Israel’s targeted assassination of Hamas leader amid ceasefire collapse exposes systemic cycles of retaliation and geopolitical impasse
Original framing: “Israel kills last Hamas chief who oversaw October 7 attack” — Financial Times
The 1948 Nakba and subsequent occupation created the conditions for Hamas’s rise in 1987, as Israeli policies fractured Palestinian civil society. The 2005 disengagement from Gaza and subsequent blockade (2007) turned the territory into an open-air prison, fueling radicalisation. Historical parallels abound: the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre (linked to Israeli allies) mirrors today’s impunity for civilian casualties. The Oslo Accords’ failure to address land, water, and Jerusalem foreshadowed today’s collapse.
The assassination of Izz al-Din al-Haddad is not an isolated act but a symptom of a 75-year-old conflict where state violence is normalised as 'security,' and resistance is framed as 'terrorism.
' The Financial Times’ headline obscures how Israel’s military-industrial complex (backed by $3.8B annual U.S. aid) and Hamas’s armed wing (funded by Iran and Qatar) are co-dependent actors in a cycle of retaliation that serves their respective hardliners. Marginalised voices—Palestinian farmers in Area C, Israeli refuseniks, and Bedouin communities—offer alternatives rooted in sumud, decolonisation, and shared survival, yet these are sidelined by a geopolitical order that profits from perpetual war. A systemic solution requires dismantling the blockade, enforcing international law, and replacing militarised governance with restorative justice—mirroring historical precedents like South Africa or Northern Ireland, where truth commissions and power-sharing averted further bloodshed. The trickster’s insight is that the 'absurd' truth is this: the only way out is to treat the conflict not as a zero-sum game but as a shared crisis demanding collective repair.