https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/8/there-is-nothing-surprising-about-hamass-operation

<quotes>

Some have called Hamas’s attack a “colossal failure” of the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus. Others, mostly diplomats and political leaders from the West and beyond, have labelled it an “unprovoked” “terrorist” act while insisting that Israel has the “right to defend itself”.

But nothing about this operation is surprising or unprovoked. Neither is it just the result of gaps in Israeli security measures. It is a response that is to be expected from the Palestinian people, who have faced Israeli settler colonial rule and occupation for decades.

International law prohibits states from “any military occupation, however temporary”. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 37/43 also reaffirms that people struggling for independence and liberation from colonial rule have the right to do so using “all available means, including armed struggle”. In other words, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is part of the armed Palestinian struggle provoked by the Israeli occupation and colonialism.

That the operation was launched from Gaza is also not surprising. It is an impoverished, congested place inhabited largely by Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes during the Nakba of 1948. It previously gave birth to the first Intifada and has been hosting the bulk of the Palestinian armed resistance over the past few decades.

Then there are the routine Israeli military campaigns. Israel justifies its onslaughts on the enclave by claiming they are in pursuit of Palestinian fighters. Yet it systematically targets civilians and non-military civilian infrastructure like residential buildings, hospitals, schools, water treatment plants, etc, making life in Gaza all the more unbearable.

In fact, what appears to be the largest military response by Palestinians in decades was an inevitable development, an act of resistance and a reaction to the suffering of the people of Gaza under a brutal blockade and occupation. It is part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and it solidifies Gaza’s place at the heart of it.

</quotes>