Two years ago today, Hamas militants launched a series of planned, armed incursions into Israel, where they murdered 1,195 civilians, injured hundreds more, and took 250 people hostage. Some 48 of them are still held captive – their unimaginable ordeal still not over. They were – and still are – held in life-threatening conditions.
People including babies and entire families were put to death, often in barbaric fashion – all without provocation, all without justification. Young people attending the Nova music festival were killed. The slaughter was indiscriminate. A particular feature of the atrocities was the use of degrading sexual violence: dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault were reported. The Israeli authorities released harrowing videos of these incidents to selected audiences so that there could be no doubt about their nature and reality.
Many families have had to endure the endless agonies of grieving for lives lost, and the pain of not knowing the fate of loved ones. That the attack took place during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah adds to the evidence that it was designed to maximise pain and suffering, and, as has happened before, in the hope that the Israeli security forces would be ill prepared to defend their people. Through what seem to have been intelligence failures, tragically, that is indeed what transpired.
Israel that day suffered the worst assault on the Jewish people since the horrors of the Holocaust, perpetrated by an organisation that has pledged to exterminate Jews. Almost two years on, at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, two Jewish men died on British soil, having been targeted simply because they were Jews. The rise in global antisemitism and the sufferings of the Jewish people are not over.
It takes a little effort, given everything that has happened since October 2023, to recall the scale of the near-universal outpouring of grief and sympathy for Israel brought forth by the Hamas attack – even from peoples and states traditionally hostile to Israel. In the days after it happened, there was widespread support for Israel’s right to defend itself and to secure the release of the hostages. Benjamin Netanyahu’s war has weakened Hamas and its associates, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels. Through his collaboration with the US, the once lethal threat of a nuclear-armed Iran has largely dissipated, for the time being. The Assad regime in Syria has fallen.
Yet, as Mr Netanyahu’s government has escalated and widened the conflict, much of that goodwill towards his country has evaporated, or been squandered. Some prominent Hamas commanders and political leaders have been eliminated, but the organisation itself has not, and the destruction of Gaza has left many potential recruits to it and other militant movements. A recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute shows that support for Mr Netanyahu and the war has plummeted in Israel – indeed, it suggests that most Israelis want the war to be over and for their prime minister to quit.
Instead of standing proud as a nation fighting for its existence in a proportionate manner, in accordance with international conventions and humanitarian norms, Israel – of all countries – stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, and a manmade famine stalks the innocent Palestinian civilians trying to survive in the hellscape of their devastated homeland.
There is no accurate figure for the number of dead Palestinians in Gaza, but its health ministry, controlled by Hamas, puts it at 66,000 – mostly civilians, and including more than 18,000 children. Despite the refusal of the Israeli authorities to allow most international media organisations into the territory, the images that have emerged from there suggest near total devastation across the Gaza Strip.
Mr Netanyahu may point to the apparent gains made by the Israel Defense Forces, but his war aims have not been achieved, while Israel is isolated internationally and has been rendered less secure – meaning that Hamas has, to that extent, succeeded in its gruesome aim of causing diplomatic chaos. The hostages are still dying, and only five have been released through military operations, as opposed to 140 via mediation.
Israel has lost crucial friends among its neighbours – nations that had either made their peace with Israel, such as Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, or had been in the process of concluding “Abraham Accords”, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar (which was recently bombed by Israel). More countries – including the former regional colonial powers, France and Britain – have recognised the state of Palestine in an attempt to end the war. For a man who sought to gain some political advantage through his unrelenting war, Mr Netanyahu has become deeply unpopular as a result of the manner in which he has conducted it. The Israeli and other captives held by Hamas were not swiftly found and rescued.
The remaining hostages may soon be released – but through negotiation, not carpet bombing. Even as Israelis and Palestinians grieve, indirect peace talks are taking place in Egypt. Donald Trump – who deserves credit for his peace initiative – said he had found Hamas to be “fine” in its dealings with the international mediators, and he has, to the surprise of many, stepped up the pressure on the Netanyahu government to support a process that could end the fighting, see the hostages returned home, and eventually allow the two-state solution to move forward.
This is a war that has dragged on for too long, failed to deliver the objectives of either side, and inflicted immeasurable suffering. But at last, the end may be in sight.
