A year after 10/7: A day of unspeakable grief and 12 months of unrelenting war | Editorial

It has been a year since the vile attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, yet neither side appears ready for a cease-fire. The impasse continues to take innocent lives in Gaza, and leaves 101 Israeli hostages in captivity, their families desperately urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to free them.

Meantime, Israeli and world attention has shifted to Israel’s move into Lebanon to try to defang the Hezbollah terrorist group — armed with around 150,000 rockets and missiles by Iran — which attacked Israel on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas. And Israel could very soon be at war with Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran, which (unsuccessfully) fired 180 ballistic missiles at the country last week.

News clips showing Israelis being murdered at a music festival and forced at gunpoint out of their homes do not convey the full magnitude of the atrocity that occurred on Oct. 7. Hours earlier, hundreds of missiles were launched from Gaza into Israel. Then came the invasion by Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, followed by hundreds of Gazan civilians, which somehow caught Israel off guard.

A Human Rights Watch investigation concluded numerous war crimes were committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that participated in the operation. The attackers shot civilians at close range as they tried to flee, fired rocket-propelled grenades into homes, and set houses on fire, burning families alive. At least 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage.

The horror didn’t end that day for the hostages. Only about half of the remaining 101 captives are believed to be alive. The bodies of 36 others have been recovered, including six who were murdered and left in a tunnel; among them an American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted from the Nova music festival. A United Nations report also confirms that some female hostages were raped before being killed.

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Israel retaliated by all but destroying the Gaza Strip — geographically about the size of Philadelphia — with bombing and other military assaults that have left more than 40,000 people dead and at least 100,000 injured, according to the British Red Cross. Famine also became a reality after the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the main artery to receive food and medical aid, was closed in May.

Hamas attempted to justify its attack as a response to Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and control of the Gaza Strip. “We want the international community to stop atrocities in Gaza, against Palestinian people, our holy sites like Al-Aqsa. All these things are the reason behind starting this battle,” said Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi.

Netanyahu has focused on an all-out military response to the Oct. 7 attack without any apparent plan for “the day after.” Israeli air attacks aimed at destroying Hamas’ underground tunnels have devastated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, damaging or destroying 70% of the buildings. Two-thirds of the Palestinian dead are believed to be civilians, mostly women and children.

Netanyahu has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. efforts to broker a meaningful cease-fire that would also lead to the release of the hostages and the prospect of Arab nations providing a peacekeeping force and funding to rebuild Gaza.

He has taken advantage of President Joe Biden’s firm support for Israel’s security and efforts to craft a regional peace plan that would offer Palestinians a political future and, in return, lead to Saudi Arabian recognition of Israel. Netanyahu is clearly hoping for a Donald Trump victory over Kamala Harris as the next U.S. president, assuming Trump would back Israel in permanent occupation, or even annexation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Yet, Trump has no hesitation in tossing out antisemitic tropes against U.S. Jews, out of ire that the majority of Jews vote Democratic. He recently told an Israeli-American Council audience that if he loses, “it’s only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you.” (In reality, Trump is far more dependent on the votes of evangelical supporters of Israel.)

A decisive military victory in Gaza and Lebanon might dull criticism of Netanyahu for not preventing the Oct. 7 attack in the first place. For over a decade, Netanyahu allowed huge cash transfers to Hamas from Qatar, even though the Gazan group seeks the destruction of Israel, because he thought he could buy Hamas leaders off. At the same time, he undermined the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which supported a two-state solution.

Many Israelis also blame Netanyahu for refusing to take any responsibility for Oct. 7 and trying to shift the entire blame to military and intelligence officials. Moreover, continuing military action rather than planning for vital diplomacy for “the day after” wars in Gaza and Lebanon clearly helps Netanyahu avoid new elections and postpone facing the consequences of scheduled trials on fraud and corruption charges. Yes, he and Trump have that in common, too.

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Yet, military action alone cannot achieve “decisive victory” in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon. Nor can military reoccupation of Gaza and continued occupation of the West Bank destroy popular pressure for independence. Rather, lack of any prospect for a Palestinian political future is more likely to lead to Hamas 2.0 and more West Bank violence. And before thinking of reoccupying southern Lebanon, Netanyahu should recall that Hezbollah arose in protest to the 18-year occupation of the area from 1982-2000.

Cutting off Iran’s support may help suppress its proxies, but occupation will produce new insurgencies. Recall that all the strength of the U.S. military didn’t enable the United States to stamp out the Taliban after a 20-year war on terrorism in Afghanistan. It is easier to defeat a country or national government than to kill a movement based on repelling foreign troops repressing rights on Lebanese or Palestinian land.

Israel’s scorched-earth tactics to destroy Hamas have diminished the group’s fighting capability, to be sure, but they have also led to a humanitarian crisis, left innocent children and other noncombatants dead, and sown seeds that will likely sprout future terrorist organizations.

Decades-long talk of an eventual two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians is meaningless when a large part of one prospective state has been reduced to little more than rubble. And an end to the two-state solution means endless civil war within one Greater Israel. Retaliation for the Oct. 7 massacre was justified, but it is long past time for the remaining hostages to be freed, and for the indiscriminate carnage in Gaza to end with a cease-fire.