The Cycle of Violence

The Israel–Hamas War began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza, carried out a series of coordinated attacks on Israel. David Pope sees these events in the context of the region’s long history of conflict. Death – personified here as the medieval Grim Reaper, a skeleton wearing a dark, hooded robe and carrying a scythe – begins to lose control of the penny-farthing ‘cycle of violence’, with the hapless dove of peace trapped in its rear wheel.