Perspective 127. Israel and Hamas: A New Kind of War?
The bitter battles between Israel and the forces of Hamas blaze on with no clear end in sight, challenging existing notions on all sides. Have we in fact entered a new stage in the ways humans have devised to destroy each other?
No. Like all wars this one has some unique aspects, but it fits the general pattern of armed combat that has emerged in recent decades.
In perspective, throughout history combatants not strong enough to face enemy forces in conventional warfare have resorted to subterfuge, evasion, and concealment. They have avoided direct engagement while using hit-and-run tactics and remaining elusive as targets. There are no clear battlefields or battle lines and often no clear victory or victors; conflicts can drag on for extended periods with only fuzzy outcomes.
These conflicts have been labeled as sub-conventional, asymmetric, counter-insurgent, guerrilla, irregular, or partisan wars. One analyst defines them as “wars amongst the people,” since fighters conceal themselves by melting into a general population.
Since World War II direct military conflict between major powers has, happily, become a rarity, and consequently conventional wars have tapered off. The last full-scale conventional war in the Middle East was the Egyptian and Syrian attack on Israel in 1973. This was also the last big conventional war anywhere until Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Other than that, there have been only civil wars and minor campaigns (in the Balkans and Caucasus, for example), some of them closer to the sub-conventional model.
The previous short wars between Israel and Hamas (2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2021) fit the prevailing pattern. Hamas launched rocket attacks, Israel used its air power and (twice) limited incursions on the ground, both sides claimed victory, and afterward Hamas rebuilt its depleted military resources. The October 7 attack did, however, break with the pattern; Hamas was not only demonstrating its resistance to Israel, but also inflicted humiliating and painful losses on israel’s home turf, moving beyond the run-of-the-mill insurgency.
Another new element is that defeat of a well-entrenched guerrilla force has become much more difficult. It is worth mentioning that clearing ISIS out of Mosul, with U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, took nine months (!) in 2016-17.
There is also a major disconnect that comes out of this. International law evolved historically in the framework of conventional wars with defined battlefields and a relatively clear distinction between military and civilian. Combatants such as Hamas thrive precisely on blurring this distinction. And while Hamas committed gross violations of international law on October 7 – deliberate murder of civilians, rape and torture, taking hostages – by conventional standards Israel is still held to observance of the laws of war in its response to these violations.
Under this law Israel clearly has “just cause,” the right to wage war on Hamas and even to aim for its destruction. But in the conduct of this war it must in theory respect the very distinction between civilians and military that in fact is heavily obscured. The very nature of “war amongst the people” makes the aim of uprooting Hamas realistically impossible to achieve under these rules.
In other words, while the objective of preventing future attacks by Hamas is justified by international law, the only means of doing so involve the violation of other provisions of that same law. This is what the era of sub-conventional wars has brought about in practice.