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MSF calls on all parties to the conflict to ensure the safety of civilians and medical facilities.

Early Saturday morning, October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a major attack on various sites in Israel, including civilian gatherings and villages, firing rockets on multiple cities and taking scores of hostages. The Israeli government declared war on Hamas and began a massive counteroffensive in Gaza, launching a barrage of air strikes.

The US-brokered talks were making progress; that’s probably why Iran gave Hamas the green light.

This column was supposed to be about the momentum and promise of the US-brokered Saudi-Israel peace initiative, including how the kingdom went big by making Israeli-Palestinian peace part of the deal.

The likelihood of a fresh Turkish ground offensive in northern Syria appears to weaken after the unprecedented shooting down of a Turkish drone by the United States.

A suicide attack outside of Turkey’s national security directorate headquarters has become the latest justification for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to create a 30-kilometer-deep (18 miles) “safe zone” along the country’s borders with Syria and Iraq to keep armed Kurdish groups away.

What happened?

In the early hours of 7 October, Hamas launched what it called Operation al-Aqsa Deluge, a multi-pronged attack on Israel, including Israeli border towns ringing the Gaza Strip. Thousands of rockets rained down on areas in Israel in the first few hours. These gave cover to Hamas militants, who sent armed drones to hit parts of Israel’s electronic border alarm system, broke through Israeli military posts and the security fence around Gaza, or flew over the barrier in motorised hang gliders, penetrating urban areas and killing or kidnapping Israelis, many of them civilians, including children and elderly people. Some militants tried to infiltrate Israel by sea.

With contacts aimed at promoting possible normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia in
the background, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
attacked Israel and warned against the normalization process. The Supreme Leader of Iran
once again referred to Israel as a “cancer” and declared that normalizing relations with it would
be a gamble on a losing horse. The Iranian president stated that the liberation of Jerusalem
was a top priority for the Muslim nation and that normalizing relations with Israel would be a
setback for any government in the Muslim world.

The following is the full text of the speech by Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, on the first day of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, 7 October, 2023, as reported by Al-Jazeera:

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

In hindsight, the drivers of Hamas’s startlingly well-planned, land-sea-air attack on Israel on Saturday were in plain sight.

The operation reflects a pattern of four wars and regular outbreaks of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza since 2005, when Israel withdrew its military posts and forcibly removed 9,000 Israeli settlers from the territory.

There will be only one winner in the war that has broken out between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. And it is neither Israel nor Hamas.

In an operation coined “the Al-Aqsa Storm,” Hamas, whose formal name is the Islamic Resistance Movement, fired thousands of rockets into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters infiltrated Israel by land, sea and air. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and many taken hostage.

Last Friday, Israeli newspapers were filled with stories about the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, also called the October War. In 1973, the country had nearly been defeated by co-ordinated surprise attacks from its Arab neighbors. Never again, people thought.