ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR WHY INDIA SHOULD WORRY

THE WIDER GEOPOLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS APART, ANY ESCALATION IN THE CONFLICT WILL JEOPARDISE THE COUNTRY'S CAREFULLY CULTIVATED TIES IN WEST ASIA AND FORCE IT TO TAKE SIDES

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

History has a dreadful habit of repeating itself in Israel. On October 6, 1973, basking in the phenomenal success of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel was caught napping when Egypt and Syria launched attacks against it on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days for Jews. Though Israel beat back the military offensive and recovered territory, the then prime minister, Golda Meir, paid the price for the massive intelligence failure when her party was reduced to a minority in parliamentary elections the next year.

Now, exactly 50 years later, just as Israel was about to secure a breakthrough agreement with Saudi Arabia as a follow-up to the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020 with four other Arab states, it was caught by surprise by a major terror attack from Hamas, the militant nationalist group that controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza, on October 7. Hamas fired more than 5,000 missiles raining death and destruction on major Israeli population centres, accompanied by land and sea offensives. Unprecedented in scale, the Hamas attack left more than 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians, dead, and another 2,700 wounded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was at war even as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched major airstrikes, putatively against numerous targets in Hamas, leaving the densely-populated Gaza Strip devastated. Over 1,100 people were killed and another 5,000-plus injured, including many civilians, in just the first four days of the IDF's counterstrikes. The destruction of more than 500 residential buildings left an estimated 250,000 homeless. Simultaneously, Israel announced a fuel, food and electricity blockade against Gaza. Though Israeli citizens will certainly take Netanyahu to task for the massive intelligence failure once the Gaza offensive is over, the Opposition parties have for the moment agreed to be part of a national unity government to punish Hamas.