Israel vows 'mighty vengeance' after Hamas 'operation Al-Aqsa flood'
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Transcript
00:00 Let's talk a little bit wider about the Israeli response.
00:03 What is the latest there and what do you think is going to happen over perhaps a more medium
00:07 or longer term?
00:08 Well, as we've seen in previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas, such as Operation
00:12 Cast Lead in 2009 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel is going to clamp down
00:19 hard on Gaza.
00:21 More than 230 Gazans have been killed in the response so far.
00:25 Israel has been attacking positions using artillery, airstrikes and drones.
00:31 And of course, Israel has been told, well, not necessarily told, but it knows that the
00:37 United States, the European Union and other Western countries view Israel as having the
00:43 right to defend itself.
00:45 So this is, in a sense, it gives it the confidence to go ahead and do this, even though they
00:52 probably would do it without any validation from Western countries as well.
00:59 Benjamin Netanyahu says that the army is taking out Hamas' government and that they will reach
01:05 every place Hamas is hiding and that they will leave their installations in rubble.
01:11 Now, like those previous conflicts I mentioned, there's bound to end up being a stark asymmetry
01:18 in the death tolls, largely because there's an asymmetry in the military capabilities
01:23 between Israel and Hamas.
01:26 In the terrible violence we saw yesterday, at least 250, perhaps as many as 300 Israelis
01:34 were killed and an unknown number taken hostage, about 1,600 injured as well.
01:40 So the death toll is probably going to rise from those people that are injured.
01:45 But Israel, even though it's still trying to wrest control of a number of southern towns
01:51 and cities from Hamas and Islamic jihad, it will do its best to ensure that those numbers
01:58 don't rise.
02:00 Gazans will probably not be so lucky.
02:03 Netanyahu has actually called on Gazans to leave ahead of the Israeli assault.
02:08 That's not something that can be very easily done, considering that the entire territory
02:14 is under blockade.
02:17 But there's definitely something which we can see that there is very much a stark contrast
02:27 between the capabilities of the two forces.
02:30 And how have we gotten to where we are now?
02:33 Just take us through what has been happening in this conflict over the past 12 months or
02:37 so.
02:38 Well, there have been a hardening of attitudes on both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian divide.
02:44 The Palestinians say that they are living under de facto apartheid, particularly in
02:49 the occupied West Bank.
02:51 And Gaza has been under blockade now for 16 years.
02:58 The Hamas-ruled territory, the Israelis for their part say that they are very wary of
03:04 attacks by Palestinian militant groups.
03:07 And the peace movement in Israel at the moment is at a fairly low ebb.
03:13 You won't hear too many voices calling for restraint in the next couple of days because
03:18 of the enormity of what happened yesterday.
03:22 The United Nations says that as of the 19th of September, 227 Palestinians have been killed
03:30 by Israeli troops or settlers this year.
03:33 And they're mostly in the West Bank.
03:36 And also about 29 Israelis have also been killed by Palestinians.
03:42 They've largely been in gun or knife attacks.
03:47 There have been a number of major flashpoints over this year.
03:51 There was a synagogue attack in January where five Israelis were killed by a gunman in the
03:56 Al-Aqsa Mosque in April during Ramadan.
03:59 A number of Palestinian worshippers barricaded themselves inside and they were dispersed
04:05 with tear gas and rubber bullets and it caused quite an outcry at the time.
04:13 There were also airstrikes on Gaza in May targeting Islamic jihad.
04:18 So there have been an awful lot of these moments during the year.
04:25 In fact, the Palestinians have blamed settlers in the West Bank largely for a lot of these.
04:33 And in one particular instance in May, the Israeli military actually did use the word
04:39 pogrom to describe what a number of Jewish settlers had done to a Palestinian village.
04:45 And of course, there's two unpopular leaders at the backdrop of all this.
04:49 There's Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces, has been facing mass protests for the last eight,
04:55 nine months.
04:56 He's also got a lot of legal problems facing him too.
05:00 And there's also Mahmoud Abbas, who is 18 years in office now and Palestinians have
05:06 long been promised elections to potentially re-elect him, potentially get rid of him.
05:11 But he's been propped up rather undemocratically by both the Israelis and the West more or
05:17 less as in he's somebody that they can do business with.
05:21 But he's definitely not popular among his own people.
05:24 So there aren't really any figureheads there that might actually be able to probably have
05:32 the charisma and the character to bring a peaceful solution forward.
05:36 So that's probably something that's going to be a long way down the line.
05:39 Oliver, thank you so much for that analysis.
05:42 That's our International Affairs Editor, Oliver Ferry.