“On the morning of Saturday October 7th – a day that was holy not only for being shabbat but also for being Simchat Torah 1– Israelis woke up to a horrifying reality. In an attack that was largely unprecedented for its level of strategic sophistication, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from Gaza while armed militants entered Israel by land, air, and sea.
The consequence of this catastrophic intelligence failure by Israel was devastating. Hamas armed men infiltrated Jewish communities near the border with Gaza, killing thousands and kidnapping hundreds of civilians and soldiers. Young people at an all-night dance festival in southern Israel found themselves under fire. It was discovered later that 260 people lost their lives in that carnage. As of Thursday October 13th, more than 1,300 people on Israel’s side were reported killed and more than 3,300 wounded.
Hamas’ attack took place in a context of growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, for which Israel’s current far-right government bears the responsibility. In the West Bank, armed Jewish settlers have attacked Palestinian villages, Palestinian militants have attacked soldiers and settlers, and the Israeli army has conducted numerous raids on Palestinian cities. Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque has also been at the center of tensions. Religious Jews have provocatively entered the compound to pray there2 and violent confrontations between Palestinian men, armed with stones and fireworks, and the Israeli police have become a repeated occurrence.
Beyond the most recent tensions, Hamas’ attack is to be contextualized in the 16-year blockade enforced by Israel on Gaza, which has destroyed the Strip’s economy, cut off Gazans from the rest of the world, and caused immense hardship for the people living there. Looking further back in time, Hamas’ attack is the latest response to a religious-political conflict that has seen the Palestinians deprived of a right to statehood for more than 70 years.
However, even when put in this context, Hamas’ latest violence is definitely inconceivable and unjustifiable. The armed group dragged hundreds of unarmed men, women, elderly, and children into captivity, proudly capturing on-camera scenes of kidnapping that looked like modern-day re-enactments of medieval raids. It indiscriminately took the lives of thousands of civilians and unleashed unspeakable brutality on defenseless people. As if this was not enough, Hamas’ violence will also cost the lives of even more civilians in Gaza. Ultimately, it will do a disservice to the Palestinian cause.
Upon recuperating from the surprise, Israel mobilized 360,000 reservists and set to clear Israel’s southern towns from Hamas militants. At the same time, Israel began its campaign of bombings against Gaza. As early as October 13th it took the life of 1,799 people, including civilians, women, and children, and injured 6,388 more. Israel’s Ministry of Defense also ordered a “complete siege on the Gaza Strip” making clear that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel.” As these lines are being written, a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented extent is falling upon Gaza’s civilians.
In the meantime, the Northern Front also became a theatre of confrontation as Hezbollah launched guided rockets and artillery against three posts in the Shebaa Farms, a territory claimed by Lebanon that was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. Following that episode, exchanges of fire across the Lebanese-Israeli borders have continued.
Responses from the region
As the conflict between Hamas and Israel erupted, different reactions came from the different regional countries.
Egypt
The first Arab state to normalize relations with Israel in 1980, Egypt has since played an important mediation role in wars between Israel and Hamas. Most recently, in mid-2021 Cairo managed to facilitate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after 11 days of confrontation. Last May, it also brokered a truce between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad after ten days of fighting. This time, however, given the unprecedented nature of the current confrontation between Hamas and Israel, it is hard to believe that Cairo’s mediation efforts will be able to follow a “business as usual” approach. For the time being, it also seems that no warring party – and certainly not Israel– is interested in a negotiated end to the hostilities.
As the only other country bordering Gaza, Egypt is following with great concern the events in the Strip, aware that the current tensions might reverberate in Egypt as well. As Gazans attempted to flee Israel’s bombing and reach the Rafah crossing with Egypt (which is their only possibility to get out of the Strip), Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian side of the crossing made any effort vane.
For its part, Cairo closed Rafah, calling on Gazans to “stay steadfast and remain on their land.” Egypt, in fact, is determined to prevent the current crisis from turning the Gaza issue into an Egyptian problem and from turning the war between Israel and Hamas into a threat to Egypt’s sovereignty and stability (a concern made more acute by Israel’s repeated insinuations that Gazans should relocate to the Sinai Peninsula). Moreover, as Egypt is already experiencing a deep and enduring economic crisis and is already hosting more than 350,000 refugees who fled the war in Sudan, the prospect of more refugees crossing into the country is certainly unwelcome.
At the same time, however, Cairo is well aware of the pro-Palestinian attitude of most Egyptians, who unanimously support the Palestinian cause. This was evident in the pro-Palestinian protests and statements that came from the American University in Cairo and the al-Azhar University. On the background of these public shows of solidarity with the Palestinian people, when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the latter’s visit to some of the region’s capitals, he openly and unequivocally criticized Israel’s military operation in Gaza. According to Egypt’s state-run media, el-Sisi said that Israel’s Gaza operation has exceeded “the right of self-defense” and has turned into “a collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza.” The remarks were Egypt’s strongest statements since the war began.
Ultimately, it seems that Egypt acknowledges the inevitability of Israel’s response to Hamas’ brutal attacks and seeks to prevent an exodus of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt. However, Cairo cannot remain silent on the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and cannot but express deep criticism on the mounting civilian casualties caused by Israel’s incessant airstrikes.
Turkey
As the war broke out last Saturday, the Turkish government’s first reaction was to take a conscious stance, with Turkey’s President Erdogan urging Israel to stop bombing Palestinian lands and urging Palestine to stop harassing Israeli civilian settlements. The Turkish response came on the background of a recent distention in relations between Turkey and Israel, which saw Israeli President Isaac Herzog meet with Erdogan in Ankara last year and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet with Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last month.
At the same time, however, Erdogan is widely popular – and respected – in the Muslim world as a loyal defender of the Palestinian cause, even more so in the context of the push towards normalization observed among Gulf countries such as the UAE and Bahrain. Besides, the broad Turkish public and Erdogan’s own electoral base genuinely support the Palestinians, as was evident in the pro-Palestine rallies that attracted thousands of people in Istanbul last week.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) that rules over Turkey, in fact, is a political formation with clear Islamist roots, having been created in 2001 on the ashes of previously dissolved Islamist parties. Over the two decades in power, the AKP has increasingly blended autocratic populism, Turkish nationalism, and Islamism. Faithful to their Islamist ideology, Erdogan and the AKP do not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. As famously stated by Erdogan in 2018, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization […] It is a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power.” Besides, Ankara has a record of welcoming Hamas’ political leaders and military commanders on Turkish soil and even providing them with Turkish passports to travel freely and undisturbed internationally.
It is in this perspective that one needs to consider Erdogan’s later comments last week, in which he expressed his continuous support for the Palestinians’ claim to statehood and criticized Israel’s “disproportionate” attacks. The looming local elections of 2024, in which Erdogan hopes to win back Istanbul and Ankara, only add to the President’s careful attention to the public mood.
Faced with these unprecedented dilemmas and delicate circumstances, Turkey has been offering to mediate between Israel and Hamas. This proposed role as mediator is used by Ankara to highlight its utility to its Western allies and its centrality to the region’s political dynamics and overall stability. As noted above in the case of Egypt, however, Turkey’s proposal of mediation is currently unwelcomed by the parties to the conflict.
At this juncture, Erdogan seems committed to confirming his solidarity with the Palestinian people while at the same time retaining a cautious and moderate stance. However, the longer the conflict lasts, and the longer the list of Palestinian casualties gets, the harder it will be for Ankara to maintain this balanced approach.
United Arab Emirates and Bahrain
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which normalized relations with Israel in 2020 through the Abraham Accords, believe that normalization with the Jewish state has provided them with a series of benefits – trade, investment opportunities, technological cooperation, and stronger links to the U.S. When the normalization agreement was announced as a fait accompli, much criticism emerged from the Bahraini and Emirati populations as well as from the broader Arab and Muslim public. Normalization, in fact, was widely seen as a betrayal of the Palestinian people. Nonetheless, Bahrain and the UAE have been able to defend their decision and navigate the initial wave of criticism.
Moreover, Manama and Dubai see Hamas as a threat to the stability of the region and as a threat to the regime security of the Sunni Gulf monarchies. The enmity goes back to the time when Hamas was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood – the political Islamist movement that Bahrain and the UAE greatly despise – and was later reinforced by Hamas’ cooperation with Iran and its “axis of resistance”.
As the Hamas-Israel conflict broke out, it was, thus unsurprising that Bahrain and the UAE adopted a cautious tone towards the conflict. The UAE expressed “deep concern” and the need “to stop the escalation and preserve the lives of civilians”. The statement also offered “sincere condolences to all [emphasis added] the victims” of the recent fighting. Late on Sunday, the UAE issued another statement condemning Hamas’ attack as a “serious and grave escalation”. It added that it was “appalled” by reports that Israeli civilians were taken as hostages from their homes while avoiding criticism of Israel’s strikes on Gaza.
Similarly, Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said that the “attacks launched by Hamas constitute a dangerous escalation” and that “Bahrain denounces…. the kidnapping of civilians from their homes as hostages.” It also warned “that the continuation of violence will impede the efforts aiming at achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” and called for the international community to work toward “establishing the Palestinian state according to the two-state solution.”
Nonetheless, despite their current preference for protecting their engagement with Israel and the benefits that come from it, Bahrain and the UAE will still need to be sensitive to the sympathy of the Arab street, including domestically, for the Palestinians.
This concern is even greater in the case of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia
The Hamas offensive and the ensuing conflict have put Riyadh in a difficult position. With the active encouragement of the Biden administration, the Saudis have been exploring a normalization deal with Israel for the past few months. However, being currently perceived as open and sympathetic towards Israel is a dangerous game for the Saudi, which, as the guardian of the mosques of Mecca and Medina has a religious legitimacy to defend and is considerably more sensitive to the Muslim public opinion than the UAE or Bahrain could ever be. Considering a normalization deal with Israel while the Israeli Army is fully invested in a bombing campaign against Gaza would ignite outrage across the Arab world and would be politically damaging for the Saudi royal family.
The Saudi attempt to balance the interest for some sort of US-backed normalization with the reluctance to arouse the criticism of the Muslim public opinion was indeed well reflected in the statement released by the Kingdom. A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Saudi Arabia was “closely monitoring the unprecedented developments between various Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupation forces, resulting in an escalation of violence on several fronts”. It said that Riyadh calls for “an immediate cessation of the escalation between the two sides, the protection of civilians, and restraint”. It urged the international community to “fulfill its responsibilities and activate a credible, peaceful process leading to a two-state solution that achieves security and peace in the region and protects civilians”.
It thus seems that – at least for the time being – the Saudi government will try to maintain a contained profile, neither supporting the Israeli government nor taking decisive steps to reverse the progress made in the talks with Israel and the US. The extent to which this position will be sustainable depends on the development of events in Gaza. Should a solution take long to be reached and should the number of Palestinian casualties grow dramatically, it might become impossible for the Saudis to maintain their current balancing act under the pressures that would certainly come from the Saudi public and the wider Muslim world.
Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar
On the opposite side of the spectrum with respect to the UAE and Bahrain, are Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, who have been staunchly criticizing and blaming Israel in the wake of recent events. This position clearly reflects their rejection of the normalization agreements signed by some of their Gulf neighbors in the absence of a solution to the Palestinian issue and the creation of a two-state reality.
Qatar, for instance, expressed that Israel is “solely responsible for the ongoing escalation due to its continuous violations of the rights of the Palestinian people”. It called on the international community “to compel Israel to stop its blatant violations of international law, hold it accountable to respect […] the historical rights of the Palestinian people, and prevent these events from being used as a pretext to ignite a new disproportionate war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza”.
Similarly, Kuwait expressed its “grave concern” over developments between Israel and the Palestinians, blaming Israel for what it called its “blatant attacks”. The foreign ministry in a statement called on the international community to “stop the provocative practices by the occupation” and the “policy of expanding settlements”. Oman also maintained that the violence was ultimately “the result of the ongoing illegitimate Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and Israeli attacks on Palestinian towns and villages.”
Conclusion
As Hamas and Israel entered a new conflict last Saturday, the neighborhood was taken by surprise – both by the unprecedented way in which the conflict started and by the rapidity with which it escalated. Faced with a new, challenging reality whose developments and repercussions it is very hard to predict, countries throughout the region are observing events with concern.
A common tendency seems to be that of privileging a cautious and moderate stance, with countries such as Egypt, Turkey, the UAE, and Bahrain balancing their relations with Israel with their support for the Palestinian cause and – even more so – their need to publicly express such support in front of their domestic audiences. Egypt and Turkey have also proposed themselves for the role of mediators, the former as a natural continuation of its traditional approach to Israeli-Palestinian tensions, the latter in an attempt to affirm itself as a factor of stability in the region.
In the Gulf, the Saudis have certainly been the ones in the most difficult position. After months of discussions with the US and Israel over a possible three-way normalization, they have found themselves unable to take either the moderate approach of Abu Dhabi and Manama or the strict pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli attitude of Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, which are not interested in normalization with Israel any time soon.
For the time being, no country in the region has responded to the event in an unexpected way. However, as the war continues, regional countries might find themselves pressured, forced, or encouraged to reassess their position.
1 The holiday in which Jews celebrate the completion of the annual cycle of Torah readings.
2 The act of praying is forbidden to Jews under the agreement in vigor.
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Orion Policy Institute (OPI) is an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt think tank focusing on a broad range of issues at the local, national, and global levels. OPI does not take institutional policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions represented herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of OPI.
