For a state that has experienced many tragedies, Oct. 7 will long be remembered as perhaps the darkest day in Israel’s history. Israelis from across the political divide marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ terrorist attack into southern Israel with sadness, mourning and reflection on Monday. Israel, meanwhile, is a state at war with multiple enemies across the Middle East — a war that may only enlarge as Israeli officials prepare to strike Iran in retaliation for Tehran’s ballistic missile attack a week ago.
Oct. 7 has proved to be an inflection point for Israel. Decades of Israeli policy were overturned virtually overnight. The previous playbook of periodic airstrikes and indirect de-escalation accords has been shredded, replaced with a full-throated Israeli assault on Hamas with the aim of eradicating it entirely. The Israeli-Lebanese border, relatively stable since Israel and Hezbollah ended their last war in 2006, was again viewed by the Israeli security establishment as a crisis in waiting. Like a football coach that relies on the running game, Israel is now relying almost solely on military force to solve its Hamas and Hezbollah problems.
Gaza, the Palestinian enclave hugging the eastern Mediterranean, is a wasteland. Israel has struck more than 40,000 Hamas targets over the past year, killing thousands of its fighters, degrading the group’s military capability and doing significant damage to its underground tunnel network. Hamas leadership has been put under significant pressure, and Yahya Sinwar, the man calling the shots in the organization, has been on the run for about a year. Israel’s top military brass is playing up the tactical accomplishments, claiming that Israel has defeated Hamas’ military wing.
Israel, however, hasn’t found a way to translate its tactical prowess into strategic gains. Gaza is now an ungovernable territory, trapped between the remnants of Hamas and ordinary people who are just trying to survive. A few ugly pictures don’t do justice to the extent of the physical destruction in Gaza — close to 42,000 Palestinians have been killed; families have been displaced multiple times and there isn’t enough humanitarian relief to go around.
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