Essayist Nathan Thrall called “October 7” “the Palestinians’ cry of despair.”

American journalist, analyst and essayist Nathan Thrall said this Friday that Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7 was a Palestinian “cry of despair” over the Israeli siege, but criticized the involvement of civilians.

“If we want to address the narrower question of how exactly October 7 happened, the group that has controlled Gaza since 2006 has repeatedly tried to negotiate a different type of agreement that would lead to an end to the blockade,” the book’s author told Luse. news agency “One day in the life of Abed Salama – the anatomy of the tragedy in Jerusalem,” released a few days before the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas.

According to Thrall, an American who lived in Jerusalem and whose latest work was voted “book of the year” by Time, the New Yorker and The Economist, among others, Palestinians involved in Hamas tried in vain to free themselves from the siege all tightens the situation further, using both missile fire and negotiations.

“They even tried to send hundreds of unarmed people to the border fence. And nothing they did helped. Therefore, what I see on October 7 is a cry of despair, this is the last attempt to do something to turn the tide. It is clear that the way they did it, an attack on civilians, is absolutely reprehensible and cannot be defended,” he explained.

“And for some reason it’s very difficult for people to keep two things in their heads at the same time. Firstly, October 7 did not happen out of nowhere, and secondly, the death of civilians, regardless of who did it. , is unacceptable,” Thrall added.

For the author of the book “One Day in the Life of Abed Salama. Anatomy of the Jerusalem Tragedy”, published in Portugal by Ziggurat, the defining question is to know when it all started, since the conflict, he asserted, dates back to the early 1990s, 1990, but whoever says so is ultimately subject to harsh criticism .

“Israel wants to say that this started on October 7, that it was an unprovoked attack and that everything that has happened since then is Hamas’s mistake. And the Palestinians want to say that it didn’t start on October 7th, because these “People have been living under siege and siege for decades. The siege is often dated back to 2006, but the fences, permits and closure of the Gaza Strip actually began in the early 1990s “, he said.

“And, of course, this happens in the context of more than 100 years of conflict between Zionism and the Arabs. So how we got here can be answered in many, many different ways,” said the former director of the Arab Project – Israel of the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In response to Lusa’s question about Israeli retaliation for the Hamas attack, Thrall said Tel Aviv was “following a pattern seen in all previous wars between Israel and the Islamist movement” in which the number of civilians killed was “totally disproportionate to military targets.” “

“Israel, in order to kill one person, bombed a whole series of buildings and killed hundreds of people. It does not obey the laws of proportionality in any reasonable definition. Moreover, by punishing the entire population of Gaza, more than two million people who have nothing. Regarding this attack, depriving it of food, water, fuel and electricity is of course a war crime,” he added.

He called the events of October 7 “one of the two biggest failures of Israeli military intelligence”, equal to the surprise attack during the 1973 war, the so-called “Yom Kippur War”, which involved Israelis and Arabs in the region close to the Suez Canal, on the border of the State. Israel, and said that it sees no signs of a possible end to the current conflict, although a lot of money is being spent on it.

“I don’t think Israel can continue to do this for many years. It’s too expensive. They called up 300,000 reservists. There are 200,000 internally displaced people in Israel. It costs them a billion shekels, almost $300 million a day. They can’t And, of course, they are drowning in world public opinion. Pressure from their allies is increasing,” he stressed.

“This hurts the president. [norte-americano, Joe] Biden [2024 é ano de eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos]. For all these reasons, it cannot continue for years, and the question is with what intensity it will continue and for how long. And the current debate is that the United States is saying that a few weeks of this crazy level of intensity will mean many thousands more will be killed,” he said.

According to Thrall, Tel Aviv will be forced to end the war earlier than expected, and “will also do so without achieving its goal.”

“His goal is essentially unattainable. This is the eradication of Hamas. And Hamas exists not only in Gaza. It exists in the West Bank, it exists in the Palestinian diaspora and, if we look at current opinion polls, Hamas, because it is seen as the only group that is really fighting against Israel, against the occupation, trying to do something for the liberation of the Palestinians, he is extremely popular. According to the latest polls, he is three times more popular than Fatah. , and it is about eight times more popular than the Palestinian Authority,” he concluded.

In an attack on Israeli territory on October 7, Hamas killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than two hundred.

According to figures released by Hamas, the IDF’s response has already killed more than 17,000 people.