This has been a year of destruction and slaughter for the Middle East. Far from awakening from the nightmare, the region is slipping deeper into war. Israel is planning a “significant and serious” retaliation against Iran for its missile attack. The retaliatory cycle is spinning faster, with the conflagration feared from the first growing closer. Once more, civilians will pay.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas targeted Israelis gathered with their families at home and dancing with friends at a festival. More than 1,200 men, women and children were killed by fighters who had crossed from Gaza: the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, in the country built to guarantee their safety. Another 250 – the youngest nine months old – were taken hostage. Though around half were subsequently released, many have yet to return home. Others never will.
The ensuing Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians, according to its health authorities; most were women and children, including hundreds of infants. The chilling abbreviation WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family – has become commonplace. The survivors are displaced, hungry and desperate, and the humanitarian catastrophe grows as Israel pursues its war in the wasteland. The last year has also been the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Already 2,000 people are dead in Lebanon.
Israel was enveloped by sympathy in the wake of the Hamas attacks. Its right to defend itself does not permit it to trample the laws of war. Ministers and politicians have openly embraced – in the words of prominent Israelis – “the discourse of annihilation, expulsion and revenge”. That speaks of the impact of permanent occupation; this story did not begin 12 months ago. Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to remain prime minister, and the zealotry of his political partners, have prevailed over the lives of Israeli hostages as well as Palestinians.
Of the three top Hamas leaders indicted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity, only Yahya Sinwar remains alive. Hezbollah’s leaders too lie dead. The fear of another 7 October is understandably strengthened when Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praises “a legitimate act”. But Israel’s tactical success to date against Hamas and Hezbollah is not the same as a strategic triumph. Military victory is a mirage. Israeli citizens are under immediate threat from an expanded war and the destruction of other homes and families is no foundation for their long‑term, sustainable security.
Israel is increasingly isolated not because outsiders did not register the horror of 7 October but because they cannot ignore the suffering of Palestinians. Mr Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, stand accused of crimes against humanity at the international criminal court. The international court of justice has ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal, calling for immediate withdrawal and reparations, and in January ordered it to ensure no genocidal acts are committed in Gaza. While the US continues to ship arms to an ally that ignores its warnings, others are recoiling.
The release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza – and now Lebanon too – become only more pressing as the months pass. Power-hungry men of hatred have pursued a war in which innocent men, women and children across the region have died. Ending it requires diplomacy addressing not only the immediate crisis but long-term security needs, including a fair settlement for Palestinians.
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