Hopes for peace have been shredded by a spiraling conflict that has brought the Middle East to the edge of all-out war.
Oct. 6, 2024, 12:55 PM UTC
In the dark days after the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel and the ensuing military assault on Gaza, some dared hope the carnage could, in some way, become a catalyst for peace.
“Crises can create opportunities,” veteran Israeli peace negotiator Yossi Beilin told NBC News last year. The world had given up on the Israel-Palestinian question, he said, but the horror of Oct. 7 and its aftermath “changed everything,” provoking a worldwide cry that this should never happen again.
“There’s definitely room for hope,” Omar Dajani, a former legal adviser to Palestinian negotiation teams, agreed. “So long as we bear in mind that hope and optimism are different things.”
One year later, those glimmers of hope have been shredded.
Oct. 7 images clockwise from top left: A Hamas rocket attack on Ashkelon, Israel. Civilians flee for safety in Gaza. An Israeli family evacuates in Ashkelon. A Hamas militant stands on an Israeli tank after forces broke through the border.Reuters; Anadolu; AP; Getty fileIsraelis remain enraged and deeply shaken, with families of Hamas’ remaining hostages suffering the gut-wrenching anguish of not knowing if their loved ones are even alive. The people of Gaza, meanwhile, have endured an unmitigated humanitarian catastrophe as Israel carries out one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in history. It has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them women and children, and reduced much of the strip to ash and rubble.
In the past three weeks, Israel has turned its attention north, and airstrikes and a ground invasion have killed around 1,800 people in Lebanon and driven 1.2 million from their homes
Now, Israel and Iran teeter on the edge of all-out war.
With the United States and its allies having failed in their attempts to resolve the multifront crisis diplomatically, the possibility of an uncontained conflict between the regional nemeses threatens to drag in Western powers.
“There’s no endgame — it’s starting to feel like a forever war,” said Frank Lowenstein, special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama. The priority now is “not just about ending the war in Gaza, even temporarily, it’s also avoiding a war in Lebanon that I think we’re really concerned is going to spin out of control.”
Pandemonium and deathIt was early morning in the Negev Desert one year ago, but for partygoers lost in the pulsating trance music at the Supernova festival, the night before had not yet ended.
Soon, this “journey of unity and love” was plunged into pandemonium and death. At around 6:30 a.m., Hamas fighters breached the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence, their machine guns scything down 364 of the confused, terrified festivalgoers, and hundreds more in nearby kibbutzim communities.
Among the ravers was Sagi Gabay, 28, who had been “looking at one of the most beautiful sunrises” when the violence erupted.
He briefly hid in the infamous “bunker of death,” where Hamas slaughtered dozens of Israelis with guns and grenades, leaving only moments before. “Then we walked in the open fields and then heard shooting so started to run for 30 minutes,” he said. “Above us were lots of rockets, and the villages around us were burning.”
An Israeli soldier beneath a photo of a relative who died at the Nova music festival site in Re’im, Israel.Amir Levy / Getty ImagesCivilians like him were left exposed for hours by the slow and disorganized response of the Israel Defense Forces, according to its own July investigation.
In all, 1,200 people had been killed and another 251 kidnapped. This was not just Israel’s worst terror attack; it was, for Israel’s population of 10 million, the world’s deadliest per capita since at least 1970, the start of the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database.
Gabay’s story of horror and flight. The hostage’s relative who still texts him every day in anguish. The displaced people of a destroyed kibbutz. These stories and traumas are hard to overstate for Israelis, many of whom feel besieged by hostile actors willing their eradication. And abroad, Jews have been confronted with an emboldened and metastasizing antisemitism.
Meanwhile, Iran-backed groups throughout the region have rallied to the Palestinians’ defense to varying degrees. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and powerful militants in Iraq and Syria have fired rockets at Israel in what they say is a bid to force a cease-fire in Gaza.
Israel says they merely want to destroy the Jewish state.
Destruction after an Israeli airstrike Jabalia, northern Gaza.Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu via Getty Images“We are under attack from all directions,” said Pnina Sharvit Baruch, former head of international law at the Israel Defense Forces. “Our life has turned on its head and now seems very fragile.”
Israeli public opinion appears to have shifted from its pro-war consensus. Around 56% now favor a Gaza withdrawal if it means returning all remaining hostages, according to polling by the Israel Democracy Institute.
Of 251 abducted, 154 have been freed or rescued and 97 remain in Gaza, including 33 believed to be dead, Israel says. Aside from the majority believed to be killed by Hamas, Israel accidentally shot dead three who had escaped in December, and believes it killed three others in an airstrike around the same time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced angry protests over his failure or unwillingness to negotiate a hostage deal. He says Hamas must be destroyed — an unspecified goal, especially as its leader, Yahya Sinwar, remains at large — and wants to keep troops in Gaza afterward. The Palestinian militant group, deemed a terror organization by the U.S. and others, demands a total withdrawal.
Protesters sprayed with foam during a mass demonstration in Tel Aviv calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza.Tomer Appelbaum / ReutersNetanyahu’s critics say he is too heavily influenced by the far-right members of his government. He also stands accused of using the crisis to forestall attempts to oust him politically and resume his trial for corruption.
“It’s in his political interests to sustain this chaotic situation,” said Aviv A. Oreg, a retired IDF army major whose career has included senior roles within Israel’s intelligence services.
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to several interview requests. In previous statements, Netanyahu has dismissed the criticism, saying his course is the best way to bring home the hostages and keep Israelis safe long term.
Unprecedented Within hours of Hamas’ attack, Israeli bombs and missiles began to rain on Gaza.
“I will never, ever forget the sound of the bombing,” said Musheir El-Farra, 62, a Palestinian filmmaker and activist whose hometown of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under fire that afternoon. Over the next year, he said, more than 190 members of his extended family would be killed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York.Eduardo Munoz / Reuters“You would go to bed and at about midnight it would start: a buzzing noise and then a big boom, another buzzing noise and a loud explosion,” he said. These bombings are “terrifying, with women and children running in different directions and screaming.”
Some 60% of Gaza’s buildings and 65% of its farmland has been damaged or destroyed, » …
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