War in Gaza Strip feared
GAZA CITY — If one thing unites Israel and its Islamist archenemy Hamas, the militia that governs the Gaza Strip, it is the prospect of tens of thousands of angry Palestinians demonstrating at the fence that marks the border between the two.
For Hamas, this would symbolize loss of control over a territory it has ruled with an iron fist since 2007, years that have included three armed conflicts with Israel and the torture and summary killing of people identified as opponents of the militant organization.
For Israel’s army, the possibility of a protest in which thousands of unarmed civilians attempt to storm the border or even, in some projections, attempt to uproot the fence offers two nightmare scenarios: the army acting with force against civilians, or thousands of Gazans streaming into southern Israel.
Such a shift in the status quo in Gaza could also trigger another war between Israel and Hamas — something that neither side appears to want but that analysts fear could be triggered by a violent incident.
After nine weeks of Friday protests at the fence following President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, each side faces the very real possibility that the next “day of rage,” as the demonstrations are called, could escalate from hundreds to thousands of protesters.
The Trump administration’s subsequent decision to suspend $65 million of funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, an organization responsible for most of the health, education and welfare services in Gaza, has further exacerbated tension.
“You have a desperate feeling here,” Sami Obeid, an analyst for Gaza’s Al Manar radio station, said in a telephone interview. He called his home “the biggest jail on Earth.”
“People feel that if Hamas doesn’t solve our problems, we’ll come to the fence and lift it. Instead of one or two hundred people, you’ll have entire families with their kids, thousands of people who have no other option,” Obeid said.
And while neither side may want a war, that doesn’t guarantee that one won’t erupt.
Gen. Yom-Tov Samia, who retired from the Israeli army as head of its southern command, noted that before each of Israel’s three recent wars with Hamas, in 2009, 2012 and 2014, “all analysts agreed they were completely unwanted by all sides.”
“Sometimes you have a conf luence of circumstances that leads to war without anyone actively wanting war,” he said in an interview.
“Hamas doesn’t want war,” Obeid said. “Gazans don’t want war. Israel doesn’t want war. But people are starting to think that maybe a war will change the situation, maybe it’ll get better. Anything.”
On Sunday, the Londonbased Arabic-language newspaper Al Hayat reported that Hamas was preparing for “imminent war” with Israel that could break out as soon as this week.
According to the newspaper, Hamas’ political leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, assessed the chance of conflict “at 95%.”
That’s not the word on the street in Gaza, for the most part. People are desperate but have seen enough war to be wary of another.
“I think the chances of a war are limited because of the bad humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Any Israeli escalation will aggravate the crisis, which the international community will not accept,” said Naji Louh, 36, who owns a clothing shop in the central Gaza City market and supports a family of five. He called the business climate in Gaza a “disaster” and added, “War will make it worse.”
Hussam Dajani, a professor of political science at Ummah University in Gaza, said that “the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza may push Gazans and the resistance movement” — as Islamist militias are referred to — “to explode,” but that Israel has strategic reasons to try to avoid a conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that “Israel is not interested in war but will do everything to defend itself.”
Almost 2 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Egypt, Israel and the Mediterranean Sea.
Egypt’s border with Gaza is closed and Israel allows only trucks carrying food or other humanitarian necessities in and out.
Last week, an emergency meeting of the “ad hoc liaison committee of the international donor group for Palestine” was convened in Brussels. It included representatives of the United States, Israel, the Palestinian Authority; the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Morocco; and senior officials from four Mideast nations that do not recognize Israel: Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
Israel presented a $1-billion plan to rehabilitate the strip, with one condition: that the Palestinian Authority take over from Hamas. That is unlikely. The most recent reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority government was announced with great fanfare in October but has since foundered.
The European Union announced a $52.7-million assistance package for Palestinians. In an apparent jab at Trump’s Jerusalem decision, $18.6 million of that is destined “to preserve the Palestinian character of East Jerusalem.”
The rest is allocated for “a democratic and accountable Palestinian state through targeted policy reform.”
It is unclear whether any of the money will be directed to Gaza.
Special correspondents Tarnopolsky and Abu Alouf reported from Jerusalem and Gaza City, respectively.