Oct. 7, 2023, will forever be remembered in Israel as the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The devastating Hamas attack against Israeli communities along the Gaza border, which claimed the lives of approximately 1,200 people and led to another 251 being taken to Gaza as hostages, was not only sparked what would turn out to be the longest, most violent war between Israel and Hamas in history but also was a huge blow to the regional status quo. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire political career was based on maintaining Israel’s security, was exposed as the head of a government caught unprepared by the biggest attack on the Israeli state since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. 

The ensuing war in Gaza, which entered its third year Tuesday, has been nothing short of catastrophic for all sides. The families of the hostages who remain in Hamas custody have experienced constant anguish as they continue to wait for the return of their loved ones. Israel, the strongest state in the Middle East, has often been at odds with itself, with Netanyahu the object of scorn among many Israelis who consider him to be a self-centered politician catering to his ultra-nationalist ministers rather than the Israeli public. Netanyahu’s right-wing base has used the Oct. 7 tragedy as an opportunity to press for its long-standing dream of annexing Gaza and rebuilding the settlements that a previous Israeli government demolished two decades ago. 

In Gaza, the physical destruction mimics Berlin and Tokyo in 1945. More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, many in attacks that experts in international law have labeled as indiscriminate. The vast majority of the roughly 2 million Palestinians who call Gaza home have been displaced multiple times. The so-called humanitarian zones Israel has carved out for civilians aren’t humanitarian at all, but rather a constellation of tents cramped into a small space with inadequate food, water and sanitation. The hospital system is, if not annihilated, then dilapidated. According to the United Nations, 90% of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed, which means that if the war stops, most Palestinians won’t have homes to return to.   

The prospects for a comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which existed before Oct. 7, are poor. Successive U.S. administrations dating to the George H.W. Bush presidency have tried to get the two sides to negotiate an honorable, final settlement, with the two-state solution — an independent Palestine living in peace and security with the state of Israel — serving as the North Star of those diplomatic efforts. Some presidents such as Bill Clinton, who helped mediate the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established the Palestinian Authority and mandated phased Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza, have come closer than others.

Yet if Oct. 7 wasn’t the death knell to the two-state paradigm that has anchored U.S. policy for so long, then it has dealt the entire concept a huge cut to the abdomen. Netanyahu and his supporters, who never bought into the concept of a Palestinian state, exploited the Hamas assault as an opening to throw even more roadblocks in the way. The current Israeli government is more interested in expanding settlements in strategic areas of the West Bank and seizing more Palestinian land than it is keeping the two-state option alive.

“I will not allow a Palestinian state” is now Netanyahu’s favorite mantra, in part to keep his coalition behind him. Netanyahu may be a divisive and wily political figure, but on this issue at least, the Israeli public is firmly behind him; the Israel Democracy Institute finds that 72% of Jewish Israelis don’t believe the Palestinians have a right to a state of their own. In other words, if Netanyahu were to leave the scene, there’s no evidence that the odds of successful Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy would improve all that much.

Related Articles

Elizabeth Shackelford: Gen Z-led protests are spreading rapidly across the globe

Daniel DePetris: The stare down between the US and Iran continues

Editorial: We strongly support this bipartisan plan to fix Illinois’ broken state elections

There are also wider trends to mention. Before Oct. 7, Israel was comfortable biding its time and striking only when it felt it needed to. Iran’s nuclear program was viewed as off-limits, not because Israel couldn’t perform the job but because the United States was highly resistant to yet one more conflict developing in the Middle East that could have repercussions throughout the region. Hamas in Gaza was a problem to be managed with the occasional bombing campaign. Hezbollah in Lebanon was considered too powerful to mess, with given the tens of thousands of rockets that could rain down on Israeli towns and cities. And the Houthis in Yemen were essentially treated as ragtag militiamen in sandals who couldn’t do much of anything to affect Israel’s security.

This is obviously no longer the case. Just as 9/11 pierced Americans’ perception of invincibility, Oct. 7 pierced Israelis’ self-confidence. Israel’s threat perception has mushroomed to levels unseen since the days of Golda Meir. Whether this threat perception is accurate is almost a secondary question; the important part is Netanyahu believes it to be true. 

The actions speak for themselves. Israel has bombed six countries in the Middle East over the last two years, a record that makes Bush look like a pacifist in comparison. In Syria, Israeli troops have moved past the U.N.-demarcated buffer zone into Syrian territory and ordered the new Syrian government to demilitarize the area south of Damascus. In Lebanon, Israeli forces remain perched along parts of Lebanon’s southern border, a legacy of the monthslong war against Hezbollah that severely degraded the Lebanese militia’s arsenal. Last month, Israel targeted Hamas officials in the quiet Qatari capital of Doha, an operation so abrasive that it even irked President Donald Trump. And in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is still digging out from the 12-day Israeli bombing operation in June that hit everything from Iran’s top military officers to its coveted nuclear facilities.  

Whether or not Trump’s peace plan ends the war in Gaza, Oct. 7 has changed the Middle East. And its legacy will linger.

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/07/column-october-7-israel-gaza-war-peace-plan-depetris/