The bbc s chief international correspondent, whos in southern israel. Also our international editor, jeremy bowen, who is injerusalem. Now, we dont know how events in gaza and israel will unfold in the coming hours, much less days. But as soon as hamas attacked on october 7th, there was no doubt that israel would respond. So lets start with this question. Hello, this is david from sydney, australia. Ive just listened to your gaza question podcast,| but for me the most interesting question wasnt asked at all. I given that hamas would have known their barbaric attack i would result in a massive reaction, why did they do it . Was it to provoke an overreaction that would lose israel the support of its allies . And lyse, well come to you for that one. Its a very difficult question to answer because we are not really hearing from the people in charge of this operation, and thats the military wing of hamas, the izzedine alqassam brigades. But what we have heard from some of the political lead
The assassination brought the peace process to a standstill. Since then, attempts to revive the peace process - such as the one imposed in 2000 by the United States on Israel and Yasser Arafat (founder of the Palestinian Resistance Movement) - have proved fruitless. The conflict continues today, mainly around the Gaza Strip.
The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate