Gaza’s gamble: The price of making the world watch

From Gaza, the place where he was born and where he drew his last breath, Yahya Al-Sinwar outlined in 2022 the contours of the “major confrontation” to come with Israel. He imagined a drawn-out fight that would conclude, as he saw it, with Israel isolated, forced to recognize a Palestinian state, and the end of its regional integration.

From his reading of the conflict’s history, Sinwar concluded that the most dangerous trap for Israel was to be provoked into a more violent reaction so severe it would set it against the world.

It is impossible to judge the political wisdom of that wager in light of the immense Palestinian losses in two years of war. Israel has killed tens of thousands, turned Gaza into a wasteland, and renewed attempts to expel Palestinians from their land.

Yet despite Israel’s military edge in Gaza and on other fronts after Oct. 7, the costs have gone far beyond the number of soldiers killed in the field or the daily economic bill of a long war. Israel also encountered a mounting international isolation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself acknowledged—an experience distilled by his address to rows of empty seats at the UN in New York.

Israel has lost arenas that once embraced its narrative. Western moves towards recognizing a Palestinian state have gathered a momentum unseen before Oct. 7. Israeli leaders themselves have been branded as war criminals through legal campaigns backing the Palestinians.

That isolation is also visible in the pace at which European allies and partners have announced suspensions or reviews of trade and defense agreements with Israel, and the European Union’s constant threat of sanctioning extremist ministers in Netanyahu’s government. Even friends like Argentina declined to host Netanyahu, fearing damage to the ruling party’s popularity ahead of parliamentary elections.

Sport has not been immune. Israel’s name is increasingly unwelcome; its flag sparks rows with federations and host countries. Calls have grown to exclude Israel from UEFA competitions and bar it from World Cup qualifiers, mirroring the step taken against Russia after its war on Ukraine three years ago.

Militarily, Israel has held the upper hand over the past 24 months. But the war has unfolded on other battlegrounds where Palestinians have won symbolic gains—small footholds that could matter in the years ahead after decades of neglect.

Political gains

“The Palestinian narrative after Oct. 7 received space it never had before, thanks to sweeping popular mobilization and solidarity, the exposure of crimes, and the collapse of false Israeli claims. This is an unprecedented political victory for the Palestinian people that needs sufficient international will to consolidate it,” Palestinian lawyer Salah Abdalati, head of the International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights, told Al Manassa.

For decades, Israel presented itself to the world as the side with a grievance. It dominated the story and branded anyone who contradicted its narrative as antisemitic. But an “ethical uprising” among peoples and states has altered that equation and has begun to make Israel hear criticism and demands for its punishment, said Fatah leader Ayman Al‑Raqab.

Israel’s isolation is not the only outcome of Al‑Aqsa Flood. The war also thrust the Palestinian question back to center stage after it had faded from Arab agendas amid a decade of regional developments, at a staggering cost in lives and destruction in the Strip.

Al-Aqsa Flood did not bring about Israel’s collapse, as Sinwar might have hoped. Although his forecast of Israel’s diplomatic isolation has come to pass, the late Hamas leader did not foresee the scale of Palestinian deaths or Gaza’s near‑total ruin.

Al‑Raqab calls Hamas’s bet a mistake, akin to collective suicide to end the occupation in the hope the world would finally care about decades of Palestinian suffering. In his view, the Zionist lobby and unlimited US backing kept Israel going and stopped the collapse of its economy under the war’s strain.

Pushing back against impunity

Alongside UN calls and worldwide protests to halt the slaughter in Gaza, legal and diplomatic initiatives emerged to curb Israeli impunity and restrict the flow of arms. Foremost is the Hague Group, which backs Palestinians’ right to self‑determination, coordinates efforts to confront Israeli breaches of international law, and works to end its occupation of the State of Palestine.

The group is the first international coalition of its kind to state plainly that it will pursue accountability for Israeli crimes. It began with nine states, mostly from the Global South, led by South Africa and Colombia, and has grown to 35, most recently Spain. Members demand a halt to exporting military equipment to Israel, a ban on transiting arms shipments through their ports, and accountability for Israel before the International Court of Justice.

“The Hague Group was the fruit of broad global solidarity with Palestinians and their rights. It crowns the work of Palestinian human rights advocates who have been knocking on the doors of international courts to punish Israel, and it bolsters South Africa’s step of going to the ICJ to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza,” Abdalati said.

Palestinian and international rights groups played a central role in documenting and exposing violations in the Strip, and worked on multiple tracks, among them cases before the International Criminal Court, Abdalati added. One track led to arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Another supported South Africa’s ICJ case, which produced important rulings, including setting a time frame to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Even so, Abdalati said, the legal push to end impunity has not achieved many of its goals, largely because of the shield provided by the United States: diplomatic and legal cover in the form of six vetoes blocking censure and a cease‑fire, compounded by global paralysis and a lack of political will.

Israel has paid little

Former Palestinian minister Sufian Abu Zaida argues that Israel has paid a relatively small price so far for its crimes and breaches of international law, thanks to Washington’s unlimited support. The United States shoulders much of the war’s economic burden, labors to break Israel’s isolation by any means, and blocks punishment by the international community.

Despite battlefield gains across multiple fronts, from Gaza and Lebanon to Iran and Yemen, and a resetting of old rules of engagement, Israel has suffered major defeats on the world stage and is losing support among Western allies, with the exception of the United States, Abu Zaida told Al Manassa.

Political scientist Gamal Salama likewise argues that Israel isolated itself after Oct. 7 through ongoing crimes in Gaza and by imposing famine on the Strip. But, he said, that remains a small cost compared with what Palestinians have paid. A war that began with the pledge to free all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is drawing to a close with tens of thousands dead, and Hamas grappling with the question of its very survival under US pressure.

Salama adds that Israel exploited Oct. 7 to its advantage: eliminating any future threat from Hamas; stripping the “axis of resistance” of its power by paralyzing Hezbollah and assassinating its secretary‑general, Hassan Nasrallah; cutting supply lines by toppling the Syrian regime; and landing crippling blows on Iran. In his view, the Israeli premise prevailed, even if Israel faces what he calls a largely symbolic isolation.

The shifts unleashed by Al‑Aqsa Flood have not served Hamas’s aims. Instead, they have left the Palestinian resistance movement before a historic impasse: either continue fighting without popular cover or Arab backing, or surrender and disarm for the first time, choices that would extinguish prospects for a future return to armed struggle, Salama concluded.