Attacks In Israel

On October 7, early in the morning, the unprecedented surprise attack on Israel by Hamas stirred conflict that has killed innocent people on both sides, sparking international controversy. Going back well over 2000 years ago Jewish people coexisted in the area that we now call Israel. The region of Israel was later controlled by the Roman Empire, along with much of the Mediterranean region. Under Roman control, Jewish people including a sect known as the Zealots resisted Roman rule to practice their religion unmolested. The Roman Empire responded by conquering the area and expelling the Jews they didn’t kill which resulted in many massacres and the region once known as Israel was renamed as Palestine to further erase the influence of Judaism from the area. Hundreds of years later after World War II, the United Nations created a small piece of what is known as Israel today as a Jewish homeland. Immediately after the United Nations decree took effect, neighboring countries, including Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and others declared war on the Jews to expel them from the land and create a Muslim homeland. In 1948 and 1949, the Jews successfully resisted those oppressive actions. There were multiple wars thereafter and many of Israel’s neighboring countries attempted to conquer Jewish Israel. The areas known as the West Bank and Gaza were conquered by Israel and then later returned to Palestinian control, and the borders we know today were established. However, as Israel’s neighbors stopped waging wars against Israel, some groups of Palestinians continued to resist Israel’s occupation of its lands to restore the lands they believed to be theirs. Alex Smith, a teacher at Palisade High School explains what essentially led us to where we are today and states, “So that’s how we got to this day, which is, in a nutshell over 3,000 years this land has been conquered by empire after empire with war after war in an extremely diverse area with religious significance to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Many people desire to control this land for a variety of reasons and with the creation of Israel and the Jewish state, there has been increased dissension and conflict over who wants to control the land.” Over the last few weeks, Israel’s efforts to maintain the land that they currently control have reached conflict with a political group called Hamas that wants to restore all of Palestine to Palestinian hands. On October 7, Hamas crossed from the Gaza Strip into disputed lands that belonged to the Palestinians 70 years prior but were since conquered by Jewish people. This abrupt attack has affected the lives of thousands in at most recent documentation the death toll has reached 3,478 with over 12,000 injuries. 70% of the victims have been women, children, and the elderly. Mr. Smith says “For the local community (mostly Gaza), it has already been very traumatic with violence and other wartime conditions like food and water insecurity and the threat of violence, and since this most recent conflict began, both, Israelis, living near Gaza, and almost all the inhabitants of Gaza, have been affected. This attack from Gaza seems to be so serious that the Israeli army seems to be positioned in a manner that may go into Gaza and likely do what they can to eliminate the terrorist organization.” Although this detrimental conflict has affected the innocent lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, support from all over the world has shown its way to Israel. Mr Smith states, “In the short term with support for those people on both sides affected by the war, there has been an immense amount of humanitarian aid. If we are talking about some sort of lasting political peace, time will tell. It appears right now that things will get worse before they get better. To truly understand that, we would have to know exactly what Hamas wants out of this conflict and exactly what the Israeli defense force wants out of this conflict.” Currently, Israel is in pure havoc and the devastating conflict must come to an end but more importantly, the lives of innocent people must be saved.