Overview of Israel-Hamas Conflict
The Israel- Hamas conflict began on October 7, 2023 after Hamas led an airstrike on Israel at 6:30 am. This action was the beginning of a surprise land, air, and sea attack against Israel. Shortly after, Hamas militants began marching from Gaza into 22 nearby Israeli towns, taking hostages and destroying neighborhoods.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared war and launched an airstrike in defense, hitting Hamas military compounds and operation centers. The events continued after October 7th in a back-and-forth struggle between Gaza and Israel after Israel immediately launched into Home Front Command, commanding citizens to stay in shelters and preventing entry or exit in many parts of Israel. The Israeli Defense force enacted a complete siege of the Gaza strip, cutting off their food and electricity supply. Around mid-November, a temporary ceasefire occurred and 200-300 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israel to be swapped with captives held in Gaza. By mid-December, President Biden mentioned that Israel had begun losing international support due to their destruction of the Gaza strip inducing mass casualties. Throughout January, South Africa presented an official genocide case against Israel before the UN and their claims, which were found plausible, caused Israel to take preventative steps to avoid genocide. Iran launched missile attacks on a suspected “Israeli spy site.” When they later launched a drone attack on Jordan, killing 3 United States service members, the US became much more actively involved with the war. In April, Israel tried to conduct a prisoner exchange with Hamas for 40 sick and elderly women hostages, however, Hamas would not comply. The current state of the war resides in The Ceasefire Agreements and the Iran Missile Attack. In the Ceasefire Agreements, Hamas requested a 6 week break from fighting and the release of Hamas hostages in order to allow aid to Palestinians. Both sides have rejected each other’s requests. Now, Iran is more involved with the conflict after launching 170 drones and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel’s sole comment was that “their response would be imminent.”
TIMELINE
Sources-
Here are some good sites to visit if you are looking for reliable news-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
https://www.cnn.com/
https://abcnews.com.co/
https://www.britannica.com/
https://www.npr.org/
We used these sources because they are all well known and reliable news outlets. None of them are heavily skewed to one side of the conflict or another so the news they are reporting is unbiased and fact based. We stayed away from sources that were very obviously biased to one side, for example ones that as soon as you would open it have message about how one side are murders or a link to a fund helping a certain side.
Here are some examples of sites that might be biased-
