January 18, 2025
By Manjunath K. Shresthi
The dawn of October 07,2023, Israel woke up to see the Hamas fighters launching an attack, and surprising the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). It was a day, that none would ever forget for the scale of attack and its aftermath. From then on, the Israeli forces went all out to fight the Hamas, and the innocent civilians lost their homes, precious lives, and all hell broke loose.
Peace has always been elusive and hung up by a thread in the Middle East. Gaza, the open air prison home to many displaced Palestinians; is bound by the Mediterranean to its west, and the Israeli state to its east. Israel controls all the access to in and out of Gaza. Post the Hamas attack, the state of Israel took every measure to safeguard the only Jewish state. It’s punitive and daily retaliatory strikes and bombing of civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals and other civic structures decimated the morale of the Palestinians. But the Hamas continued to fight pitched street battles, and took on the might of the Jewish state through their vast network of tunnels. But the Israelis tracked, flooded and bombed them and weakened their subterranean network.
Each of the rocket attacks on Israeli cities was avenged by mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians. There was opposition to the carnage and ethnic cleansing by people of all civilized countries. The 15 months of intense conflict between the arch foes left no room for any negotiation. The Israeli leadership under Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, turned a deaf ear to the criticism of the deadly force used by them against its Palestinians neighbours. The IDF also wiped out the entire Hamas leadership, and took the battle to the doors steps of its benefactors and supporters in the region. Lebanon saw the pager explosions, followed by the aerial and ground invasion of its territory. Israel keeps a watchful eye on the Golan Heights, it seized from Syria. Iran was warned, and Israel also went after them whenever they were challenged.
The conflict in the region also spread to other countries in the region. It was Syria where the Assad family rule weakened, and a new power centre emerged and took over Damascus. Israel even bombed the Syrian military hardware, both stationary and mobile. Seaports, airports, air strips, fighter planes and all military infrastructures were made unusable. The Houthis in Yemen, also challenged Israel and they too faced bombings. Israel has proven its military might, since its birth in 1948.
On January 20, USA will see Trump administration taking office and even the warnings of all the warring parties to make peace, has changed the situation on the ground. Hamas and Israel have reached a ceasefire agreement. They both agreed to a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and exchange Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Negotiators reached a ceasefire deal after 15 months of bloodshed. Let’s pray and hope for lasting peace in the region forever.
