The conflict between Israel and Hamas suddenly broke out after a period of calm that seemed to be cooling down soon after many efforts by the parties involved. But now 100 days have passed and there is still no sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'.
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| The Hamas-Israel conflict erupted after Hamas forces launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. (Source: Al Jazeera) |
Since the Hamas Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip suddenly launched a massive attack deep into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, causing a fierce conflict in the Gaza Strip, it has passed the 100-day mark. Over the past 3 months, the fighting has claimed the lives of more than 25,000 people on both sides, most of them civilians, and pushed the entire Middle East region into a complex and chaotic crisis. And more seriously, an increasingly tragic humanitarian disaster.
Heavy losses for all parties
Conflict has returned to the Gaza Strip after years of relative calm, starting with an "unprecedented scale" attack by the Hamas Islamist movement that killed at least 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 240 hostages.
The "fire" in Gaza then escalated into a conflict when Israel launched a retaliatory operation against Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip, causing heavy casualties on both sides and a worsening humanitarian crisis. After the declaration of war, Tel Aviv launched Operation "Iron Swords", mobilizing a large force including reservists, and preparing all resources to bring weapons and equipment to the border.
The situation in the Middle East has become "hot as hell" after Israel launched large-scale attacks by sea, air and land in the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on January 14, 2024, a total of 359,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed, meaning that 6 out of 10 houses in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed.
After 7 weeks of continuous fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed for the first time to implement a temporary ceasefire, starting from November 24 and extended twice and expiring on the morning of December 1, 2023. This ceasefire agreement was positively evaluated, seemingly a major turning point for the conflict, contributing to facilitating humanitarian relief activities and the release of hostages and prisoners of Israel and Palestine. During the 7-day ceasefire, 110 hostages, including foreign citizens, were returned to Israel by Hamas. And during this time, relief goods and fuel from the international community were brought to Gaza, although the quantity was just "a drop in the ocean".
After a short-lived ceasefire, gunfire broke out again. Hamas repeatedly expressed its desire to extend the ceasefire, but Israel refused to accept it and continued to resume military attacks on Hamas in both the northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.
The final straw came after the deputy leader of the Hamas movement, Mr. Saleh Al-Arouri, was killed in an Israeli attack in Lebanon on the evening of January 2, 2024. The very next day, on January 3, 2024, the Hamas movement announced the suspension of negotiations with Israel. Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued to launch airstrikes, artillery and rocket attacks on the Gaza Strip. In the latest statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that no one can stop Israel from achieving victory in the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
More and more widespread
More worryingly, the Hamas-Israel conflict after more than 3 months has not only shown no signs of cooling down but also risks spreading as Hamas is being "shared the fire" by allies such as Houthi in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon...
These forces regularly carry out attacks on Israeli and US forces stationed in the region, causing violence to continue to increase in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Recently, the conflict escalated in the southern border area of Lebanon, adjacent to Israel, after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israel to support Hamas' surprise attack in Israel.
The Israeli army responded with artillery shelling in several areas in southeastern Lebanon. According to analysts, the current concern is Hezbollah in Lebanon, as cross-border attacks with the Israeli army occur frequently. In particular, the death of a Hamas deputy leader, Saleh Al-Arouri, after an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on the evening of January 2, 2024, has pushed the conflict between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in Lebanon to a new level. Hezbollah considers this incident a sign of "a dangerous development" in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
More worryingly, the Houthis in Yemen and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza and elsewhere have made their presence felt with drone and long-range missile attacks on the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat. The United States has been working with its Middle Eastern partners to prevent the conflict in the Gaza Strip from spreading. However, there is no viable political solution to end the fighting and find a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
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| The seizure of the cargo ship Galaxy Leader has heated up the Red Sea for nearly two months. (Source: AP) |
In addition, another dangerous consequence of the war in the Gaza Strip is the serious increase in instability in the Red Sea region. About a month and a half after the war broke out in Gaza, since the end of November 2023, the Houthi Islamic armed group - which controls large areas of territory in Yemen - has continuously conducted long-range missile attacks towards Israeli territory. At the same time, this force regularly launches attacks using both missiles and drones and directly approaches commercial ships traveling in the Red Sea that the group believes are related to Israel, showing support for the Palestinians and the Hamas Movement.
By mid-January 2024, the Houthis were estimated to have carried out over 20 attacks in the Red Sea, forcing major shipping lines such as MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd to reroute cargo around the southern tip of Africa, avoiding the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal.
The Houthis publicly stated that these attacks were aimed at pressuring Israel to stop its campaign of massacring Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The peak of tension was on January 8, 2024, when the armed group launched a large-scale attack with 18 drones and 3 anti-ship missiles, targeting a US ship in the Red Sea. Three days later, on the night of January 11, 2024, the US military and its allies participating in the naval coalition called "Prosperous Protector" - just established at the end of 2023 in the Red Sea to deal with the threat from the Houthis themselves - conducted airstrikes on a series of Houthi targets in Yemen, officially opening a new front of military confrontation in the Middle East.
Faced with the Houthi attacks, the US, the UK and several other countries could not stand by and watch. On the night of January 11, 2024, the US-UK coalition suddenly launched a strike on the Houthi rebels in Yemen to "show solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza". US President Joe Biden affirmed that the two countries' military operations this time were "successful" and were ready to take other measures to "protect the freedom of global trade". According to analysts, such attacks by the US and its allies would be like "adding fire to mulberry", increasing the risk of conflict in the region, making the situation in the Middle East even more chaotic and complicated.
Not stopping there, some analysts believe that the conflict is also creating an opportunity for terrorism to rise strongly in the Middle East, led by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) - the perpetrator of the bloody terrorist attack in Iran on January 3, 2024, which killed and injured more than 300 people...
Humanitarian crisis
As the situation in Gaza continues to escalate, the consequences are clear: a serious humanitarian disaster for the people of the Gaza Strip as the blockade and violence hinder international relief efforts. The lack of fuel, water and sanitation, combined with attacks on health care facilities and the need for mass migration are creating a tragedy here.
According to the latest statistics from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Authority on January 14, the total casualties in the Israeli army's all-out offensive on the enclave since October 7, 2023 have reached nearly 25,000 dead and at least 60,000 injured.
More seriously, most of the victims of the conflict are civilians, with children and women accounting for 70%. According to statistics from the Gaza Health Authority, so far, more than 8,600 children and more than 6,300 women have been killed. This means that for every 100 people in Gaza, 3 have been injured. In addition, about 7,000 people are listed as missing and are likely to have died under the rubble caused by airstrikes. This is the largest number of casualties due to fighting in the Gaza Strip in the past three-quarters of a century.
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| Trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing on November 24. (Source: AP) |
Not only that, the offensive campaign along with Israel's policy of besieging and blocking the Gaza Strip has also caused more than 2.3 million residents of this land to live in extremely difficult conditions: lack of electricity, lack of water, lack of food, lack of medicine, lack of access to medical care services... Regional and international media reported that since the beginning of the war, all economic activities in Gaza have been paralyzed and 100% of children are not able to go to school. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is at an unprecedented level.
Since the conflict broke out, Israel has lost about 1,300 people. Of the 240 hostages held, about 100 have not yet been released by Hamas. Notably, for the first time in half a century, the entire country of Israel has been put in a state of war, seriously affecting all areas of the country's economy, society, security, defense, diplomacy, education, etc.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Finance, Israel's military spending in 2023 is about $23.6 billion, larger than the combined military spending of Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Jordan. If the war continues, Israel's military spending in 2024 will be nearly $26 billion, spending millions of dollars every day on the conflict.
The United Nations on January 10, 2024, once again warned of the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as airstrikes continued, causing more casualties and destroying vital civilian infrastructure in the strip. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, stressed that humanitarian agencies and partners were increasingly concerned about the impact of the restrictions, especially in the northern areas of the territory.
Many humanitarian organizations are warning that medical services in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis are almost paralyzed. Rising tensions in these areas have led to more casualties, and increasingly unstable security has hindered the transportation of humanitarian aid.
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| Protesters call for the release of hostages and an end to the conflict in front of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, France, December 14, 2024. (Source: REUTERS) |
The United Nations report said that as of January 9, 2024, the number of available hospital beds here is only enough to meet one-fifth of the total demand of 5,000 emergency beds. More than three-quarters of the 77 medical facilities in the Gaza Strip have stopped operating, leaving many people without the opportunity to receive basic medical care when needed.
The humanitarian crisis is also affecting people with chronic illnesses and mental health conditions. Some 350,000 people with chronic illnesses and 485,000 people with mental health disorders in the Gaza Strip continue to have their treatment interrupted. The overcrowded, makeshift living conditions in tent camps, with inadequate water and sanitation, put them at high risk of contracting infectious diseases.
In fact, under the shuttle diplomacy of regional and international countries, Israel and Hamas have ceased fire to create a safe corridor for humanitarian activities. However, the 7-day temporary ceasefire (from November 24 to December 1, 2023) is not enough for humanitarian assistance efforts. The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of the risk of famine in the Gaza Strip if humanitarian food supplies are disrupted.
As for the Gaza Strip, the cost of rebuilding this Mediterranean strip of land is considered immeasurable. According to experts, the cost of rebuilding Gaza could reach $50 billion due to the severe devastation caused by the war. In addition to the damage to Israel and Palestine, the conflict has also caused economic losses to neighboring Arab countries including Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan of more than $10 billion this year and pushed more than 230,000 people into poverty.
Deep divisions, uncertain future
According to many regional and international experts, although it has not yet come to an end, with the impacts and consequences caused over the past 100 days, combined with the deep division of views among international parties, the Israel-Hamas conflict has been making the security-geopolitical situation in the Middle East region increasingly chaotic, complicated, uncertain and unpredictable in the coming time.
Analysts say that the most fundamental political solution to this conflict must be based on a two-state solution. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which has lasted for decades, has become one of the most complex hot spots in the world, requiring a comprehensive political solution, the most important of which is the two-state solution. International efforts have been made to promote it through diplomatic activities since the early 1990s, but after decades it has remained deadlocked.
After the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted, the Biden administration has reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution but has not outlined a specific roadmap for reviving negotiations. The last round of peace talks failed in 2014. White House spokesman John Kirby said the US and its partners are still discussing a future governance structure for Gaza.
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| The United Nations Security Council during a meeting on the Gaza Strip conflict. (Source: UN News) |
In fact, since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict, the international community has continuously put pressure on both Israel and Hamas forces controlling the Gaza Strip to cease fire and end the fighting. Over the past 3 months, the international community has continuously promoted efforts to achieve a ceasefire and end the conflict, but the United Nations Security Council has still been unable to agree on a resolution for this conflict.
While the international community has yet to find a comprehensive solution to the current Hamas-Israel conflict, the most obvious reality is that no one can imagine how many more innocent civilians will die by the time this war ends, both from bombs and bullets and from the lack of basic needs, such as food, clean water, medicine...
In a message on the occasion of the 100th day of the Hamas-Israel war, the World Health Organization (WHO) once again called on all parties to end all hostilities, avoid bloodshed, release hostages and immediately cease fire. On January 14, 2024, people all over the world, from London, Paris, Kuala Lumpur to Johannesburg... took to the streets to protest and demand a ceasefire.
Yet, despite all this, the smoke of gunfire continues to linger in the Gaza Strip and threatens to spread further. Meanwhile, the hope of a fundamental solution that can ease tensions and create the premise for peace in the region remains elusive.
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