High Human Cost of Hamas' Political Gamble

Since the start of Operation Protective Edge by Israel on July 8, over 1000 Palestinians and 42 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in the latest episode of the age-old conflict between Israel and Palestine. There seems to be no imminent end to this bloodbath. Talks for an internationally brokered cease-fire agreement seems to be elusive as neither party refuses to budge in their stance as far as the demands of the agreement are concerned. So far, on UN's proposal, two humanitarian cease-fire agreements were reached. Hamas had violated the more recent cease-fire agreement stating that it won't accept a cease-fire until Israeli soldiers have left Gaza along with the lifting of the blockade and the release of prisoners by Israel.

So what is Hamas' angle? Why do they keep refusing any sort of cease-fire agreement when they clearly don't stand a chance militarily against Israel? Obviously, there is a political agenda here. Since 2011, when Hamas failed to side with Syria's Bashar Al Assad, it's funding from Iran had been cut off heavily. This, coupled with the 2013 military coup that overthrew Egypt's pro-Palestine president, Mohamed Morsi, and replaced with a military government led to the closing of Egypt's borders with Gaza. With Hamas losing two important strategic and financial allies in the Middle East, Gaza was thrust into an economic crisis. They were crippled to such an extent that they couldn't pay the salaries of 43,000 civil servants.

With unemployment going over 40% and Gaza effectively shut out from the outside world due to the blockade, nearly 80% of the people rely on humanitarian aid. The UN has warned that if such levels of stifled conditions continue, Gaza will be unliveable by 2020. According to a Pew poll, opinions of Hamas is negative in the Gaza strip (63%, up from 54% in 2013).

Hamas' strategy of firing rockets at Israel and risking Gaza civilian casualties in return fire is an attempt to gain the wider sympathy and political support of a few important Middle Eastern players. Such a scenario seems unlikely as Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have made it abundantly clear that they are not willing to bow down to the pressures of Hamas’ political maneuvers.

This approach by Hamas and its repeated insistence on not refusing to halt rockets into Israel has come at a steep price of civilian casualties. Gaza, being densely populated, leaves its civilians with nowhere to go. The UN has declared 43% of Gaza to be a "no go area", which leaves Israel's evacuation warnings effectively useless. With Israel looking unlikely to meet the steep demands of Hamas and Hamas not letting up, it is, as often the case in times of war, innocent civilians who are paying the toll for a largely political conflict. One thing is for certain, while a temporary cease-fire ideally brought about by both sides may solve immediate issues, there's no guarantee that a future siege might not happen. Let us hope for the sake of civilians caught in the middle of this war that the current impasse sees a long-term deal, which can be achieved only through political discourse, and not through the use of arms.