War in Gaza: all the specters of the October 7 massacre

The killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas leader, with two Israeli drones in his Beirut office may have brought the Middle East closer to the abyss of a crisis. devastating war, this time adding Hezbollah and the Lebanese militia. But, at the same time, this serious episode serves to highlight the political interests of Hamas and, essentially, much of what we do not know about the cruel October 7 attack on southern Israel.

This leader, who in the complex of positions valued by this organization, was, among other functions, vice president of the political wing and responsible for the West Bank, served in the Lebanese capital as andHamas “Ambassador” to Hezbollah and Iran. A difficult task given the apathetic look that these two players reserved for their Palestinian partner due to some betrayals that occurred in the past.

Chronicles of al-Arouri’s death describe him as number 2 in the group and one of those responsible for the October 7 attacks. But neither of the two hypotheses is so exact. Specialists in Israel make this clear in Hamas It is not very clear who is responsible but it certainly wasn’t al-Arouri. We know of the harsh internal conflict he had with Yahya Sinwar, the implacable leader of the group in Gaza, author of that absurd massacre of which many of the Hamas leaders abroad They discovered it at that moment.

Al-Arouri was a strategic figure for the organization, difficult to replace. He was the founder of the military wing of Hamas and was building a similar facility in the West Bank, with weapons and training. That’s why Israel targeted him and the United States offered a bounty on his head. However, he moved behind ambitious negotiations in Cairo who tried to end the war even at the cost of a rapprochement with the Al Fatah party of Ramallah, a meager executive, but which recognized Israel’s right to exist and interact with the United States. A punishment for Sinwar’s stupidity ?

Informed analysts like it Zvi Bar’el confirmed in Haaretz those evolutions. “Salah al-Arouri may have been second in Hamas after Ismail Haniyeh, but as far as we know, did not participate in the attack against Israel on October 7. Al-Arouri, like the rest of Hamas leaders abroad, was busy trying to reconcile with Fatah and was discussing a long-term ceasefire agreement with Israel in Egypt.”

This internal soap opera is interesting, especially for its dramatic consequences. For years Sinwar had been suspicious of al-Arouri, whom he had accused He plots with Haniyeh to relieve him of his command in Gaza. To the point that in 2021 he purged all the allies of those two men. “Since then, Sinwar has hosted the show exclusively in Gaza,” says the analyst.

He Financial Times adds a shocking fact. He claims that the massacre that caused 1,200 deaths, the worst attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, had as its possible origin that internal dispute. The British newspaper quotes a source close to the two rivals who reveals that “Sinwar felt marginalized… he saw that only the West Bank was being talked about… and it was because of this boy, Saleh al-Arouri”, so he attempted to alter the course of events with a known outcome.

An inexplicable gesture

After the massacre, Hamas leaders such as Khalil al-Hayya or Taher El-Nounou defended the barbarism as a formula to revive the Gaza issue and shoot a war that compromises the partners gathered under the Iranian umbrella. It hasn’t happened, nor does it look like it will happen now. It is clear that these actors did not want to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Hamas, despite Sinwar’s efforts, and if they managed to achieve anything, it was strengthen the hawks on the Israeli side which insists on a total offensive on all fronts.

In this sense, much remains to be known about the attack in Iran this Wednesday, in homage to General Qasem Soleimani, murdered 4 years ago from the United States to Baghdad during Donald Trump’s term. The attack was attributed to a shadowy group bearing the name of the now defunct Isis, the anti-Iranian gang financed by Arab fortunes. But why now? The Persians and Arabs no longer have these offerings. All very confusing. The truth is that the attack caused dozens of deaths and enormous humiliation for the theocracy of Tehran, just a few hours after the episode in Beirut.

The assassination of al-Arouri had another important effect: dismantled the negotiating alternative. From now on the possibility of a truce becomes illusory, as the extremes on both sides prefer. Israel is “fighting its second war of independence, like in 1948”, the ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has just hypothesized to make the offensive in Gaza epic.

But in Beirut it wasn’t just those bridges that were torn down. Israel has promised its intelligence and security structures that it will repeat the subsequent reaction the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It’s historic. Israeli agents searched all over the world for the terrorists responsible for that massacre and eliminated them one after the other.

That operation brought prestige to the country and to the government of the day. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his legion of ultramontane partners seek to see themselves in that mirror get the support they evidently lack. Furthermore, prolong the war to avoid the uncomfortable internal consequences that peace would bring.

Looking for absent support

The Israeli executive, in its own way, suffers from its own anarchy. In recent days the ultra-Orthodox parties that make up the coalition, riding the Gaza crisis triggered by Hamas –”a gift from Jehovah“, as they had said in the first days – they went ahead with the request for a “moral and just” operation.” to expel the inhabitants of the enclave and its reoccupation by the settlers. Just as happens in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.

Aware of the scandal that these ambitions entail, Ben-Gvir and his ruthless ally at the Treasury, Bezalel Smotrich, speak of a “voluntary” action by the population. Smotrich, without clarifying the origin of the data, states that 70% of Israelis are in favor “the humanitarian solution (that’s what he calls it) of voluntary emigration”.

The United States, Germany and France, among Israel’s other partners, have repudiated it “irresponsible“those comments. It is no coincidence that the West Bank is also shaken by growing violence and outbreaks of racism, with ultra-Orthodox settlers They intimidate and attack Palestinian farmers to expel them. In many places they succeeded.

These minority voices that have risen to government believe that the time has come to build the Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, ignoring its original inhabitants. A general war against terrorist militias with a fascist profile like Hamas or Hezbollah and Iran itself, would be the key to this path and a guarantee of global support.

That Israel illiberal It is the one that has recently received a harsh correction from the Supreme Court which has invalidated the attempts of the Executive and Parliament to reduce the power of Justice. The court’s ruling, which He then added the resumption of the corruption trial against Netanyahu, is significant after a year of street protests against those authoritarian advances that have weakened the country, leaving it exposed to the October 7 attack. A sentence that perhaps announces that an era of change is coming for martyr Israel.

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