It has been over a year since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in the predawn hours of October 7, 2023. On that fateful day, fighters under the banner of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) launched missiles into Israel, breached the border, and swarmed surrounding areas by land and air, killing and capturing indiscriminately. Among the dead and captured were Israeli military personnel, yet many others were non-combatant civilians caught in the crossfire of a meticulously coordinated attack
The immediate response from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was a disjointed and desperate attempt to mount a defense and protect those trapped between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces. The IDF scrambled to regain control of military installations and besieged communities near the breached border, often killing their own. The firefight lasted for more than 12 hours, with the IDF eventually pushing Hamas forces back into Gaza. Yet, as the dust settled and the guns ended their conversations, one thing was undeniable: Hamas had executed an undisputed campaign victory. They shell shocked not just Israel, but the entire world with the swiftness, ingenuity, and boldness of a confident army. The brazen massacre was portentous of what was to come.
Now, 15 months removed from the October 7 attacks, Gaza continues to endure unmitigated displacement, war, famine, and what many human rights organizations have described as genocide against civilians. The IDF, a heavily funded, technologically-advanced, and supposedly competent military force, has taken the fight to Hamas in ways that defy conventional military ethics. The IDF has not employed precise targeting of combatants in ruthlessly efficient manner nor have they executing surgical strikes with carefully sourced intelligence to dismantle Hamas. Instead, the IDF has consistently targeted civilian non-combatants, critical civil infrastructure, and the most vulnerable segments of Gaza’s population. Extreme violations of warfare rules our common in their battle against resistance fighters, and the consequence often spill onto the most innocent populations.
Of the countless horrors, the systematic targeting of children is among the most harrowing. Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa, two American surgeons who volunteered at the Gaza European Hospital, described treating an overwhelming number of children who had suffered intentional gunshot wounds to the head. “We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die,” the two doctors recounted. “Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.” With a child population of over 1 million, representing 50% of Gaza’s population, the intentional targeting of children reflects the depth of the suffering inflicted on an already vulnerable society. Now, children are deliberate victims of what can only be described as an Israeli war machine.
Sorrowfully, children are not the only civilian casualties. Aid workers and medical personnel have also been deliberately targeted. From the outset of the conflict, Israel intensified its efforts to block the delivery of desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies to those caught amidst the fighting. The IDF reinforced an already stringent blockade, preventing international aid ships from reaching Gaza’s shores and shutting down key crossings, such as the vital Rafah Crossing near Egypt. These actions only worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis.
The harassment soon escalated into outright violence. A week after the October 7 attacks, Israel bombed an ambulance outside the al-Shifa Hospital, killing three medics. Just a few months later, the al-Shifa Hospital would be the site of an aggressive IDF siege in where gunfire and explosives would render the hospital inoperable. Hundreds of resistance fighters, IDF soldiers, and civilians would be killed. According to the United Nations, By the end of 2024, less than half of Gazan hospitals were even partially operational, more than 1,000 medical workers has been killed, and the entire healthcare system was nearing collapse.
In another tragic but not unique instance, Israel initiated airstrikes on a food convoy by the World Central Kitchen (WCK). Despite being in coordination with the IDF to avoid being mistaken for Hamas and despite having their internationally recognized symbol painted on top of their trucks, the April 2 airstrike was eagerly carried out by the IDF which resulted in the murder of seven aid workers. A similar airstrike would would occur on aid workers for the WCK on November 29, 2024. The deaths of well over 300 aid workers are not isolated instances, nor are they innocent mistakes by the IDF. Rather, they are biopsies of a deliberate strategy to undermine humanitarian efforts in Gaza and compound the suffering of a population already caught in the grip of war.
These examples provide a glimpse into the systematic targeting of medical personnel and aid organizations working to mitigate the consequences of Israel’s collective punishment offensive.
As is the case for aid workers, Gaza families, and journalists – hostages, too, have not been spared from Israel’s death machine. While it’s impossible to have a reliable count while the fighting is active, it was reported that at least 33 hostages from assorted nationalities died in the hands of their captors or by indirect means like the IDF killing them in pursuit of Hamas fighters. The Hannibal Directive, invoked immediately after the October 7 attacks, has led to situations where the IDF’s actions have resulted in the deaths of hostages under the guise of “necessary” operations. A notable example of Israeli’s implicit shoot first, ask questions later policy occurred in December 2023 when three unarmed, unclothed Israeli hostages escaped (or were released by) their besieged Hamas captors only to be shot and by the IDF. During a momentary pause in the chaos of the Battle of Shuja’iyya, these hostages saw a chance to escape their two-month hell and grasp at a fragile hope of survival. With white flags in hand – the universally-recognized sign of surrender – they ran toward Israeli forces, begging for refuge. Minutes later, all three were dead. Killed not from enemy fire at their backs, but from blinded-by-vengeance gunfire of the IDF.
One may be inclined to tilt their head and angrily question why the IDF would senselessly kill hostages, especially in this case when the hostages were clearly unarmed and submitting themselves as surrendered subject. The BBC offered this cold summation: “One of the soldiers… felt threatened, as the men were at a distance of tens of meters, declared them “terrorists” and opened fire. Two were immediately killed while the third, wounded, returned to the building. A cry for help was heard in Hebrew and the battalion commander ordered the troops to cease fire. The wounded hostage later re-emerged, and was shot and killed.” To be more pointed, however, the how and why is simple: The IDF is commanded by, and has willingly embraced, a policy of unrestrained aggression over discernment. To the fighting Israeli forces, any soul in Gaza that does not actively, enthusiastically, and exclusively profess fealty to Israel is fair game. The operational ethos in Gaza is one where no distinction is made between combatants and non-combatants, even for naked captives crying for help.
However, it must be strongly emphasized that Hamas bears significant responsibility for every hostage killed during this conflict – whether by IDF fire or by other means. The act of taking hostages is also a severe violation of established rules of engagement. While it remains one of the few desperate strategies available to these resistance fighters, it can scantly be defended.
The act of Hamas taking hostages from the bordering Israel territory underscores the intimate proximity between Gazans and Israelis, and the extreme disparities in their respective living conditions. The grim, unquestionable reality is that Gazans, confined by oppressive, apartheid conditions, live mere yards from those enjoying unbounded freedom, access, and opportunity. Imagine enduring daily skullduggery and dehumanization while observing the thriving lives of those tied to the system perpetuating your suffering. It is within this unjust, asymmetric context that the events of October 7 – and the taking of hostages – must be understood.
Even before the events of October 7, Gaza was a territory mired in political tumult, economic deprivation, and the relentless strain of a suffocating blockade. I certainly do not want to attempt to condense the history of the Gaza Strip in this work, but it is important to mention the main political-military forces – the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel, Hamas, and the US – as well as how the major conflict periods – the First Intifada, Second Intifada, 2007 Civil War, and the current Hamas-Israel war – have shaped Gaza. More specifically, how each of these periods and forces produced material conditions that led to the extreme actions of October 7.
From 1985 to 2005, Israel maintained direct and indirect control over Gaza, marking the initial implementation of military domination, segregation from regional society, and stark apartheid conditions. During this period, Gazans were forced to rely almost entirely on international humanitarian aid, as Israel managed, and largely neglected, their economy. Blockades were imposed and violently enforced, unemployment became rampant, and citizens could not travel outside the territory without strict applications and oversight from Israeli security forces. At various points in this era, four out of five Gazans depended on international aid to survive. Where one might expect social infrastructure, there were refugee camps. Where Gazans hoped for freedom, they faced systematic oppression, covert manipulations, and seemingly arbitrary airstrikes.
Even worse, when Israel unilaterally withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005, it created (potentially by design) a power vacuum that set Gaza on a dangerously accelerated trajectory. At the time, Gaza’s fragile governance rested in the administrative hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA) which was established through the Oslo Accords. However, the PA’s influence was already contested by Hamas: a longstanding, but under-recognized militant group with both internal political clout and armed forces. This brewing power struggle came to ahead shortly after the capricious Israeli withdrawal led to an all out civil war in Gaza. By 2007, Hamas, the more radical of the two factions, had violently expelled the PA from Gaza, consolidating its grip on the territory.
The Israeli withdrawal, laundered as a step toward peace, only deepened Gaza’s isolation and instability. While Israel maintained control over airspace, borders, and access to essential resources, they made no meaningful effort to support governance or infrastructure. Subsequently, Gaza’s already dire conditions worsened. Though Hamas’s rule introduced some form of political structure, it did little to improve life for Gazans. Blockades tightened, poverty soared, and any hope for democratic progress was crushed. The one silver lining that one could endeavor to identify is that Hamas was able to claim uncontested direct control of Gaza. They were able to prevent further balkanization, introduced some semblance of governmental structure, and kept hard line factions like the Islamic Jihad from making political gains. Still, this came at the cost of further dividing Palestinians, creating a rift between Gaza under Hamas and the West Bank under the PA. This disunity not only weakened Palestinian resistance to Israeli policies, but also ensured that international support remained fragmented and ineffective.
For the next 15 years or so, Hamas and Israel continued their relentless conflict. Gaza’s conditions deteriorated further, with civilians trapped in the crossfire between Hamas’s governance and Israel’s external aggression. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA) steadily lost what little significance it had in Gaza. This, assuredly, was by design. The period of Hamas-PA conflict, culminating in Hamas’s domination of Gaza, gave Israel the pretext to impose a total siege on the territory and absolve itself of decades of malpractice. They systematically reduced Gaza to a failed state with devastating economic conditions and no hope of social progress, from the First Intifada to their withdrawal. They stifled Palestinian political self-determination and created a power vacuum, fully aware it would pit Hamas and the PA against one another.
Adding to this intentional mismanagement, Israel – chiefly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Mossad intelligence agency – funded Hamas as a way to exploit its extremism as a foil to the more internationally-palatable PA. Through indirect means like increased and unchecked work permits for Gazans, to more direct means like funneling money through Qatar, even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had to admit that Hamas’ capabilities came from Israel: “Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas [financially and politically]”.
This deliberate strategy allowed Israel to transform Gaza into an open-air prison, isolating it from the promising political enterprises of the PA in the West Bank and cutting it off from meaningful international efforts. By ensuring that the more extremist, politically-weaker Hamas gained and maintained control, Israel further weakened the Palestinian cause, using Hamas’ isolation and militancy to justify the continued military operations. This calculated isolation and subjugation of Gaza by Israel did more than weaken Palestinian unity; it cultivated the conditions for extremism to flourish and for desperation to take root.
The systemic, cyclical, and strategic violence – from Israel against Gaza and between the IDF and Hamas – has made hostage-taking, however abhorrent, a deliberate, rational strategy. It is a narrative born out of the interplay between constant subjugation and relentless resistance.
Victim-blaming is often fraught with inappropriate finger-pointing. And while it’s hard to identify totally innocent individuals in this conflict, the hostages taken by Hamas are far more blameless than culpable. But that cannot be said for the government Israel. In this case, we can state strongly that Israel’s extreme actions towards Palestine directly resulted in the extreme act of taking hostages. From the blockades and restrictions of travel, to the flaunting of wealth and freedom, to actively sabotaging peace negotiations and foisting Palestinian self-determination – Israel had active role to play in their future misfortune. Can we not honestly understand why Hamas would take hostages under these circumstances, however odious we find the act in the abstract? Can we not honestly understand how Hamas might see taking hostages as a valid strategy to secure political aims – such as reducing military occupation in the Stripe or securing a hostage trade for the countless Palestinian unlawfully imprisoned in Israel? These are certainly uneasy questions to face head on, but that does not make their implications any less real.
While I think it is critical to understand how these oppressive, hopeless conditions made it rational for Hamas to take hostages, it must also be seen within the larger context of the ongoing war and the broader consequences that resulted from the extreme act. Perhaps expectantly, rather than the hostages prompting Israel to reflect on the realities that pushed Hamas to the act itself, Israel and its strongest allies, have used it as a pretext to escalate military aggression and clandestine operations across the region. Israel has used the ongoing holding of hostages to levy unmitigated terror on everyone within Gaza, violently bullied Palestinians in the West Bank, and opened up a new unjustified front in southern Lebanon as well as Syria.
The hostages have also been weaponized as diplomatic cover for Israel’s propaganda campaign. The #BringThemHome social media tag, accompanied by the yellow ribbon emoji (🎗️), has become a rallying cry for Zionist narratives. While ostensibly a symbol of solidarity, these efforts have been shamefully used to justify mass violence under the guise of self-defense. Israel’s government, bolstered by an extensive network of bots and disinformation campaigns, has flooded social media with manipulated text, images, and videos. These tactics aim to sow confusion, silence pro-Palestinian voices, and distort public perception of the conflict.
According to The Guardian, the Israeli government has paid third-party firms to infiltrate social media platforms, promoting pro-Zionist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian content through what it calls “mass consciousness activities.” High-ranking officials have openly admitted that these campaigns target users in the U.S. and Europe to obscure the realities of Israeli military actions and preempt protests against their governments’ complicity. Platforms like Twitter and Telegram have become primary conduits for this strategy, amplifying Israel’s narrative to justify what many international observers regard as genocidal policies. This toxic propaganda, unsurprisingly, as seeped into the Fourth Estate.
Parallel to this campaign, U.S. President Joe Biden has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, effectively endorsing these tactics. On multiple occasions, Biden has tied his unwavering support for Israel’s actions to the goal of returning hostages. He stated, “We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” implying that a ceasefire is contingent upon their release. Similarly, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken emphasized in January 2024 the importance of leveraging military successes to secure hostages, framing ongoing violence as a means to a broader strategic victory.
This alignment between U.S. policy and Israel’s military objectives not only serves as a justification for continued violence but also highlights the deeper systemic failures that perpetuate this conflict. The complexities and tragedies of Hamas holding hostages as an extreme act, with the backdrop of Israeli military and propaganda campaigns and U.S. abetting foreign policy combine to form the crystallization of why this deadly conflicts has raged on for so long. It is a symptomatic result of decades of Israeli political manipulation, the unchecked rise of extremism on both sides, the suffocation of Palestinian democratic aspirations, and the moral cowardice of international actors like the United States. Instead of adopting a neutral and assertive role in brokering peace, international bodies and states have consistently enabled and perpetuated the cycle of violence.
As this essay transitions to examine the implications of this conflict on international law and the global order, one fact becomes increasingly clear: the events in Gaza are not just a localized tragedy. They are a harbinger of a shifting world where the rules-based order established after World War II and the Holocaust faces unknowable, but expected fracturing. How the international community responds, or fails to respond, will define the course of global justice and governance for generations to come.
