Hamas attack on Israel follows deadliest year for Palestinians

The surprise attack on Israel led by Hamas comes after one of the most violent years on record, with over 200 Palestinians killed, including over 38 children, by Israeli forces and settlers.

Hamas has also confirmed that Saturday's coordinated attack was in response to Israel’s desecration of Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site, and increased state-sanctioned Israeli settler violence across the occupied Palestinian territories.

Seen as the biggest attack on Israel in years, the surprise assault combined gunmen crossing into several Israeli towns with a heavy barrage of rockets fired from Gaza.

Gaza has been under an Israeli land, sea and air blockade since 2007. Since 2008, Israel has waged four wars on the Palestinian territory, killing thousands of people. The West Bank and East Jerusalem have been under Israeli occupation since 1967.

According to a United Nations report published on September 21 this year, violence from illegal Israeli settlers has displaced over 1,100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2022, with officials describing the exodus as unparalleled in recent years.

The reports says Palestinians from 28 communities have been displaced due to settler incidents including preventing Palestinians from accessing their land, physical attacks, threats and intimidation, grazing of flocks by settlers on Palestinian crops, damaging property and cultivating or fencing off agricultural or grazing land belonging to Palestinians.

Four Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have been completely displaced, the report says, adding that in six other communities, over 50 percent of the residents left since 2022 and in seven additional communities more than 25 percent of the community has left.

The UN in August said it had documented 591 Israeli settler attacks this year that have resulted in casualties and property damage. The monthly average for the first six months of 2023 was 39 percent higher than the monthly average of settler-related incidents in all 2022.

Under International law, Israel, as an occupying power, is prohibited from forcibly transferring members of the occupied population from their existing communities against their will.

However, Israel’s far-right government has continued to provide Israeli settlers with support through protection under Israeli police during attacks on Palestinian towns.

Israel's informal displacement tool

According to Israeli rights group B’tselem, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians serves as a major informal tool at the hands of the state to continuously take occupied West Bank land.

One of the most violent settler attacks this year took place on February 26 when hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a late-night rampage in the Palestinian town of Huwara and other villages in the occupied West Bank. One civilian was killed and 100 other Palestinians were injured, four critically. It was one of the worst attacks stemming from Israeli settler violence in decades.

On June 21, a large group of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya in the occupied West Bank. Omar Qattin, 27, was killed as hundreds of settlers marched down the village’s main road, setting fire to dozens of cars, homes and trees.

Since early July 2023, 13 Palestinian families comprising 84 people (44 children and 40 adults) have been displaced from Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank, citing increased settler violence and increased movement restrictions imposed by Israeli forces as the primary reasons.

Israeli forces have also stepped up military raids across the occupied territory under the country's far-right government.

On July 3 the Israeli military conducted a major air and land assault on the Jenin refugee camp located within the occupied West Bank, killing at least 12 Palestinians and damaging 80 percent of homes across the territory. The military raid on the camp was the most violent conducted in the occupied West Bank in nearly 20 years.

Al Aqsa Mosque also came under violent attacks by Israeli forces in April this year throughout the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, attacking and arresting worshippers and damaging the mosque, drawing outrage and condemnation around the world.

With thousands of new illegal Israeli settlements approved for construction across the occupied West Bank this year alone and continued violations of Palestinian human rights including, among many, the use of arbitrary detention, restriction of movement and access to healthcare and water supplies, tensions are expected to continue across the occupied Palestinian territories.

In June last year, an independent commission established by the UN Human Rights Council focused on the occupied Palestinian territories, said occupation and discrimination are the key root causes of the recurrent tensions, instability, and drawn out nature of the conflict in the region.