JERUSALEM: One month after the Hamas attack on the Zionist entity, life has been upended for both Palestinians and Zionists as the Zionist army ramps up its attacks on the Gaza Strip. The Oct 7 attacks by Hamas militants, who infiltrated the Gaza-Zionist border and attacked Zionist communities and army bases, has deeply scarred the nation.

Gaza — a territory of 2.4 million people packed into one of the most densely populated areas on Earth — has been transformed into an apocalyptic battleground by air strikes and ground assaults after the Zionist entity vowed to eradicate Hamas. Al Quds, the most widely read Palestinian daily, said “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of innocent people”. “It feels like we have to pinch ourselves to make sure that this is truly the new reality,” the left-wing daily Haaretz wrote this week. “The change wrought by the war is total: in losses of life and in damage, in anxieties, in the country’s agenda and in the total upending of old political conventions from every possible aspect.”

‘Powder keg’

Fears have mounted of a possible regional conflagration. Iran, an ally of both Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, has warned the situation risks spiraling “out of control” in a Middle East transformed into a “powder keg”. A Pentagon spokesman said the United States is “concerned about all elements of Iran’s threat network increasing their attacks in a way that risks miscalculation or tipping the region into war”.

US military advisers are in the Zionist entity and two American carrier groups have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean. As tensions increase, the Zionist army is on alert on its northern border with Lebanon too. Breaking a month of silence on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said “all options” were open for an escalation of the conflict on the Lebanese frontier with the Zionist entity, while at the same time blaming the United States for the war.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said he did not think Hezbollah would escalate the fighting, telling the BBC “a broader regional conflict has been deterred”. However, Avi Melamed, a Zionist specialist on Middle East relations warned: “Hezbollah could set fire to the region.” “They have a military capacity ten times superior to the Hamas cell,” he told AFP. “It could inflict grave damage on (the Zionist entity).”

‘Radicalization’

For Gaza resident Omar Ashur, who was eight years old in 1948 when the Zionist entity was created, “what’s going on is dangerous”. He fears the violence will provoke “a second Nakba”, referring to the forced expulsion of about 760,000 Palestinians, according to United Nations figures, in 1948.

“Calls for a ceasefire are calls for (the Zionist entity) to surrender to Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida has vowed that “Gaza will be a cemetery and quagmire for the enemy”.

According to Claude Klein, former dean at the law faculty of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, “the possibility of a peaceful settlement is very remote. I don’t see anything positive on the horizon. “What happened on October 7 strengthened those in (the Zionist entity) who say there are no interlocutors for peace.” For former Palestinian minister Ghassan Khatib, who teaches at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, “radicalization has reinforced each side of the conflict and has led to a deep disbelief in a peaceful solution”. – AFP