Israel and Hamas have been periodically at each other’s throat ever since the latter won the elections held in Palestine in 2006 but was denied the opportunity to take control of the government in the occupied territories. Clearly, the ‘democratic‘ West and their protégé in Tel Aviv did not like the public support and popular vote for Hamas. The current conflict that began after the Hamas’s surprise attack on neighbouring Israeli kibbutzim on October 7 has been described by international media as the“deadliest and most destructive” confrontation between the two claiming more than 20,000 Palestinian lives, almost all in Gaza Strip. More than 1,400 Israelis have also lost their lives including around 140 Israeli soldiers.

Harrowing images of Palestinian parents holding the bodies of their young children are being shared daily by millions of social media users on various platforms. Many more millions have walked through the main boulevards of important world capitals denouncing Israeli barbarity and have demanded immediate cessation of the deadly Israeli bombing campaign. For now, Israel’s Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not willing to listen to anyone. With the US President Biden solidly behind him, the Israeli “monster” is continuing his killing spree. Facing strong domestic criticism for failing to protect the ordinary Israelis from the Hamas’s attack, Netanyahu is trying to eliminate Hamas as a political force and destroy Gaza as much as possible before the US asks him to rein in his genocidal streak.

Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, an academic who teaches government at Harvard University, has argued that through actions like the latest attack on Israeli soil, “terrorist” organisations like Hamas provoke a state response “that is disproportionately harmful to civilians but does not put the survival of the organisation itself in jeopardy” are a key tool in the asymmetric warfare. He says if Israel fails to defeat and eradiate Hamas and the latter is subsequently able to rebuild its military force, then Hamas would be “added to the list of insurgent movements that achieved success by integrating political and military leadership into an effective armed force.”

While Gazans are counting their dead and burying them in mass graves on daily basis, mood in the West Bank is changing in a different way. Samer Sinijlawi, an East Jerusalem-based Palestinian political commentator and chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund, has recently asked for a younger and accountable leadership through free elections. In an article for The New York Times last week, Sinijlawi has bitterly criticised President Mahmoud Abbas saying his “leadership as president of the Palestinian Authority has failed to deliver democracy to his people, failed to keep them safe, failed to manage a viable economy and failed to ensure they can live a dignified life.” He argues that like Fatah’s split into three factions due to President Abbas’s “corrupt” politics in the West Bank, the Hamas government has also failed to provide for the basic needs of the Gazans. He wants octogenarian Abbas gone and replaced by a new administration that assumes responsibility for West Bank and Gaza. “For this to work, the Arab countries, the international community, the donor countries and Israel have to recognise this governing body.”

Benjamin Netanyahu appears unwilling to listen to anyone. With the US solidly behind him, Netanyahu is trying to eliminate Hamas as a political force and destroy Gaza as much as possible before the US finally asks him to rein in his genocidal streak.

Writing separately for NYT and thereby creating a commotion among the pro-Israel lobby, Yahya Sarraj, the mayor of Gaza City, said he had returned to Gaza when Israel started bombing the territory “to help our people.” He lost his eldest son, Roshdi, a photo-journalist and filmmaker, in the bombing when his home was hit. “I buried Roshdi and quickly returned to work with the emergency committee.” He wants Palestinians to be treated equally, like the Israelis and all the other people in the world. “Why can’t we live in peace and have open borders and free trade. Palestinians deserve to be free and have self-determination.”

Sarraj blames Israel for destroying Gaza’s cultural riches, heritage and municipal institutions. “The unrelenting destruction of Gaza – its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had – has broken my heart.” But, he says, Gaza will rise from its ashes once again like its emblem – the phoenix.

Palestine has been brutally bombarded but it has also been withering from within for a long time. Hamas, which won the last election held in 2006, has denied that its government doesn’t want to work with Fatah – the party that controls the West Bank. During my two visits to Israel and Palestine in the early and mid-2000s to cover the conflict between the Jewish state, Hamas and Hezbollah, I had a chance to speak to leading Palestinian leaders including Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat. Their frank and forthcoming analyses were worth many a treatise. After managing to sneak into Gaza and West Bank with the assistance of local journalists, I met up with some of Hamas leaders in Gaza. One had to be blind to not notice the rift between Fatah and Hamas.

Travelling between different towns and cities of Gaza, Israel and West Bank, I was constantly reminded of our own sad story – the East and West Pakistan with India lying in between. It was too painful to see Palestinians divided by apartheid-like geographical divisions and restrictions imposed by the brute Israeli Defence Forces. The two trips, the talks with Palestinian and Arab Israeli locals, the conversations with young and old Israeli citizens in posh places like the King David Hotel and the American Colony Hotel and ordinary market places forced me to conclude that Israel would never agree to a two-state solution. It occurred to me that Israel would either capture and convert all of Gaza into Jewish settlements thereby extending it seafront from Haifa to Gaza or force a three-state solution by permanently dividing the West Bank and Gaza.

While the international focus is currently on the relief efforts and the overwhelming number of Palestinian deaths, for students of international relations and global history there are other stark casualties in the current conflict. They include the Two-State Solution, the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Israel has successfully neutralised all its Muslim neighbours by making sure none of them can challenge the military and diplomatic might of the Jewish state. The very concept of a unified Muslim Ummah lies in tatters.

We have also seen the demise of the so-called global media giants. If it were not for the power and potency of the social media platforms and bravery of the citizen journalism, the barbaric conduct of the Zionist regime would have gone unreported and hidden from the world at large.

The writer is Resident Editor of The News International at Islamabad