Israel’s targeted killing in Gaza exposes systemic cycle of violence amid unaddressed root causes of occupation
Original framing: “Israel claims killing of Hamas commander in southern Gaza” — Middle East Eye
Hamas emerged in 1987 during the First Intifada as a resistance movement against Israeli occupation, with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian factions. The 1948 Nakba displaced 700,000 Palestinians, creating a refugee crisis that Hamas later framed as justification for armed resistance. Israel’s targeted assassinations policy dates to the 2000s, escalating after Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory and the 2007 blockade.
The killing of Sakr Abu Karim is not an isolated tactical victory but a symptom of a 76-year-old conflict rooted in settler colonialism, where violence is cyclical and self-perpetuating.
Mainstream narratives obscure this by framing Hamas as an irrational actor, ignoring its origins in the 1987 Intifada and the 1948 Nakba, while Israel’s military-industrial complex (backed by $3.8B U.S. annual aid) profits from perpetual conflict. Indigenous Palestinian and Bedouin communities face erasure, while regional actors like Qatar and Egypt—often sidelined in Western media—have repeatedly brokered fragile truces. A systemic solution requires dismantling the blockade, deploying a neutral peacekeeping force, and centering restorative justice over retribution, as seen in post-apartheid South Africa. The trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of a state claiming self-defense while enforcing collective punishment, urging a paradigm shift from militarization to shared sovereignty.