Gaza-Israel War: The Day the Status Quo Ended

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will never be the same. This weekend, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on the Israeli military and civilians surrounding the besieged Gaza Strip. At the time of writing, more than 1,600 Israelis and Palestinians have been killed, and more than 100 Israeli hostages have been taken into Gaza.

The scenarios of what comes in the immediate and long-term aftermath of this attack are wide open. Yet, one thing is clear. Israel’s decades-old policy of trapping millions of people in a small territory like Gaza under military siege is unsustainable.

The prospect of regional conflict is ripe as the United States moves an aircraft carrier strike group into the Eastern Mediterranean and Israel hits targets inside Lebanon. However, it is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians that will fundamentally change because of this attack. Israel maintains one of the longest and most sophisticated military occupations in modern history in Gaza and the West Bank. This control over Palestinian life is a fundamental stumbling block to resolving the conflict.

In recent decades, Israel’s security policy regarding the Palestinians has been to “manage the conflict.” Successive Israeli governments have engaged in cyclical rounds of violence with Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions under the…