What will happen next in the Israel-Hamas conflict?

A positive ending to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict is unlikely and the worst is still to come for Palestinians. That’s the fear of Ilan Pappe, Professor of History and Director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at University of Exeter, who told CGTN Europe that he predicted a “huge humanitarian crisis and no end to the violence.”

On Saturday night, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled his country’s conflict with Hamas as a “war for Israel’s very existence” after launching a ground offensive in Gaza on the back of two weeks of relentless bombing.

Israel’s offensive – in response to Hamas’s slaughter of 1,400 Israelis in towns and villages in the south of the country and capture of 229 hostages on October 7 – has so far claimed the lives of 7,700 Palestinians despite calls from international leaders to protect civilians.

Israel has also limited the supplies of humanitarian aid into Gaza, leading to fears that more lives will be lost as people run out of food and water and hospitals are denied the fuel they need to generate electricity and save the lives of the injured.

Netanyahu has received the backing of a host of Western leaders and appears intent on continuing an offensive that he says is aimed at purging Gaza of Hamas once and for all. But some experts are now fearful that the violence could spill over into surrounding countries.

READ MORE

Lagarde’s interest rate freeze explained

WHO demands fuel access for Gaza

Gaza getting ‘crumbs of aid’

Pappe told CGTN: “[The conflict] leads us to more destruction, more dispossession and uprooting of Palestinians,” Ilan Pappe, Professor of History and Director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at University of Exeter, told CGTN Europe. “[There will be] a huge humanitarian crisis and no end to the violence, I would say, even on both sides, in terms of reaching some sort of an understanding that would prevent the next cycle of violence. 

“I’m afraid what we see now on the ground is just going to be worse and unless there will be an effective international intervention or regional intervention, this could deteriorate even beyond the borders of Israel and Gaza into the northern borders between Israel and Lebanon.”

One potential solution to the conflict that has been the suggested is the idea of two separate states – an independent state of Palestine for Palestinians alongside an Israel specifically for Jewish people.

But Pappe believes that the momentum of Israeli politics over the past two decades, long before the latest conflict, means there is little chance of Israel agreeing to a two state solution.

“I think the Israeli political system as a whole has shifted fundamentally to the right, since the beginning of this century,” he said. “And the voices that could be defined as liberal, Zionist or left Zionist began to shrink. By now, in 2023, I don’t think they really exist in any meaningful way within the Israeli political system. The whole idea of compromise based on a two state solution had been thrown out of the Israeli political discourse. 

“It did not appear even as an item in Israeli in the last four or five electoral campaigns in Israel. So I think what you have now is an Israeli society that is determined to use force and imposition by force in order to control as much of historical Palestine as they can and contain the Palestinians within areas like area in the West Bank and under siege in Gaza.”

Pappe believes that the result of the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians means one thing – more violence and potentially the involvement of other countries. “The imbalance of power doesn’t bode well for the Palestinians. And once more, if it does not, it’s not going to remain an Israeli-Palestinian issue. It’s still got the area around. It is too volatile for it to be contained just within the borders of Israel and Palestine.”

Subscribe to Storyboard: A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of CGTN every Friday