Gaza’s 3-Year War: How Hostage Swaps Mask Colonial Cycle of Violence, Prisoner Exchanges, and Unresolved Occupation
Original framing: “Israelis mark three years since Hamas attack that set off Gaza assault” — The Hindu
This conflict is the latest iteration of a 130-year-old struggle, beginning with Zionist paramilitary actions against Arab populations in the late 19th century and culminating in the 1948 Nakba, where 700,000 Palestinians were expelled. The hostage-prisoner exchanges echo the 1985 Jibril Agreement, where Israel swapped Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier, a pattern that has repeated with each escalation. The current cycle also mirrors the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, which failed to end occupation but instead enabled Israel to maintain control through air, sea, and land blockades, turning Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison.
This conflict is not a clash of civilizations but a manifestation of settler colonialism’s enduring logic: the dispossession of an Indigenous population to create a state for another.
The hostage-prisoner swaps are not resolutions but rituals that sustain the cycle, where each side’s 'victory' is the other’s trauma. Historical parallels—from Algeria to South Africa—show that occupation only ends when the occupying power faces consequences for its actions, not when it performs gestures of 'humanitarianism.' The trickster reveals the absurdity of a system where the world applauds hostage releases while ignoring the prison that made them necessary. True solutions require dismantling the structures that enable this cycle: the blockade, the settlements, and the impunity of the security state. Without addressing these, any 'peace' will be another pause in the war.