The News
Israeli, Hamas, and Hezbollah forces launched aerial strikes as people in Israel and around the world marked a year since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Vigils were held globally to commemorate the attack that left more than 1,100 dead in Israel, triggering its war on Gaza. Demonstrations were also held in support of Palestinians in a conflict that has so far killed more than 41,000 in the enclave and resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe.
Families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza sounded a two-minute siren outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence on Monday morning. Mourners also returned to the site of the Nova festival in southern Israel, where more than 350 were killed by Hamas a year ago.
Fighting persisted on all sides: Israel bombarded Beirut overnight into Monday in what appeared to be its heaviest assault yet on the Lebanese capital, Hezbollah rockets struck Israel’s third largest city of Haifa early on Monday, and Hamas fired rockets into Tel Aviv.
SIGNALS
Both Israel and Hamas lack ‘a clear win’
A year on from the Hamas attack, neither side “has a clear win or a clean story,” The New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman wrote. Israel’s failure — or refusal — to articulate a path forward for Palestinians in Gaza beyond permanent war is hurting the country both morally and strategically, he argued, unraveling the “steel thread” that commits generations of Israelis to its defense. Despite this, Israel’s “window of legitimacy” for continuing the war remains open, Haaretz’ Anshel Pfeffer argued: The Biden administration has only half-heartedly attempted to shut it down because it is ultimately in the interests of the West to keep Israel as an ally, especially given its Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israeli memorialisation of Oct. 7 works to fuel the war
One of the most remarkable aspects of Israel’s response to Oct. 7 is the speed with which collective trauma has been converted into a weapon of war that justifies the ongoing devastation of Palestinian life, Naomi Klein argued in The Guardian. Consumers of Israel’s booming “dark tourism” sector — including a mock Hamas tunnel in Tel Aviv and a virtual reality tour of the Israeli communities that came under attack — “are encouraged to feel a distilled bond with their victims, who are the essence of good, and a distilled hatred for their enemies, who are the essence of evil,” in a way that crowds out the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, she wrote.
There’s no end in sight
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza continues, but Israel’s military operations there seem to be ramping down as the country turns its attention toward Hezbollah, a national security expert argued in Foreign Policy. Yet Israel’s actions in Gaza have nevertheless “essentially fed into Iran’s revolutionary narrative as the voice of the downtrodden,” meaning Iran could emerge stronger than ever, he wrote. Some things have changed, however: Netanyahu should no longer believe he can simply “manage” the issue of Palestinian self-determination without making concessions, even as many Israelis have moved to the right since Oct. 7, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen wrote. But there’s a new set of assumptions emerging in parts of Israel and Washington, he added: That the conflict offers a “once-in-a generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East by force.”