World

Israel-Hamas war: How did this happen?

Published

2 years ago

October 13, 2023

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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.

Israel-Gaza latest: Israel releases graphic photos of dead babies

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.

I asked Dr Erekat what he thought his legacy would be.

“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.

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.”

It was the last time we would speak. Dr Erekat died a few months later from COVID.

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 didn’t resemble the moderates I know in the West Bank at all. He was an Islamist. And he said Israel has no right to exist.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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And so the region’s weakest link was ignored and it ignited.

In Iran, they are no doubt delighted that a normalisation deal between their enemy, Israel, and Saudi Arabia is now in the freezer.

Mr Biden is now desperately trying to take control of the situation; to influence the remoulding of the Middle East that we are seeing.

The question is, can he? It feels out of control now.

World

Israel allows foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza

Published

11 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Israel allows foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza

Israel has said foreign countries can drop aid into Gaza from today.

A senior IDF official told Sky News on Friday: “Starting today, Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza.

“Starting this afternoon, the WCK organisation began reactivating its kitchens.”

Humanitarian aid organisation World Central Kitchen paused its operation in Gaza in November after a number of its workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.

Aid workers in Gaza – who help provide food, medicine and shelter for the millions displaced there – have been affected by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In recent weeks hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food and aid.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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World

‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points

Published

1 day ago

July 24, 2025

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'Almost like a game of target practice': British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points

A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.

Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.

The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.

Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.

“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”

In other developments:

• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks

• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”

• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine

• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same

‘They were shells’

Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.

The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.

“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.

Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.

“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.

“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”

IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’

Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.

He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.

“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”

Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.

“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.

“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.

“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.

“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”

Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.

It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.

More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.

UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.

Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”

Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.

Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.

World

Eleven civilians killed as Thailand and Cambodia exchange fire in escalating border dispute

Published

1 day ago

July 24, 2025

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Eleven civilians killed as Thailand and Cambodia exchange fire in escalating border dispute

Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.

Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.

It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.

Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.

Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.

Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.

Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.

“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.

Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.

What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?

‘Civilian areas targeted’

Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.

“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.

A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.

The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.

‘Conflict not spreading’

Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.

Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.

He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.

Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.

The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.

A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.

Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.

Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.

Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.