Two years on, no way out for Gaza

Two years after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack plunged Israel and Gaza into one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century, the Middle East remains caught in a cycle of violence without a clear path to peace. The war has redrawn the region’s political map, weakened the militant group that started it, and hardened Israel’s resolve — yet neither side has achieved its goals.

The Hamas assault that killed around 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages shattered Israel’s sense of security and unleashed a response of historic scale. Israel’s campaign has devastated the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, millions displaced, and much of the territory reduced to rubble. Famine stalks its survivors.

Yet Hamas, battered and cornered, still endures. The group retains dozens of hostages — 48, according to Israeli officials, with about 20 believed to be alive — and maintains influence in what remains of Gaza’s shattered urban landscape. It is diminished but not destroyed, defiant in the ruins.

Israel, for its part, has demonstrated overwhelming military dominance. It has struck Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian Revolutionary Guard targets in Syria, and even Iranian generals and scientists at home. Earlier this year, a 12-day Israeli offensive dealt Iran a rare public blow. But for all its tactical successes, Israel’s strategic objectives — the destruction of Hamas and the safe return of its hostages — remain elusive.

Israel’s regional standing has grown more formidable, but its international isolation has deepened. Once courted as a partner in the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, Israel now finds itself accused of genocide by major human rights organizations and scholars. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, alleging the use of starvation as a weapon of war — charges Israel categorically rejects.

At home, Netanyahu’s government is under siege. Weekly mass protests denounce his leadership, corruption scandals, and controversial judicial overhaul. The failure to bring back the hostages has further eroded public trust. Inside Israel, the war has exposed profound fractures — between security hawks and human rights advocates, between Netanyahu’s far-right coalition and a society exhausted by endless conflict.

Internationally, normalization with Saudi Arabia — once seen as a prize within reach — has drifted away. Even Israel’s staunchest allies are uneasy. U.S. and European support continues in material form, but moral solidarity has frayed. Israel has emerged as a regional hegemon, yes — but one increasingly alone.

For Palestinians, the war has been catastrophic. Gaza’s 2 million residents have endured relentless bombardment and mass displacement. The enclave’s cities lie in ruins; 90 percent of its people have fled their homes, often multiple times. Famine has taken hold in the north. Two years of lost schooling have condemned a generation of children to trauma and deprivation.

And yet, in a grim irony, Hamas’ brutality has succeeded in thrusting the Palestinian question back onto the world stage. Major Western nations, long reluctant to act, have now joined a global majority at the United Nations in recognizing a Palestinian state. The International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem illegal and unsustainable.

But on the ground, those declarations mean little. Israel now controls roughly three-quarters of Gaza, continues military incursions into the West Bank, and expands settlements that carve the territory into fragments. A new settlement project threatens to split the West Bank in two, effectively burying the two-state solution once and for all.

Despite mounting anger from their own people, both Hamas and Netanyahu have endured. Each, in his own way, depends on the other’s survival.

Hamas, even as its forces are decimated, still commands a symbolic victory narrative: survival itself. If it can exchange its remaining hostages for a full Israeli withdrawal and a mass prisoner release, its leaders will claim vindication.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has clung to power by catering to his far-right coalition, which insists that total victory — the annihilation of Hamas — remains within reach. His domestic critics see the war as both a political shield and a trap. With elections expected next year, his fate may hinge on whether he can declare some semblance of success. If Hamas survives, and if the hostages remain captive, his long political career may finally meet its end. Yet he has defied political gravity before.

For Washington, the war has been a test of credibility — and conscience. Two U.S. presidents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have backed Israel with billions in arms and diplomatic protection while failing to end the fighting.

Biden’s administration invested months in ceasefire diplomacy alongside Egypt and Qatar. Trump’s team, upon taking office earlier this year, pushed the same framework across the finish line — a phased truce to free hostages and wind down the war. For a brief moment in January, peace seemed possible.

But in March, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza and resumed bombardment, shattering the truce. Trump, who had floated the idea of “relocating” Gazans to make way for a “Mediterranean Riviera,” offered no public criticism. Both administrations, in different tones, have enabled Israel’s pursuit of “total victory,” shielding it from international accountability even as the humanitarian toll soared.

The latest White House plan — a Trump initiative modeled on earlier Biden efforts — demands that Hamas disarm and relinquish power in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from most of Gaza, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and an international reconstruction effort. Gaza would come under temporary international administration, with no clear path toward reunification with the West Bank or statehood.

Hamas has signaled willingness to release hostages and transfer governance to other Palestinian factions, but it balks at unconditional disarmament. Netanyahu and Trump, impatient for a “deal,” threaten escalation if talks stall.

Even if a ceasefire is reached, Gaza’s agony will not end with the signing of papers. The territory is physically destroyed, socially shattered, and politically unmoored. Reconstruction will take decades and billions of dollars — assuming donors are willing to invest in a region where war could reignite at any time.

The deeper conflict — over land, sovereignty, and dignity — remains unresolved. For Palestinians, the dream of independence grows ever more remote. For Israelis, the promise of lasting security remains out of reach.

Two years after October 7, the Middle East is trapped in a brutal equilibrium: a weakened Hamas that cannot govern, an embattled Israel that cannot win, and a world unwilling or unable to impose peace. The war has exposed the limits of military power and the moral bankruptcy of politics driven by vengeance.

There is, at this point, no clear way out — only the grim certainty that without courage and compromise, both peoples will remain chained to the ruins of Gaza, haunted by what they have lost and by what they still refuse to learn. (AP)