BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 7 (UPI) — Hamas’s daring “Operation Al Aqsa Flood” two years ago and Israel’s devastating war on the Gaza Strip have not only transformed the Middle East, but also reverberated across the world.
They have again drawn to the 75-year unresolved Palestinian issue, gradually shifting global opinion against Israel as accusations of genocide mounted, and reopening the path toward a Palestinian state, though at a tremendous cost.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants fanned out from Gaza, breached the border fence with Israel and launched a multi-pronged assault — an attack never seen before in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They used gliders and motorcycles to reach a desert music festival and storm Israeli communities in southern Israel, where they opened fire, killing around 1,250 Israelis and foreign nationals and taking 251 others hostage inside Gaza.
According to Israeli officials, 20 of the 48 hostages still held captive in the Strip are believed to be alive.
Hamas’ sophisticated plan shocked the world just as much as Israel’s intelligence failure, slow military response and inability — despite its advanced technological capabilities — to detect and counter missiles fired by the militant group.
It also unleashed Israel’s war on Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, killing more than 67,000 people, injuring 170,000 others, and turning much of the Strip into rubble where many more unaccounted-for victims are still believed to be buried.
Nearly 95% of the population — about 2.1 million people — have been repeatedly displaced during the ongoing war, which has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe, with widespread malnutrition and famine in parts of Gaza.
In Israel, at least 913 soldiers have been killed and 20,000 injured in the war, which has also displaced more than 100,000 people.
The war might end this time with U.S. President Donald Trump’s new 20-point plan, which calls for an immediate cessation of fighting, the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and full humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Under the plan, Hamas will disarm — its members will be granted amnesty to stay or safe passage to leave — and will have no role in governing Gaza. Moreover, Israel will neither occupy nor annex Gaza, and the plan leaves the door open for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
According to Zaki Chehab, author of the book, Inside Hamas, and a Palestinian-born journalist, the militant group carefully planned its Oct. 7 attack.
“All those who know Hamas and the way it prepared for the attack knew that the war would not end unless its goals were achieved: confirmation of Palestinians’ rights over Al-Aqsa Mosque and East Jerusalem, Israel’s withdrawal to the June 4, 1967, borders, and achieving the two-state solution,” Chehab told UPI.
He said Hamas’ goal was liberation, and that they were ready to reconsider everything, including disarming and handing over governance of Gaza to a technocratic cabinet that would also govern the West Bank — if there were “a serious promise for a two-state solution.”
“When they planned the attack, they did so without consulting anyone — not even the group’s leaders abroad, Iran or its Axis of Resistance armed groups,” he said, adding that Hamas made it clear it would “only engage in war for the sake of Palestine, not for Iran to boost its position in the nuclear talks.”
Years ago, a Hamas leader in Beirut told UPI that they were not receiving weapons from Iran, but were instead relying on smuggling and manufacturing their own arms inside Gaza.
“That’s 100% true … the last arms shipment from Iran to Hamas was in 2008,” Chehab said.
With the Israeli Prime Minister accepting the Gaza plan under pressure from Trump and Hamas partly agreeing to it, indirect talks are underway in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh to reach a final agreement on the first phase, which concerns the hostage-prisoner exchange.
“We are potentially closer to a ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and the flowing of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. … That’s the best we can hope for in the short term if this plan is to be successful,” said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Yacoubian said the most important objective now within reach is ending the conflict in Gaza, emphasizing the United States’ “indispensable” role in applying the necessary leverage on Israel to achieve a cease-fire.
She pointed to “a confluence of interests” and “a unique convergence,” with pressure being applied by Washington on Israel, and by Arab states -= who have embraced the U.S. plan — on Hamas.
“Together, those two forces could well yield a cease-fire, but what happens after that, I think, is still very much in question,” she told UPI, referring to numerous “vague points” in the plan, primarily concerning the two-state solution, and “lots of loopholes that Israel could exploit to maintain its presence in Gaza.”
While Trump remained confident about achieving a “lasting deal,” he also reportedly made promises and commitments to Arab and Islamic leaders he met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York: no forced displacement from Gaza and no annexation of the West Bank.
Zaki said the two-state solution was “essential” to gaining Arab states’ endorsement of Trump’s Gaza plan.
He said that, for the first time, Israel was discussing an end to the war, noting that the two-month truce would be extended until an agreement is reached on a two-state solution and a permanent end to the conflict.
However, the primary concern remains the lack of clarity in the U.S. plan regarding the realization of a two-state solution and whether the establishment of a Palestinian state would be viable.
What is clear is that the Hamas attack and the Gaza war have completely redefined the Middle East, resulting in the dramatic weakening of Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, the collapse of the Syrian regime and the rise of the Houthis in Yemen, according to Yacoubian.
Israel became isolated in an unprecedented way, with its global standing shifting as Western public opinion turned against it and support in the United States dropped to its lowest level due to its conduct in the Gaza war, she said.
Could all these changes, along with emerging international consensus, U.S. determination, and Arab-European support, lead to a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and eventually a long-awaited viable Palestinian state?
It is only possible if the conflict is solved drastically by ending Israel’s expansionist plan or Greater Israel vision and if it is willing to become a normal state within the region, Iyad Barghouti, an academic and researcher in Ramallah, told UPI.
Bargouthi said that Israel and the Palestinians have returned to “square one,” with Israel once again deeply concerned about its existence and acting very aggressively.
“There will be no coexistence unless Israel stops being suppressive and abandons its apartheid-Zionist policies,” he said.
Yacoubian said that Israelis and Palestinians have been so deeply affected by the Oct. 7 attack that “the prospect of any harmony” between the two societies, or “any ability to live together,” now feels much more distant due to the trauma both have suffered.
