Was this a black swan moment? Or could it have been foreseen?
Certainly the Israeli intelligence failure was astonishing.
And the extreme Hamas barbarity was not something observers ever associated with the Palestinian cause.
But behind those huge shocks, there were signals. A perfect storm was brewing. The moderate Palestinians were ignored, the Israelis were distracted and the Americans were disengaged.
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0:59
Blinken saw photo of ‘baby riddled with bullets’
Three years ago I sat down with two moderate West Bank Palestinians, Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat.
Ms Ashrawi is an elder stateswoman who was at the White House in 1993 when Bill Clinton pulled the Israelis and the Palestinians together.
As Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the south lawn 30 years ago, Ms Ashrawi said: “The Palestinian state is emerging…”
Dr Erekat was the veteran Palestinian negotiator through every twist and turn of a peace process that never was. Absorbing the past week’s events, I have been looking back now at my notes of our conversations.
Both warned about Hamas extremism. Both seemed defeated and despondent. They knew their decades-long drive for statehood was gone. They accepted that their own side’s intransigence had caused problems but overwhelmingly, they believed they had been undermined by America, Israel and the West.
Image: Israeli soldiers on a tank near the Israel-Gaza border. Pic: AP
“Even worse than my legacy? This is what makes me very sad… I am going to be used as an example by extremists in order to show [people], in advance, their fate if they follow in my steps… of where an attempt to recognise Israel, to renounce violence and accept the two-state solution actually led,” he told me.
Our conversation was prompted by the signing of the Abraham Accords – a Donald Trump-brokered deal which normalised relations between Israel and two Gulf nations – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. It was widely seen as a breakthrough moment for the region and a blueprint for further Israeli-Arab integration.
Image: Palestinians wave their national flag by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis. Pic: AP
There was one problem. The Palestinians had been left out of the conversation.
The Abraham Accords was an attempt to upturn diplomatic norms; to bypass the core issue (Israel-Palestine) and solve the byproduct issues (Arab-Israeli relations) in the hope that diplomatic reverse engineering would magically fix the Palestinian issue. It was a deal driven more by economic opportunities than by political realities.
For the moderate Palestinians it was another ‘dagger in the back’, as Dr Erekat put it. He had watched as his cause was consistently undermined: the moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the cutting of funding, and the failure to call out or even notice the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
To Western and Gulf Arab leaders he said: “Congratulations… you have killed the two-state solution and you have killed any negotiations and I think you destroyed the Palestinian moderate camp; Palestinians who want peace, prosperity, human rights… God help this region.”
Image: Palestinians evacuate the wounded after an Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
Hamas and Iran
In May 2021 at the end of the last Israel-Hamas war, I sat down in Gaza with the co-founder of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar. It was the first time any Hamas leader had spoken since his group had launched what was then an unprecedented rocket attack on civilians in Israel.
He also viewed moderate Palestinians as losers who had proved that negotiations with Israel were pointless.
“Practically, practically, that was proved,” the Hamas co-founder told me.
“It is not my assessment. Go and ask [Palestinian president] Mahmoud Abbas: ‘Are you now saying a two-state solution is viable or not?’… He will say no… The Israelis are not going to accept a two-state solution. You are now asking me to practise a failed process?”
Across Gaza, Iran’s influence is deep. On my last visit there, posters lined the streets of Iran’s military commander Qasem Soleimani, assassinated on the orders of then-president Mr Trump.
It’s been clear for years that the leadership in Tehran has moulded Hamas extremism and leveraged the Palestinian people’s hopelessness. It is all part of its axis of influence that swings through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, down to Gaza.
Image: Israeli soldiers take position near Israel’s border with Gaza
Israel’s caged enemy
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns frequently of the danger Iran poses – but he usually frames it in the nuclear context – the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
With Gaza, his style (his detractors would call it hubris) allowed him to think he could contain Hamas and limit Iranian influence – to his advantage.
Hamas was the enemy in a cage. Mr Netanyahu used the situation as a political tool to remind everyone why the land can never be shared.
Image: An Israeli tank fires near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip
More moderate Israelis, like former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who I also spoke to, and who advocates for Jewish settlement dismantlement and genuine engagement with Palestinians, were pushed aside.
Then, Mr Netanyahu prompted an internal crisis (also through his own hubris?) – his controversial legal reforms ignited the country with massive protests. The consequence was a temporary breakdown in Israeli unity. Even the top brass military threatened to resign.
It was against this backdrop that Hamas struck. The enemy in the cage got out. And it was stronger than Israel could ever have imagined.
Image: Smoke rises following Israeli strikes in Gaza
American disengagement
Above all that – America tried to disengage with the Middle East years ago. Forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a need to focus on China and, latterly, Russia, forced a new approach – helicopter diplomacy.
The plan was that historic normalisation deals between Israel and the Gulf Arabs would reshape the region and allow America to step back. If it had worked, it would have been a game changer.
But the Palestinians were not part of that conversation. They didn’t want to be without the commitment of statehood, and they weren’t encouraged to be because everyone knew that statehood commitment could never be delivered.
Mr Netanyahu’s politics had made it an impossibility.
Image: Israeli soldiers surround a Palestinian who ran at them with a knife at the site of a music festival near the border with the Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
In speeches, US President Joe Biden’s top advisers hardly mentioned Israel-Palestine. Even this week as National Security Council spokesman John Kirby countered my assertion that America had disengaged, he listed Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Islamic State and Saudi Arabia but didn’t mention Israel-Palestine until I prompted him.
“You are right, I did not and I should have,” Mr Kirby said. “… because we have been continuing to want to pursue a two-state solution.”
The truth is no one really believes that a two-state solution is achievable. Western diplomats have been quietly telling me this for several years.
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For the first time since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Palestinian officials have said that dozens of people are dying of hunger.
At least 101 people are known to have died of malnutrition during the conflict, including 80 children, most of them in recent weeks, according to officials.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said malnourishment is soaring and starvation is knocking on every door in Gaza, describing the situation as a “horror show”.
Image: Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Israel controls all supplies entering Gaza and has denied it is responsible for food shortages.
Some food stocks in the Palestinian territory have run out since Israel cut off all supplies in March and then lifted the blockade in May with new measures it said were needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
Israel has blamed the UN for failing to protect aid it says is stolen by Hamas and other groups. The fighters deny stealing it.
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‘There is nothing left’
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza and some of its staff are starving, with the organisation accusing Israel of paralysing its work.
“Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,” said Jan Egeland, the council’s secretary-general.
The NRC said that for the last 145 days, it has not been able to get hundreds of truckloads of tents, water, sanitation, food and education materials into Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, and Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel denies accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza.
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6:22
Israel wants to ‘finish off’ Gaza
Aid workers ‘fainting due to hunger’
The NRC comments echo those made earlier by the head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), who said doctors and aid workers have been fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion.
“Caretakers, including UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now. Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them. UNRWA staff are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said.
He warned that seeking food has become “as deadly as the bombardments”, describing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution scheme as a “sadistic death trap”.
“This cannot be our new norm, humanitarian assistance is not the job of mercenaries,” he added.
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1:29
Lammy: I hope and pray for Gaza ceasefire soon
The UK, and several other countries, have condemned the current aid delivery model, backed by the Israeli and American governments, which has reportedly resulted in Israeli troops firing on Palestinian civilians in search of food on multiple occasions.
More than 800 people have reportedly been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near distribution centres.
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2:04
IDF enters this Gaza city for first time – why?
Israel ‘risking more civilian deaths’
Meanwhile, Israeli displacement orders followed by intensive attacks on the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah will lead to further civilian deaths, the head of the UN human rights office has said.
On Monday, Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of the city for the first time after Israel issued an evacuation order.
The area is packed with Palestinians who have been displaced during the war in the coastal territory, and Israeli sources said the military believes hostages may be held there.
Now, Volker Turk, the head of the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, has said: “It seemed the nightmare couldn’t possibly get worse.
“And yet it does… given the concentration of civilians in the area, and the means and methods of warfare employed by Israel until now, the risks of unlawful killings and other serious violations of international humanitarian law are extremely high.”
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Gazan doctor being held
Tents sheltering displaced people ‘hit by strikes’
Also, at least 20 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza on Tuesday, according to officials in the Hamas-run strip.
Among them were 12 who died when tents sheltering displaced people in the Shati refugee camp on the western side of Gaza City were hit, according to Shifa Hospital, which treated casualties.
The dead included three women and three children, said hospital director Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, who added that 38 other Palestinians were injured.
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And eight people were killed in an overnight strike that hit crowds of people waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City, according to hospitals. The Palestinian Red Crescent said at least 118 people were wounded.
Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas. It accuses the group of prolonging the war because Hamas has not accepted Israel’s terms for a ceasefire – including calls to give up power and disarm.
Health officials say Israeli forces have killed almost 60,000 Palestinians in airstrikes, shelling and shooting since launching their assault on Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.
The smell hit us before we turned the corner into the backyard of Sweida City’s main hospital.
Neatly laid out in lines were rows of white body bags: some of the victims of the vicious bloodletting which the mainly-Druze city has suffered over the past week.
There are more than 90 corpses in the yard, now badly decomposing in the heat.
They are still picking up bodies from the hospital’s front garden as we arrive.
They say they have been unable to bury them because of the fierce fighting around the Syrian city.
Image: There are dozens of corpses in the hospital yard, now badly decomposing in the heat
Most of the dead here are unidentified and will be buried in a mass grave near the hospital in the hope that a full investigation will be launched in less turbulent times.
Inside the hospital, we’re taken through darkened corridors powered by a generator. The electricity and internet in the city and the surrounding villages are not working.
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Traumatised patients
Food and water are scarce and the doctors say medical supplies are dwindling. The hospital is in a shockingly dirty state, and many of the people in it are traumatised and frightened.
Image: A Druze fighter in a destroyed hospital corridor
Dr Obeida Abu Fakher, who is the head of resident doctors, told us that the lack of medical supplies and poor hygiene were now threatening the condition of those saved in emergency operations, some carried out along hospital corridors because the operating rooms were full.
“I think you can smell the bad smell coming from the wound?” Dr Fakher says to us, as another medic delicately replaces the bandage on a young man’s leg.
“This is a very big problem because all the patients we treated in the operations rooms are now (getting infected) and risk dying right here.”
Image: An injured father and son in hospital
The wards are packed with the civilian victims caught up in Syria’s complex tribal and political violence – the worst since the toppling of the country’s dictator Bashar al Assad by fighters backed by Turkey and led by former Islamist Ahmed al Sharaa.
Among the victims is 21-year-old Hajar, who was nine months pregnant with her first baby when she was shot through both legs.
Medics managed to save her life but not her baby – a victim of this brutal outbreak of violence before even being born.
Image: Doctors managed to save Hajar’s life but not her baby
A male nurse openly weeps in the corner of the ward where Hajar is laying immobile on a dirty hospital bed. Hajar’s bandages hold together her shattered legs and there’s blood still caked on her feet.
“She needs specialist operations which we cannot do right now,” a doctor explains.
Hajar is just one of the many casualties among the dozens crammed in this hospital, as well as the tens of thousands of others affected by what’s happened over the past 10 days of brutality in Sweida.
The UN estimates nearly 130,000 people have fled their homes. The death toll is still being calculated but is thought to be more than a thousand so far.
We have driven through multiple Druze checkpoints to get here. The Druze-dominated area is extremely edgy now and bunkered down behind sand chicanes and armed barricades.
Image: A Druze fighter with a flag representing the Druze faith
The cycle of tit-for-tat kidnappings and revenge attacks between Druze and Arab Bedoin tribes in the city quickly spiralled into an international crisis when witnesses said some government forces sent in as peacekeepers went on to join Bedoin tribes in the killing spree and robbing of the Druze minority.
Israeli forces, who had warned against any of the Syrian army operating in the area, intervened with airstrikes, killing hundreds of troops as well as civilians.
It was an act of aggression which the new Syrian president would later describe as pushing the country into a “dangerous phase” and threatening its stability.
Image: An ambulance that was severely damaged by shelling
Days of anarchy
The Israeli bombings forced the government troops to withdraw and, in their absence, Druze militia demanding autonomy from Damascus, embarked on a rash of revenge attacks and kidnappings.
Days of anarchy followed with thousands of Arab fighters including Islamic extremists massing on the area, pillaging and looting mainly Druze homes and businesses and engaging in pitched battles with Druze militia as well as civilians defending their homes and families.
Shocking but mostly unverified social media posts showing executions and beheadings from both Druze and Arab accounts have fuelled the fear and fighting.
There are misinformation and disinformation propaganda campaigns – many by Islamists – which are inciting the violence and cementing divisions.
The beleaguered new Syrian leader thanked America and the UAE for brokering a ceasefire – but it is shaky and in its infancy, and there’s a massive trust deficit all round which it is tentatively plastering.
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This is so much more than a bloody sectarian crisis – and comes at a time when Syria is emerging from more than a decade of civil war and is economically broken.
The crisis is complex, multi-layered and drawing in others.
Anadolu Agency quoted the Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan as warning that any attempt to divide Syria will be viewed as a threat to Turkish national security and lead to direct Turkish intervention.
These are words that will chill the many millions of Syrians desperate for peace.
:: Alex Crawford reports from Syria with camera operator Garwen McLuckie, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Syrian producers Mahmoud Mosa and Ahmed Rahhal.
An aid worker in Gaza has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is “absolutely desperate” and “the worst it’s ever been”.
Her comments to chief presenter Mark Austincome amid fresh outcry over aid restrictions, with the UK joining 24 other countries to urge an immediate end to the war.
It also comes as at least 12 more Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when tanks shelled a tent encampment in western Gaza City, according to health authorities.
Medics, speaking early on Tuesday, said two shells were fired at tents housing displaced people from tanks positioned north of the Shati camp.
Israel hasn’t yet commented on the reports.
Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, spoke to Sky News from Deir al Balah, a city where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement.
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She said: “One of my colleagues said to me yesterday, ‘We are all walking together towards death’. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza.
“There is no food for their children, it’s absolutely desperate here.”
Image: Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen. Pic: Reuters
“The markets are empty,” she said. “People may even have cash in their pockets yet they cannot buy bread [or] vegetables.
“My team have said to me, ‘There’s nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day.”
Israel launched a ground assault on southern and eastern Deir al Balah for the first time on Monday after having issued an evacuation order.
Local medics said at least three people were killed when houses and mosques were hit by tank shelling.
Sources told Reuters news agency that Israel believes some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October 2023 could be in the area.
Image: Smoke rises during strikes amid the Israeli operation in Deir al Balah. Pic: Reuters
Ms Cummings’s remarks came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire.
The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation (GHF).
“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the joint statement said.
The 25 countries also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks.
Lammy promises £40m for Gaza
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
He told MPs: “We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area.
“Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism.”
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2:53
Lammy: ‘There must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state’
Addressing the foreign secretaries’ joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza – told Sky News: “While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed.
“In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can’t get worse, it does.”
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“Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response,” she said.
“And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we’re trying to serve.
“An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve.”
The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.
More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.