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Mohammed Deif, the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, released their first statements: they argued that the attacks were a "response to the settlers' invasion of the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards and ongoing Israeli aggression in the West Bank," and proclaimed that "the ongoing battle is for the liberation of Palestine." Thus, one of the objectives of the operation was to link the events in Jerusalem to Gaza and solidify Hamas’ policy of “wihdet al-sahat,” or “unity of the arenas.”
But there were also many unspoken motives underlying the operation, which a careful analysis that takes into account the wider Palestinian-Israeli environment and its regional and international complexities can help illuminate. One of Hamas’ most important goals was to transform the political reality of the Gaza Strip, over which Israel has maintained control despite its unilateral withdrawal in 2005. This ongoing occupation has deepened the economic and social crises for the Gaza population, especially after Hamas' victory in the legislative elections and its military takeover of the sector in 2006 and 2007, along with the subsequent Israeli blockade that has lasted for more than 16 years. The blockade, combined with internal Palestinian divisions, hindered Hamas from presenting a successful model of governance.
Among the objectives of "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation, then, was Hamas’ aim to upend the security truce with Israel and abandon Israel’s approach of finding only temporary or interim solutions to deal with the Gaza Strip. So too did the attacks signal the rejection of the model of "economic peace", where partial and incremental economic incentives that successive Israeli governments adopted might serve an alternative to a political settlement with the Palestinians. Despite the benefits Hamas derived from this model, it was not sufficient to alleviate the Gaza’s crises, which included increasing rates poverty and unemployment in recent years. Ultimately, both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority share responsibility for these crises, especially since Hamas' takeover of the Strip.
Another incentive for Hamas was to address the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, who face increasingly brutal conditions under Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir. In fact, this was made explicit a month before the operation, when Zaher Jabarin, the Hamas' official in charge of prisoners' affairs, affirmed that “our upcoming battle with the occupation is about the prisoners.” Hamas’ need to demonstrate its support for its own followers in the West Bank, who are subjected to Israeli attacks on a daily basis, also figured into its calculations to launch the operation.
Lastly, the matter of reviving the Palestinian question in the international and Arab arenas was also a part of the logic of “Al-Aqsa Flood,” especially given current U.S. administration’s seeming unwillingness to try to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its pro-Israel bias. In a wider context, it is clear that the wave of Arab-Israeli normalization agreements have sidestepped the Palestinian issue and ignored the need to establish of a Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, as expressed in the Arab Peace Initiative during the Beirut Summit in 2002.
Azzam Sha’ath is a writer and political researcher based in Gaza. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Law and Political Science from Mohammed V University in Rabat. Follow him on X @AzzamShaath.
Uniting the Battlefields: Youth in the West Bank Confront Israel
The ongoing war between Hamas and Israel embodies the concept of “wihdet al-sahat”, or unity of the fields, which was promoted by the Islamic Jihad movement during its 2021 confrontation with Israel.
Reham Owda
As soon as Hamas launched Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood" on October 7, in which hundreds of militants infiltrated Israeli towns and cities in the Gaza Strip area, events rapidly escalated. After they killed approximately 1,300 Israelis and took 150 hostages, Israel officially declared war on the Gaza Strip, vowing to turn it into a living hell, while mobilizing American and European support to try to eliminate Hamas.
Israeli airstrikes have targeted hundreds of Palestinian homes and some residential towers in Gaza, killing 5,087 Palestinians, including 2,055 children, as of October 23. Israeli warplanes also have destroyed a significant portion of Gaza's civilian infrastructure, including the telecommunications network, which have caused internet outages and isolated the residents of the Strip from the outside world.
During this intense war between Hamas and Israel, the concept of “wihdet al-sahat,” or unity of the fields, has clearly emerged. It refers to the idea that Palestinian armed resistance against Israel is unified across multiple fronts in all the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as in in neighboring Arab countries—most notably in Lebanon and Syria.
Uniting the battlefields has introduced a new equation in the conflict with Israel, due to the high-level coordination between Palestinian factions and the so-called Islamic Resistance Axis, led by Hezbollah in Lebanon with the support of Iran. All Palestinian armed factions now work within a joint operations room managed in Gaza, forming a single battlefront against Israel from wherever Palestinian resistance forces are located, without being confined to a specific geographic area. Indeed, Hezbollah and armed groups affiliated with Hamas in Lebanon have launched several rockets from southern Lebanon against Israeli targets in northern Israel over the past two weeks.
The West Bank has also witnessed the implementation of “wihdet al-sahat” in response to the situation in Gaza. Violent clashes erupted in Hebron between Palestinian youth and the Israeli army when they attempted to arrest workers from Gaza, as well as in the Nur al-Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, resulting in the death of thirteen Palestinians, including five children.
As the Israeli war on Gaza continues, Palestinian youth in the West Bank will likely escalate their tactics against the Israeli army and settlers, and may include shootings, stabbings, and vehicular attacks. Tensions in the West Bank between the youth and the Palestinian Authority security forces may also intensify. After hundreds of civilians in Gaza were killed as the result of a rocket strike on the Baptist-al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, clashes broke out between Palestinian security forces and dozens of Palestinian youth in Ramallah, who held the security forces accountable for failing to confront the Israeli army in response to the hospital attack.
There is also the possibility that some Palestinian youth in the West Bank infiltrate into Israeli settlements, following the model set by Hamas in "Al-Aqsa Flood"—which may have convinced them that targets once considered impenetrable are no longer off limits.
It seems clear, then, that the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is taking a dangerous turn. The crisis will likely spread to battlefronts in the region, heralding a major political and security crisis in the Middle East, while the humanitarian catastrophe and war crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip continue to unfold.
Reham Owda is an independent Palestinian writer and political analyst based in Gaza City, and a PhD researcher in political science. Follower her on X @RehamOwda.
