*This story has been updated on Oct. 27 to clarify terminology and to update death tolls.
Israel and the terrorist group Hamas declared war in the Middle East following a deadly attack on Oct. 7 leaving 1,400 Israelis dead. There has been tension between the military group Hamas and the country Israel for many years. This build up between the two has finally broken out into a war.
As a response to the initial attack and nearly 230 Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas, Israel made strikes on Palestine. As of Friday, Palestinian officials report the death toll in Palestine was over 6,700 from the Israeli war effort.
Junior history teacher Adeline Steger shared information on why Israel and Hamas are at war.
“They have been having conflict going back and forth because Hamas is Palestinians thinking that they are in charge, like that’s their homeland, and Israel was given this homeland after World War II, so they are trying to take this land for themselves because they both believe they own that land,” Steger said.
Steger mentioned that Israel and Palestine have had problems dating back to the 1940s as well. The most recent war between Israel and Hamas happened in 2021, which lasted 11 days and resulted in a total of 263 people being killed.
Senior social studies teacher Bryan Brogren shares how the United States won’t be seen in war anytime soon, and we are more so supporting Israel because the nation has more historical ties with Israel as an ally.
“The President has not come out for support for that particular military action,” Brogren said. “So it’s not as black and white. It’s like, we’re all going to support Israel and everything that they do. We are very much supporting them in their desire to, you know, to find Hamas in the room, and bring stability back to the area. But I don’t think you’re going to see like a World War II-style to where like, this is our allies, and we’re going to do whatever they want us to do.”
Steger also shared some reasons on why the United States wouldn’t put us in a place of war, unless these issues get worse overtime.
“I think there has to be a lot more problems going on and a lot more casualties for the United states to fully get involved,” Steger said.
Americans have no need to worry about the U.S. going to war, but what they do need to consider is the effect it has on our economy nationwide. The Middle East is where the U.S. gets a lot of the resources.
“Anytime there’s any sort of a regional disruption like this, it is going to have a major impact, it’s usually going to be on commodities like so with Israel and Ukraine, we saw a lot of oil, natural gas and grain affected worldwide,” Brogren said. “So that is an oil-trading group that are interested in this, it could have an impact on oil supplies immediately, but it’s anytime there is disruption or conflicts around the world, it is going to negatively impact the economy.”
