100 days of many losses

January 14 marks the 100th day of the war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in heavy casualties. This is considered the longest war since Israel was founded in 1948 and shows no signs of ending.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a cross-border attack into Israel, killing about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and taking 250 hostage. Israel responded with weeks of intense airstrikes in Gaza before expanding its operations to a ground offensive.

The Palestinian Authority says more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 70 percent of Gaza's 439,000 homes and half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Gaza's medical services have been paralyzed, and humanitarian aid deliveries have been hampered. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced in northern Israel amid fighting with Hezbollah, while more than 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to flee south.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set a goal of destroying Hamas's fighting force, ending its control of Gaza and freeing hostages held by the group from Israel. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, Israel has not achieved its initial goal and is still working to find and destroy tunnels where Hamas's Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, and others are believed to be hiding.

The Gaza war has also forced the United States to refocus on the Middle East after years of diverting diplomatic and military resources elsewhere, and has upended one of President Joe Biden’s top foreign policy priorities: U.S.-backed normalization talks between Israel and an Arab bloc led by Saudi Arabia that are reshaping diplomatic and security alliances in the region.

The question of how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignored by the international community and Israel for years, has once again become the focus of global diplomacy. The path to a two-state solution is more thorny than ever. When and how Israel decides to end the war will have implications on many fronts, including its own long-term security, observers say.

HUY QUOC

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/100-ngay-nhieu-ton-that-post722735.html