The 7 October Attack and the Gaza War

OCT 07 2023 · 12:00

Map of the Israel-Gaza conflict following the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023. Place: Israel-Gaza barrier; kibbutzim of the western Negev; the Nova music festival site, Re'im Figures: Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza, killed October 2024 · Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister · the 1,200 Israelis killed, mostly civilians · the 251 taken hostage · the Palestinians killed in the response that follows The Fence At 06:29 on 7 October 2023, Hamas fires more than 4,000 rockets at southern and central Israel. Within minutes, militants in pickup trucks, on motorcycles, on paragliders and on foot cross the Israel-Gaza barrier at thirty separate points. They reach the Nova electronic-music festival at Re'im, the kibbutzim of Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Sufa, the town of Sderot. By the end of the day approximately 1,200 Israelis are dead, the great majority of them civilians, with 251 taken hostage into Gaza. The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The Israeli response begins within hours and escalates into a fifteen-month war. By the end of 2024 the Gaza Health Ministry reports approximately 45,000 Palestinians killed. Lancet researchers, accounting for indirect deaths from disease and infrastructure collapse, suggest the true toll may be substantially higher. Most of Gaza's housing stock is destroyed; the strip's two million residents are displaced repeatedly within an enclave of 365 square kilometers. The Doctrines, All at Once The Westphalian principles that bear on the war are all simultaneously contested in plain view. Sovereignty: Gaza is administered by Hamas but recognized internationally as part of a Palestinian state most Western governments have not yet recognized. Occupation: Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers in 2005 but, by 2024, the International Court of Justice rules the broader occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. Self-defense: Article 51 of the UN Charter applies to attacks by states; whether it applies straightforwardly to Hamas is the subject of competing legal opinions. Proportionality: the law of armed conflict requires it; what it means when an enemy operates from within civilian infrastructure is litigated at the ICJ, at the ICC, in every parliament, on every campus. By the end of 2024 South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the ICJ; the Court has issued provisional measures; the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders (see [[icc-warrant-netanyahu-2024]]). The war becomes the first armed conflict of the streaming era in which every Westphalian doctrine bearing on the conduct of war is being argued, in real time, in front of a planetary audien Video: BBC News institutional report from 8 October 2023 documenting the Hamas attack of the previous day and the Israeli declaration of war. The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.