Research Paper: The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation (Goals, Repercussions, and Outcomes)

The Al-Aqsa Flood operation intensified the security and political challenges facing Israeli policies toward the Gaza Strip. The Strip has always been present as a security challenge on the table of the Israeli decision-maker ever since the establishment of the State of Israel, and what particularly reinforced its security presence was its being considered an advanced Egyptian military pocket inside the State of Israel. In 1949, the Israeli government under Ben-Gurion held a discussion on the security threat of the Strip, and at the time Ben-Gurion called for occupying and annexing it. These challenges were further reinforced by the Strip's transformation, over the past years, into a persistent headache in the mind of the Israeli security and political establishment.

What reinforces these challenges further is that the October 7 operation came in a context entirely different from the contexts of the extended and open confrontations that governed the relationship between Hamas and Israel during the years of the division, which were punctuated by numerous military confrontations and rounds of escalation that used to end with the intervention of international and regional parties to reach a ceasefire, and a new truce.

The fundamental difference that accompanied the Al-Aqsa Flood operation did not stem from the event being a turning point in the history of the relationship that bound Hamas to Israel during the years of the division — a relationship that had, on one hand, contributed to Israel's turning a blind eye to the continuation of Hamas's rule, and to the latter's inclination toward political action, and to enabling its rule in Gaza on the other hand — but rather stemmed from the sheer scale of the event and its internal and external repercussions, as the Al-Aqsa Flood operation represented a watershed in the history of the relationship between Israel and the Gaza Strip in general, and Hamas in particular.

Prepared by Dr. Mansour Abu Kareem