These thoughts were written to help those wanting to speak on behalf of Israel at this hour to be able to answer questions that people may have, and to better understand the politics and history behind the current events. Many are coming to Israel on solidarity tours, and I have often been asked to speak on this subject. I hope that it is helpful!
Let’s begin by defining several terms that can help to understand the situation in the Middle East more clearly:
Palestinian) In AD 135, The Roman Emperor Hadrian captured Yerushalayim. He sought to erase the memory of the Jewish people, both from the city and from the land. He re-named Yerushalayim after the Roman Capitoline gods, calling her Aelia Capitolina. He also re-named the land Syria Palestina, seeking to name it after Israel’s ancient enemies, the Philistines. Historically and biblically, by this point in time there is no mention made of the Philistines – it would seem that they no longer exist as a distinct people group.
After this, the land is ruled by the Byzantine Empire, the Persians, the Umayyads, the Fatimids, the Abbasids, the Crusaders, the Mamluks and the Ottomans, before the British conquer the land from the Ottoman Turks in 1917. This is a defining moment, because in that same year, they write the Balfour declaration which is a statement of intent to facilitate the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people.
In 1920 at the League of Nations Conference in San Remo, which was convened to determine how to partition the fallen Ottoman Empire, it was determined that the British would be given a mandate over what was to be termed Palestine. This Palestine was to be the Jewish National Homeland. Let that sink in. This is very important because this is not the message that the world’s press is communicating! During this time period, in the War Cabinet of Great Britain, there were several Bible believing Christians who understood the significance of the return of the Jewish people to the land of their forefathers. When determining the area for this mandate, they looked to map in the Bible, recalling the borders during the reign of David and Solomon. The borders that were agreed upon are still legally binding according to international law until today. This means that according to international law, Israel, Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan all belong to Israel!! (To learn more about this, please refer to the excellent series ‘Whose Land” on YouTube, by Hugh Kitson.
There is much more to be said about the British Mandate period, but we should return to the term Palestinian. How did it change from referring to the Jewish National Homeland, to the highly politicised term that it is today, with its implications that the Jewish people have no right to live here? In the years of the mandate, no self-respecting Arabic speaking Muslim wanted to be called a Palestinian, because the connection to the Jewish people was so strong! It was under Yasser Arafat that things began to change, terms became politicised, and the term Palestinian began to be understood as an oppressed people group fighting for their land. Up until this point, in Islamic textbooks written in Arabic, it was clearly stated that the only reason that the Temple Mount had any holiness for the Muslims, was because the Jewish Temples stood there? This is important to understand, because the October 7th Hamas “operation” was called Al Aksa flood, Al Aksa being the mosque that is located on the southern side of the Temple Mount. It is also important to understand that in the more than 700 years that the Muslims ruled the Holy Land, that they never once chose to make Jerusalem their capital.
West Bank – this term is from the time period that Jordan controlled the area to the east of the Jordan river, as given to them by the British in 1946 (please note that from this moment , a year before the so-called Plan to partition Palestine, already 75% of the land assigned as the Jewish national homeland had already been given away.) This area was the east bank of the Jordan River. However, in the War of Independence, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan conquered and occupied Biblical Judea and Samaria. (This terminology refers to the time period from after the death of King Solomon, when Israel was divided into the northern and southern kingdoms. Yeshua Himself uses these terms. At a recent NRB conference a manifesto was made to explain why as Bible believers, we should not use the term West Bank.) Since Jordan occupied this area only until 1967, when they left this specific area, the term should have become obsolete. However, the world continually pushes for us to return to our pre-1967 borders, demanding that we return all the lands that were gained in the six days war. In contrast our neighbours in Gaza do not like the term West Bank either, their aim is to return to the pre-1948 borders; in other words, “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” – of the Jews.
Gaza – This is the enclosed area from Rafah in the south to just below Yad Mordechai in the north, bordered by Egypt, first isolated in 1949 by Egypt. Biblically it was a city with its towns and villages, that was part of the Philistine territory. It is also where the god Dagon fell prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant, and where Sampson pulled down the Philistine Temple.
Arab – Today we tend of think of the entire Middle East as being Arab, including most of north Africa. But is this really the case? If we ask ourselves are the Lebanese ethnically Arabs? What about the Iranians (Persians), the Syrians, The Egyptians, the Tunisians, or Algerians? The answer is a resounding no! Why does this matter, you ask? I believe that it matters, because the Word of God speaks about how there will be people from every tribe and tongue in the Kingdom of God. Each one is precious to Him.
So, there is of course nothing wrong with being Arab! But I do believe that we should be careful not to put a “false identity” onto those who are not Arab. Those who are ethnically Arab originate from Saudi Arabia, and today in this region, others who are Arab include the Bedouin tribes within Israel as well as many of the Jordanians. The Jordanian Royal family descend from the Saudi Royal family.
After the time of Mohammad, when Islam began to spread, the prayer language of Islam was Arabic. So as the religion spread, the Arabic language and culture spread as well. That is why today we think of the whole Middle East as being Arab, because by enlarge it is Islamic. It is important to remember that before these lands were Islamic, that they were some of the most ancient Christian nations on the face of the earth, with a strong Biblical heritage. The land of Mecca and Medina should be better known as the land of the true location of Mount Sinai – the place of the giving of the ten commandments.
So, to be clear, the Iranians are Persians, the Lebanese descend from the Phoenicians, The Egyptians are more than 95% pure Egyptian, and so on. There were already believers in Yeshua living in Damascus (today in Syria) at the time of the Apostle Paul. It would seem that this was a result of the two miracles that Yeshua performed on the other side of the lake when He crossed over, namely the feeding of the 4000 and the casting out of the legion of demons into the pigs. These two miracles were clearly performed for the gentiles, with the news spreading from there to the closest Decapolis city of Hippos or Susita and travelling from there to the other Decapolis cities, including Damascus. Egypt hosted the Holy Family, as well as the Prophet Jeremiah, Joseph and his family, and Moses and the Israelites were freed from Egyptian slavery so that the Egyptians would know that He was the Lord. God cares about these nations! One day Egypt Assyria and Israel will be a blessing in the midst of the earth! (Isaiah 19:23-25)
Green line/ armistice line. During the Jordanian Period, it was very difficult for both sides to live normally, especially within Jerusalem, where there was a wall dividing the city into the Israeli side and the Jordanian side. It is important to note that there were Muslims and Christians on both sides. In simple terms, those living on the Israeli side did not have any access whatsoever to the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, the Old City, the Temple Mount, the City of David, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, the Garden Tomb, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and so on. Therefore, Moshe Dayan and Abdullah Atal decided to sit together in an apartment building in Musrara in Jerusalem. They took a very large map of the city, placed it on the tiled floor, and took two different coloured pens; red and green. They then drew their positions on the map, leaving a small no-man’s land between. Their condition for drawing this map was that it would never be used as an international border; it was simply supposed to be a temporary ceasefire line for Jerusalem, and later a line was also drawn to separate Jordanian occupied Judea and Samaria and Israel. Today the international community demands that it will be a border for a Palestinian State, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is in essence what they are demanding when they ask us to return to our pre-1967 borders. To understand how ridiculous the term Palestinian is, imagine that you are part of an Arabic speaking family, and that your home is positioned exactly on the invisible line that is going to be drawn. From one day to the next, those living on the left-hand side of the line will now be referred to as Israeli Arabs, whereas those on the right-hand side of the line will be called Palestinians.
East Jerusalem is not a geographical term, rather it is a political term, referring to the part of the city formerly occupied by the Jordanians. It includes east, north and south Jerusalem.
A brief history of the Gaza Strip:
Already since the late 1800’s, the European powers sense the imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire and want to come to divide the spoils between them. These nations begin to buy land upon which they build churches, especially in Jerusalem. Examples would include the British, and the Italians, French and Russians. This could be seen as a way to have a stake in land, to own part of Jerusalem if you will and a way to have boots on the ground, or a way to spy out the land before the military campaigns begin.
The first important modern-day battle over Gaza took place on 26 March 1917. This was an initial attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which was a British Empire military formation, and was commanded by General Archibald Murray. It took place at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War 1. Because the British forces were depleted and spread out over the vast empire at this point, they needed reinforcements and the Anzac mounted army corps were instrumental in these battles. Gaza was attacked by infantry and mounted infantry. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness, the large number Ottoman reinforcements, and lack of drinking water for the horses.
This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917. Please note, the British are attempting to take Gaza from the Ottoman Turks, a rapidly disintegrating Empire that ruled this region in a cruel and oppressive manner, not caring for the land nor the people, and engaging in a religious genocide of the Armenian Christians from 1915-1916. The British understood that if they do not stop the Turks, the Jews of this region would be next in line for annihilation. The British also needed help from both the Arabs and the Jews and made three promises that they cannot possibly keep. These agreements were the following:
The McMahon – Hussein agreement was made in 1915 between the British and the Arabs,
The Sykes – Picot agreement of 1916 was made between the British and the French, and
The Balfour declaration of 1917 was made between the British and the Jews.
Under the Ottomans, Gaza was part of the Sanjak (administrative district) of Jerusalem and at this point there is no land called Palestine. It is important to note that none of the surrounding nations exist at this point, except Egypt. There are simply different larger and smaller administrative districts of the Ottoman Empire. Under Sykes-Picot, the French would get The Upper Galilee, the Golan Heights to Aleppo and as far northeast as Mosul (Biblical Nineveh) – basically Syria and parts of Iraq of today. The British would take Jordan, extending Northeast to Persia, and the northern part of Saudi. (1916) Meanwhile, Sheikh Hussein believed that he would receive all this land and Saudi Arabia. (1915)
The Balfour declaration of 1917 was not a legally binding document, rather a statement of intent. However, in 1920 the League of nations met in San Remo, with the main subject being how to divide up Ottoman lands. It was agreed that the British would be like the parent in charge over what became known as British Mandate Palestine, which was to become the Jewish National Homeland. (Expand – orchestra, football team etc) One of the signatories pulled out a map from their Bible and looking at the map of the territory that Kings David and Solomon ruled over, the borders of the Mandate were determined to include: all of Jordan of today, Israel of today including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza. According to international law, all this land belongs to Israel since when a mandate is dissolved, those borders must be honoured; the same would be true for Iraq. If you want to understand this more deeply in legal terms, I cannot recommend enough the excellent series by Hugh Kitson with Colonel Richard Kemp, Whose Land, available in short episodes on YouTube.
In 1921, approximately 70% of the land assigned as British Mandate Palestine was given away by Winston Churchill to create Transjordan, or the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Hussein’s son was assigned by the British to be King. He belonged to the Saudi Arabian royalty and was also a direct descendent of Mohammad. In 1923, the British gave the Golan Heights given to France. In 1944 Syria was established when the French lost interest and withdrew from the region.
Post WW1 there are fundamental changes on a global level, with the rise of nationalism, and the creation of “hard borders” that required passports to cross them, reducing the former freedom of movement.
On April 2nd of 1947, Britain wanted to withdraw from the Mandate and brought the issue to the General Assembly of the United Nations. An 11-nation investigative board was set up on May 13th, 1947, and was named – UNSCOP (The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine). When they arrived in Palestine, the members experienced the riots of the Arabs and were convinced that it would be fatal for the Jews to be left as a minority in their hands. The arrival of the Exodus ship, packed with Jewish people fleeing the horrors of Europe, as well as visiting the refugee centres in Austria and Germany further convinced them of this point.
The vote took place on November 29th, 1947. 33 voted for the ‘Partition of Palestine” to 13 who voted against, at the same moment that with trembling hands, Professor Sukenik unrolled a Dead Sea Scroll fragment. It was as if God saying that the State of Israel would be founded on nothing less than His Word – it was as if He was giving her a birthday gift.
After looking at the population density of different areas, and where the Jews and Arabs lived, the UN plan to partition Palestine ISOLATED GAZA and the WEST BANK, Jerusalem was to be an international zone. This is very important to understand, as this is the first time that Gaza is separated. The Arabs rejected this partition.
British rule over the land ended on May 14th, 1948, as described by the Prophet Isaiah in chapter 66: 8 – can a Nation be reborn in a day? This was truly something exceptional if we consider all the empires that no longer exist. An ancient people, being regathered from the “four corners” of the earth to their ancient homeland, and their language being reborn as a spoken language after two thousand years in exile.
In December 1948 the Israeli army, in “Operation Horev”, drove Egyptian forces out of the Negev Desert and encircled the Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip, forcing Egypt to withdraw and accept a ceasefire.
On 7 January 1949, a truce was achieved, and Israeli forces proceeded to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza, leaving them to be occupied by Egypt. On 24 February 1949, the Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement was signed in Rhodes. Under the agreement, the armistice line was drawn along the international border (dating from 1906) except near the Mediterranean Sea, where the Kingdom of Egypt remained in control of a strip of land along the coast, which became known as the Gaza Strip. Thus the Gaza strip was in Egyptian hands and the West Bank was now in Jordanian hands.
This period saw the creation of the All-Palestine Government within the All-Palestine Protectorate, an Egyptian client state that would last until 1959, a year after the Republic of Egypt and the Second Syrian Republic merged to form a single sovereign state known as the United Arab Republic. After the war, the Gaza Strip was the only former-Mandate territory under the jurisdiction of what was known as the All-Palestine Government. Members of this Government were subsequently removed to Cairo and had little or no influence over events in the Gaza Strip.
By the end of the war of Independence the territory of Israel had expanded. Territory also increased by Arabs fleeing and leaving behind lands and property. A swap could have been enacted as the Jews also fled neighbouring countries, especially since in most instances, the Jews were forced to leave their wealth and properties behind without recompense. A total of 585,533 Jewish refugees arrived from 10 Arab lands. 26% of the Arabs who fled the Jewish areas in 1948 went to the area that became the Gaza Strip. They had been promised by their leaders that once Israel was destroyed, they could return to their lands.
The influx of over 200,000 refugees into Gaza during the 1948 war resulted in a dramatic decrease in the standard of living. Because the Egyptian government restricted movement to and from the Gaza Strip, its inhabitants could not look elsewhere for gainful employment. In 1955, one observer (a member of the United Nations Secretariat) noted that “For all practical purposes it would be true to say that for the last six years in Gaza over 300,000 poverty-stricken people have been physically confined to an area the size of a large city park.” However, if we consider today’s numbers, which are far greater than this, Gaza is an area of 1412 miles with 2.5 million people, whereas London is an area of 6022 miles with a population of 8.8 million people – i.e. London has an almost identical population density.
The truth is that even during the current war, Gazans are posting videos of how beautiful Gaza was pre-October 7th, and of flourishing life and wealthy residential areas. However, most of the funds that flowed into Gaza were misappropriated and controlled by Hamas and the other terror groups within Gaza. Like in Palestinian Authority area A, many people are kept in refugee camps, effectively being used as pawns in a chess game.
“Ben Gurion said to Golda Meir “I want you to persuade the Arabs on the beach to go back (home), that they have nothing to fear. Golda went immediately and begged them to return to their homes, but they had only one answer. “We know that there is nothing to fear, but we have to go. We’ll be back.” I was quite sure that they went not because they were frightened of us, but because they were terrified of being considered traitors of the Arab cause.”
In 1954 – the Fedayeen squads from the Gaza area who were trained by Egyptian army units were penetrating deep into Israel – as far as Tel Aviv. They mined roads, bridges and waterpipes and large quantities of livestock were stolen. Because of this the development of the Negev was threatened and many were leaving. In February of 1955, 45 incidents occurred, and Israel retaliated with an assault into Gaza – as it was the nearest point under Egyptian control. These attacks were also a motivating factor in the Sinai campaign of 1956.
These guerilla activities developed into organisations that later became known as Fatah, The PLO and others. Following the 6 days war, Jordan became a base for these groups until King Hussein evicted them and they transferred to Lebanon. Between 1951-1953 almost one thousand Israelis were killed by terrorist attacks within her borders. It is important to understand that Gaza was used as a base for terrorism, just as it is today.
In 1953, Egypt’s King was forced into exile, and Egypt became a republic under their president, Abdul Nasser. Nasser sought to strengthen Egypt’s position with Syria and Jordan, making a military alliance with them, and being armed with Czech-made weapons that were supplied by Russia. He forced the evacuation of British and French forces from the Suez Canal area. On July 26th Egypt nationalised the Suez so that all revenue could go towards to enormous cost of the Aswan Dam project, which he hoped would improve the economic conditions of his country and provide electricity for irrigation. He became a national hero and his reputation increased. But the French and the British were not happy. They wanted American support to prevent Russia from further aiding Egypt. Here we see that the struggle for the Middle East is actually a global one.
From 1954, Egypt was continually attacking Israeli men, women, and children from their fedayeen base within Gaza. They were blocking Israeli ships from using the Suez Canal, and later from entering the strait, then, finally they blocked all ships from entering the port of Eilat. This is very similar to what the Yemenite Houthis are doing today, with the help of Iran.
Finally Israeli flights were prevented from overflying the strait. Israel saw this as a war – civilians were being killed and their economy damaged. The Soviets armed Egypt and the French armed the IAF. The UN was very concerned by this change of the balance of power in the Middle East. The aim of Egypt, Syria and Jordan was clear – to eliminate the fledgling State of Israel, just as Hamas, Iran and their proxies and allies intend to do today. Between July 29th and September 25th, Egyptian trained fedayeen attacked from Gaza, Jordan, and Syria.
The Sinai Campaign began on 29 October 1956, when Israel, France and the United Kingdom invaded the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula initiating the 1956 Suez War. The campaign began with an Israeli drop of paratroopers deep into the Sinai, later uniting with 3 battalions at the Mitla pass and destroying 3 Egyptian defence posts.
The third front was the EGYPTIAN stronghold of Rafah on the mediterranean coast south of the Gaza strip. By noon on November 1st the Egyptian forces were ordered to withdraw to the western bank of the Suez. The strip was held by 10,000 Egyptian troops, but after the fall of Rafah, it was simply taken. By noon on the 2nd of November, the Egyptian governor of Gaza surrendered. We will leave the other details of this war and focus on what is relevant to us. It is interesting that today the world wants to prevent Israel from entering Rafah to finish Hamas and take back our hostages. Half of Rafah is on the Egyptian side and half on the Gaza side and there is a massive fortification wall between the two parts.
- After this, United Nations Emergency Force was established to oversee Sinai and in particular Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh.
- Fedayeen activity ceased and those in the border areas could sleep at night.
- Under international pressure, the Anglo-French Task Force withdrew before the end of 1956, and the Israeli army withdrew from the Sinai and Gaza in March 1957 and Gaza continued to be under Egyptian administration.
For the Arabs, this defeat compounded their shame from 1948. This needed to be corrected and the State of Israel destroyed. This aim was the only point that brought unity between these disparate nations. 1956 – United Arab Republic – Egypt and Syria.
This is a quote from Golda Meir’s Book “My Life”, and it gives her impression of her visit to the Gaza Strip in 1956: “Then I toured the Gaza Strip, from which the fedayeen had gone out on their murderous assignments for so many months, and in which the Egyptians had kept a quarter of a million men, women and children in the most shameful poverty and destitution. (60% were refugees). I was appalled by what I saw there and by the fact that those miserable people had been maintained in such a degrading condition for over eight years, only so the Arab leaders could show the refugee camp to visitors and make political capital out of them. Those refugees could and should have been resettled at once in any of the Arab countries of the Middle East – countries, incidentally, whose language, traditions, and religion they share. The Arabs would still have been able to continue their quarrel with us, but at least the refugees would not have been kept in a state of semi-starvation or lived in such abject terror of their Egyptian masters. I couldn’t help comparing what I saw in the Gaza Strip to what we had done, even with all the mistakes we had made – for the Jews who come to Israel in those same eight years.”
In 1959, the Gaza Strip was officially merged into the short-lived United Arab Republic (UAR, which united Egypt and Syria). In September 1961, Syria became an independent state again by withdrawing from the UAR. However, Egypt continued to be officially called the UAR up until 1971, when it was officially renamed as the Arab Republic of Egypt once again. In 1962, the UAR government established a Palestinian Legislative Council elected by the population.
1961 – OPEC gave international power and finance towards the struggle of claiming Palestine for the refugees.
1965-1966 – more than 100 sabotage raids over the Syrian border– a radical Palestinian group – Fatah or Arab liberation movement; Israel threatened retaliation. This was coupled with attacks on the National water Project and diverting of the Jordan river in keeping with the Syrian policy of scorched earth for Palestine.
Russia was still involved and relayed message concerning the amassing of Israeli troops with the intent to launch a surprise attack on Syria.
May 15th 1967 – Nasser ordered troops into the Sinai and the withdrawal of UNEF – including from Gaza, which was immediately carried out. May 26th Strait closed to Israel and Nasser declares his basic aim is the destruction of Israel. It will be total war.
By now the entire northern Sinai was a large, fortified area where 100,000 troops with over 1000, mostly Russian tanks, being positioned there.
On 5 June 1967, weeks after Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran and cut off Israeli shipping, Israel attacked Egypt, initiating the Six-Day War. It quickly defeated the surrounding Arab states and occupied the Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank and other territory, ending Egypt’s occupation.
Just after 7am on June 5th, Israel struck Egypt’s best equipped airbases, destroying 300/340 of Nassers combat planes within 3 hours. Soon after this, the entire Jordanian air force was taken out and 2/3 the Syrian combat force, by nightfall a total of 416 planes were destroyed, 398 on the ground! On the same day, Levi Eshkol assured the Jordanian King that if they stayed out of the war, Israel would not attack them, but Nasser urged Hussein to attack.
To cut a long story short, Israel gained the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem including the Old City and all the holy sites, as well as the Golan heights. Far from being destroyed, Israel had massive territorial gains. UN resolution 242 demanded that she return these lands!
1973 – time for revenge – heavy involvement of both Russia – arms and demands and USA (wants to shift balance of power away from Russia and so arms Israel.) Israel won the war but lost support on an international level.
At this point, approximately lived in 360,000 lived in the Gaza strip. Since the Six Days war, the Gaza Strip was administered by Israel, until the 2005 withdrawal.
In 1978, Israel and Egypt signed the historic Camp David Accords which brought an official end to the strife between them. The second part of the accords was a framework for the establishment of an autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Arab Republic of Egypt thus renounced any territorial claims over the Gaza Strip.
In 1979, the Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed. Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty and has since supported the two-state solution, advocating the creation of an independent Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both of which have been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 war.
1987 – Formation of Hamas they rejected the secular approach of Fatah to the conflict and rejected any territorial concessions. They demanded the entire land, embracing violence and terrorism to accomplish their goals. From the late 1970s, activists connected with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood established a network of charities, clinics, and schools and became active in the territories. In Gaza they were active in many mosques, while their activities in the West Bank generally were limited to the universities.
This is very revealing for two points:
1) We think of Hamas as only being in Gaza and this is not true. Israel began to wake up to this in the months before October 7th, when rumours of there being cells in Jericho and other towns in Samaria began to surface, and an unusual pattern of terrorism began.
2) they are based in mosques and places of education. This can explain why educational institutes and mosques are often used to store weapons.
In its 1988 charter, Hamas maintained that Palestine is an Islamic homeland that can never be surrendered to non-Muslims and that waging holy war to wrest control of Palestine from Israel is a religious duty for Palestinian Muslims. This position brought it into conflict with the PLO, which in 1988 recognized Israel’s right to exist. Because of this, Hamas soon began to act independently of other Palestinian organizations, generating animosity between the group and its secular nationalist counterparts.
Jordan expelled Hamas leaders from Amman in 1999, accusing them of having used their Jordanian offices as a command post for military activities in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2001 the political bureau established new headquarters in Damascus, Syria. It moved again in 2012, to Doha, Qatar, after leadership failed to support the Assad government in its crackdown on the Syrian uprising, Hamas supporting the opposition. Before this, Hamas was receiving a staggering $200 million per year from Iran, contributing to an underground network that is longer than the London underground!!
The United States designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1997. The European Union added Hamas to its list of terrorist groups in 2003; it was removed amid legal challenges in 2018 and returned in 2021.
From its foundation, Hamas rejected negotiations that would cede any land. The group denounced the 1993 peace agreement between Israel and the PLO and, along with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group, subsequently intensified its terror campaign using suicide bombers. The PLO and Israel responded with harsh security and punitive measures, although PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, seeking to include Hamas in the political process, appointed Hamas members to leadership positions in the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The collapse of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in September 2000 led to an increase in violence that came to be known as the Aqṣā intifada, whereas what happened on October 7th was known as Al Aksa Flood.
28th Sept 2000 Sharon ascended the Temple Mount, and the Second Intifada breaks out. That conflict was marked by a degree of violence unseen in the first intifada, and Hamas activists further escalated their attacks on Israelis and engaged in a large number of suicide bombings within Israel itself.
16th-31st August 2005 under the government of Ariel Sharon, 9480 Jewish Settlers were expelled from 21 settlements in Gaza, 4 in the Northern Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Jericho. More than 80% of Israelis supported this decision. Netanyahu left the cabinet in protest. Sharon resigned as head of Likud, forming another party, Kadima and was replaced by Netanyahu. A group of Conservative Rabbis then placed an ancient curse on him, and by December he had suffered a mild stroke and then in January, very serious one. He entered a coma from which he never recovered, and was replaced by Ehud Olmert. Ariel Sharon died on the 11th January 2014.
In the years after the Aqṣā intifada, Hamas began to moderate its views toward the peace process – sucking Israel into a false sense of security. After more than a decade of rejecting the foundational principles of the PA, Hamas ran in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and subsequently participated in the PA, with indications that it would accept agreements between Israel and the PA. Since then, senior Hamas leaders have stated their willingness to support a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders. In A Document of General Principles and Policies issued in 2017, the organization acknowledged “the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled” as a “formula of national consensus.” But Hamas continued to reject the legitimacy of Israel, and hard-liners within the organization remained strident in their rhetoric.
After Hamas forcefully took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Hamas a hostile entity and approved a series of sanctions that included power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures.
Months after, Yahya Sinwar became the local leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2017. He was the mastermind of October 7th, having been released from Israeli prison in a hostage deal in 2011, stated in a roundtable discussion with young Gazans: “Gone is the time in which Hamas discussed recognition of Israel. The discussion now is about when we will wipe out Israel.”
In 2014 tensions between Israel and Hamas rose again following the disappearance of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank on June 12 (They were found dead in Hebron.) In the Gaza Strip the atmosphere of heightened tension led to an increase in rocket attacks on Israel by the PIJ and other Palestinian militants. By late June 2014 rocket launches had become a daily occurrence. On July 8 Operation Protective Edge 2014 was launched in response to the unceasing rocket attacks to destroy a variety of targets that were associated with militant activity. After more than a week of bombardment failed to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces launched a ground assault to destroy tunnels and other elements of the militants’ infrastructure. In early August Israeli leaders declared that the ground operation had fulfilled its mission, and Israeli troops and tanks pulled back from the Gaza Strip. Israeli air strikes continued, as did rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.
After agreeing to several short-term cease-fires over the course of the conflict, Israeli and Palestinian leaders reached an open-ended cease-fire in late August. In exchange for the cessation of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Israel agreed to loosen restrictions on goods entering the Gaza Strip, expand the fishing zone off the coast, and reduce the size of the security buffer it enforced in areas adjacent to the Israeli border.
A series of border protests in Gaza in 2018, in which demonstrators attempted to cross the border into Israel and sent incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. The situation reached a peak on May 14, when about 40,000 people participated in the protests. Many of the protesters attempted to cross the border at once, and Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing about 60 people, and wounding some 2,700 others. The violence continued to escalate, leading to Israeli air strikes and Hamas rocket fire into Israel. The fighting lasted several months and ended with a truce in November.
In 2022, as Israel conducted incursions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to target militants, Hamas refrained from escalating confrontations in and around the Gaza Strip. Many observers, including members of the Israeli defence establishment, believed Hamas was focused on governing the Gaza Strip and was unprepared for a major confrontation, even ignoring the intelligence that was being given to them by the female watchmen who were positioned as Israel’s eyes on the border.
How wrong they were. As we all know, on October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a coordinated land, sea, and air assault that took Israel by surprise.
Conclusions:
- The gospel is the only solution for the Middle East!
- Keys to minister to Arabic speakers – respect, inclusion, purpose and identity, trust.
When the Arabic speaking believers understand that they are part of the Israel of God, and that they are grafted in and co-heirs and co- citizens, there will be a radical healing that will take place in this region.
