For the last seventeen years, Israel has been out of the Gaza District, having unilaterally left it under Palestinian rule. For fifteen of those years, Hamas has controlled this narrow territory and its two million inhabitants. And for eleven of those, the leader of Hamas, and therefore of Gaza, has been Yahia Sinwar, a devout Islamist operative which Israel released from jail in a prisoner exchange deal. While Hamas maneuvers carefully not to trigger another major Israeli operation against it - Sinwar has inspired terror attacks by individuals penetrating Israeli cities from the West Bank, and part of the frustrated public response was a call to renew the tactic of targeted killings, with chief focus on abruption Sinwar’s timeline. Has that helped de-escalate the tense situation, or only pushed Sinwar to show that he cares for the Palestinian and Muslim causes more than he does for his personal safety?
Joining us from central Israel for today’s discussion is Colonel (Reserve) Dr. Anan Wahabi, Senior Fellow at ICT Reichman University and Lecturer at Haifa University.
Also joining us from the northern part of Israel is Dr. Fadi Essmaeel, Research Fellow at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Reichman University, and Amir Oren, TV7 Editor at Large, Host of TV7 Watchmen Talk & Powers in Play.
