The Red Lines of Palestine

Being in the third month of the war between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Gaza Strip and Israel, the conflict is lopsided with the scales of victory tipping mainly in favor of the Palestinians because, despite the losses in civilian population and above ground infrastructure, they keep most of it intact as well as their spiritual and material potential in the catacombs of the Strip, gradually causing greater losses to the Israeli forces. For its part, Tel Aviv finds with dismay that by leveling building blocks and killing women and children it cannot bend the Palestinian resistance to war. With this parameter in mind the Palestinian army of Hamas and Islamic Jihad has drawn three red lines for Palestine.

The first red line is the Palestinian population is staying in the Gaza Strip. Until now, despite the relentless Israeli air pounding, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian population of the Strip form an unbreakable unity, which is fundamental to a successful Palestinian defense. The Palestinian civilian population has shown admirable resilience to all the sufferings that have befallen them from Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide: murder of relatives, razing of houses, food crisis, lack of drinking water, absence of elementary parameters of basic hygiene, risk of epidemics, exposure to winter, etc. .Although Israeli terrorism against Palestinian civilians drove them from the north to the central and south of the Strip with the aim of displacing them to Egypt, the Palestinians stubbornly refuse to leave their ancestral land in the Strip. They would rather die than leave.

The second red line of the Palestinians is the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip as a result of their intertwined coexistence within the Palestinian civilian population is an unbroken unity. Obviously, it makes no sense for a government and an army to defend their land empty, without their civilian population: a civilian population cannot stay in their homes without the protection of their army and almost two decades of government. This unity of the civilian population and Hamas-Islamic Jihad is reflected in a recent poll by the Center for Political Research (PSR), in which 57% of respondents in the Gaza Strip and 82% in the West Bank believe that Hamas was right to start the October 7 attack.

The third red line concerns the exchange of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners of war. The recent ten-day truce is the prelude to a long-term truce that will soon follow, possibly, in the most optimistic scenario, in early (perhaps on the 9th) of January. However, while in the truce the ratio of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners was “one to three”, now the Palestinians are promoting the ratio of “all captives for all captives”, i.e. the release of more than a hundred Israeli prisoners for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Even if such a ratio is not ultimately agreed upon, the Palestinians expect an expanded ratio to be reached in relation to the ceasefire.

The above red lines form the basis of Palestinian arguments in the ongoing discussions for a permanent truce with their bargaining power based on their successes on the battlefield. Of course, the opposite is also true: the Palestinians’ resistance to war is based on their high morale as a result of their adherence to these red lines set by the Palestinian leadership.