(New York Times) Ben Hubbard - Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas' top leadership body, told the New York Times in Doha, Qatar, that they attacked Israel in order to "change the entire equation and not just have a clash. We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm." Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told the Times, "I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us." The assault served one of the plotters' main objectives: It broke a longstanding tension within Hamas about the group's identity and purpose. Was it mainly a governing body - responsible for managing day-to-day life in Gaza - or was it still fundamentally an armed force, committed to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state? With the attack, the group's leaders in Gaza doubled down on military confrontation. For Hamas, the attack stemmed from a growing sense that the Palestinian cause was being pushed aside, and that only drastic action could revive it.
2023-11-27 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive