Recap: Takeaways from 100 days of Palestine-Israel conflict

Sunday marks 100 days after Hamas' unexpected attack on southern Israel, triggering a massive Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Despite the repeated calls from the international community for an end to the ongoing violence and a return to peace, the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has shaken the Middle East's geopolitical landscape, shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

Here are several takeaways from the first 100 days of a conflict that has upended the region.

Three phases of military operations

Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, during which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages. 

Israel's cabinet declared a "state of war" the next day, and responded with weeks of intense airstrikes in Gaza before expanding the operation into a ground offensive, and is seen as the first phase of the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

In late October, the operation moved into its second phase, during which Israel will try to achieve its target of "destruction of Hamas's military and governing capabilities, and returning the hostages home," according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, more than three months into the conflict, Israel has withdrawn some of its troops from the Gaza Strip in response to U.S. demands to scale back large-scale ground and aerial operations and protect civilians in the Palestinian enclave.

On January 7, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the Israeli army will soon switch from the "intense maneuvering phase of the war" to "different types of special operations" in northern Gaza.

The IDF will now turn to "conducting one-off raids there instead of maintaining wide-scale maneuver," Hagari was quoted by the New York Times as saying. "The war shifted a stage," he said.

Israel's military chief, Herzi Halevi, said on January 7 that the conflict in Gaza would likely last throughout 2024 and spill over to other fronts.

Mounting pressure on Israel

As the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip worsens, Israel is coming under increasing pressure both internationally and domestically.

To date, 23,843 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since October 7, according to local authorities on Saturday.

Winter rains have exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN estimates 1.9 million, nearly 85 percent of the population, have been displaced.

On December 22, the UN Security Council passed a key resolution aimed at boosting the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza after a week of negotiations and substantial amendments. It followed a resolution adopted on December 12 by the UN General Assembly demanding an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.

In Israel, many people believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to push for judicial reform have caused chaos in the country and given Hamas an opportunity to attack and that the way the government and military handled issues such as rescuing hostages is not satisfactory.

Despite prolonged Israeli air strikes and ground operations, 132 of the 253 hostages that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups kidnapped on October 7 are still being held in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants are still capable of firing rockets into Israel.

In the face of the international community's pressure and criticism, Israel is looking for alternative plans to achieve its goals by fighting in specific areas of the Gaza Strip, said Jerusalem-based Palestinian political analyst Firas Yaghi.

Conflict spreads

Tensions in the region have escalated as a result of the spillover of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Almost immediately after the Hamas attack, Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon began striking Israel, triggering retaliatory attacks.

On January 2, an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, killed Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas's political bureau, alongside six other members of the Palestinian militant group.

After the strike, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned the next day that the Iran-backed group "cannot be silent." He denounced the attack as "a dangerous crime," vowing revenge and threatening to meet any wider Israeli operation with unrestrained warfare.

Eyal Pinko, an intelligence and national security expert at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, said Israel's strikes on senior Hamas leader inside Lebanon cannot pass in silence. "Hezbollah will revenge one way or another, they must, they have to, and it won't be another way," he said.

The Houthi military group, which has been fighting a civil war with Yemen's government forces, launched drone and rocket attacks in the Red Sea on cargo ships that have links to Israel to retaliate Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The Houthi attacks prompted the United States and Britain to stage air strikes on the targets of the military group on January 11 and 14. The Houthi leadership vowed to launch retaliatory attacks soon.

(With input from agencies)