How will the state emerge from the shock, trauma and anger at Hamas’s brutal attacks?
Mourners duck for cover upon hearing sirens warning of incoming rockets during the funeral of Tom Godo, killed during the attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on the Kibbutz Kisuffim last week, in Kibbutz Naan near Tel Aviv. Photograph: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty ImagesThe moment Nadav Peretz began to lose hope was when he finally got through to the emergency helpline.
In the following days, the militants killed more than 1,300 people, injured more than 3,000, and took dozens more hostage, according to Israeli officials, in a devastating assault that has left the Jewish state reeling.’s far-right government has responded with a ferocious bombardment of Gaza that has killed about 2,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials. On Friday, Israel dropped leaflets urging civilians to leave Gaza City in the territory’s north within 24 hours.
For Shir Mathias, a 21-year-old from Holit, a kibbutz a couple of kilometres from the border with Gaza, the ordeal began early on Saturday morning, soon after militants began launching rockets at Israel. She took refuge in the safe room of her apartment while on the other side of the kibbutz, her parents, Shlomi and Shachar, and her 16-year-old brother Rotem, did the same. But it was not enough.
For a state in a hostile region, born in war and founded to be a haven for Jews who had endured centuries of persecution in Europe and the Middle East, the events of the past week are a calamity. Relative to Israel’s size, the scale of the killing was 10 times greater than the US endured on 9/11. That image of safety and stability was shattered this week, as Hamas militants were able to penetrate as much as 20km inside Israel, overrun military bases and murder civilians for hours before the army could reassert control.
By Thursday night, the recriminations were already beginning, with Netanyahu’s office insisting he had only been informed of the attack at 6.29am last Saturday, after reports in the Israeli press claimed intelligence had been received the night before of unusual movements by Hamas within Gaza. Earlier this week, the government also denied receiving a specific warning from Egypt about Saturday’s attack after Egyptian intelligence repeatedly told Israel the situation in Gaza could “explode”.
The alliance will help ease some of the bitter tensions in Israeli society by pausing a controversial judicial overhaul being pushed by Netanyahu’s far right government. Military leaders had repeatedly warned the divisions risked eroding Israel’s military preparedness in recent months, as thousands of military reservists refused to volunteer for duty in protest.
But others argue that even if Israel does defeat Hamas, it will eventually also have to take on Hizbullah, which is a far more potent force, and which fought a devastating month-long war with Israel in 2006. Locals say it is unlike anything they have experienced, even in the four previous wars Hamas has fought with Israel. “In the past the Israelis would give warnings about specific buildings, but now whole districts are razed,” says Allam Nayef, an anaesthesiologist at Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. “For example, the Karama district, which has 20 to 25 buildings – there is nothing left of them. Whole areas are being levelled to the ground.