Ramallah, Palestine: The sun sets over Ramallah: the death of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spurs the Palestinian residents of the West Bank city into protest, resulting in closed shops and chanting on the streets.

 Although Ramallah is not a Hamas bastion – and no further clashes between Hamas and Fatah broke out – several hundred people turned out for the demo to mourn this awful waste of a life. It’s easy to see why. The reaction of the crowd of protestors to Haniyeh’s killing was profound sadness, shock and rage.

 Courtesy Marisa Mazria KatzThe city’s avenues were festooned with green banners of Hamas, as well as the black-and-white, green-and-red flags of Palestine. The demonstration drew all of Gaza’s children; kids rode on their parents’ shoulders, holding toy machine guns. Slogans and chants rang through the mass of shoes and slippers; a cacophony of protest into which a worried sound seeped.

 With this, Palestinians fear that Israel will trigger a second uprising or intifada to put an end to Israeli dominance in the West Bank. Palestinians are convinced that this is the policy agenda of Israel’s right-wing government, led by it’s de facto prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

 The moderate Palestinian politician and former presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti expressed his dread. ‘I think that the Israeli government has made one of the biggest mistakes of their lives. This is a political, criminal act, and if they think that this killing is going to defeat Palestinian resistance, they’re completely wrong.’ 

Background of the Story

 Ismail Haniyeh was a leading official in Hamas, the Palestinian militant organisation and government of the occupied Gaza Strip. His death has caused widespread grief and outrage among Palestinians, many of whom considered him a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. 

 Hamas has always been provocative, getting into spats with Israeli forces and drawing criticism from the international community for its militancy. The death of Haniyeh is therefore not the loss of a mere leader but an onslaught on the Palestinian resistance. 

Future Scenario in the Middle East

 Ismail Haniyeh’s death could be just the first act in a new, more deadly phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Should the pious Hamas leader’s demise touch off a fury of anti-Israeli actions, including revenge attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, a downward-spiral could set in at dizzying speed.

 If Netanyahu’s government, as I speculate, has embarked on a deliberate course of action to arouse a wider conflict between Jews and Arabs; between Israel and the neighbouring Palestinian territories; between Israel and other states in the region – then the prospects are grim indeed. Greater difficulties in military/paramilitary operations against Palestinians and Palestinian sympathisers; more retaliatory suicide bombings of shops, hotels and restaurants; and broader resistance in the West Bank and perhaps beyond threaten to undermine stability. Precarious existing peace arrangements, largely or actually based on the tacit fear of all-out war, could dramatically disintegrate into warfare – warfare in a region already tortuous and troubled. 

 International sentiments will also matter: a sympathy with the Palestinian cause will lead to condemnation of Israel, with countries supporting Palestinian proxies; further polarisation between Israel’s allies who will support Israel’s right to self-defence against the threatening terrorism. International states will become radicalised against each other.

 For better or worse, watchers of the Middle East will turn their gaze to the region over the coming days in order to see how Palestinians respond to this act of violence, and how Israel learns to live with the bloodshed it has wrought. The killing of Haniyeh could yet spiral into another, bigger and even more devastating conflict, which is why the prospect of a return to negotiations and a peaceful resolution is now more urgent than ever before. 

Sources : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clly4v4l13vo

Read more blog from here: