KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The grim anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war brought little respite for memorialization and healing from the enormity of loss with which Israeli and Palestinian societies have been grappling. More than 100 of the over 250 Israeli and foreign hostages abducted that day into Gaza are estimated to remain in captivity, with only 64 presumed still alive; upward of 42,000 Gazans have been killed in the ongoing war, most of the enclave’s population has been repeatedly displaced, and damage and humanitarian devastation is widespread. A multi-front war that has simmered since that day is now poised to boil over with catastrophic potential for the region.
USIP’s Robert Barron, Caroline Dibble and Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen discuss the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a year of war, and whether or where opportunities may emerge to chart a different course.
Barron: The year since the war began has been one of the most catastrophic in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The war began on October 7, when nearly 3,000 Hamas fighters crossed into Israel by land, air and sea, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 Israeli and foreign hostages back to Gaza. The horrific violence, scale of the operation, and fate of the hostages deeply shook Israeli society, particularly its sense of security. This was compounded as Iran-backed groups around the region — from as close as the Lebanon-Israeli border to as far as Yemen — joined the fight.
Israel’s response to October 7 was more intense than any past war, killing an estimated 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, at least half of those numbers believed to be civilians. Approximately 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced — nine out of every 10 no longer in their homes. Access to food, health care and essential services is severely limited. Violence in the West Bank has also reached unprecedented levels, with more than 700 Palestinians in the West Bank killed since the war began.
Seeking to restore security and deterrence, and the return of the hostages, Israelis largely supported the war as a means of destroying Hamas in Gaza, even as they registered dissatisfaction with their leadership. Increasingly, as the war dragged on, many came to question the compatibility of the goals of Hamas defeat and hostage return. Divisions emerged not just on the proverbial street but even within the Israeli cabinet over the question of longer-term vision and strategy. A year into the war, approximately 100 hostages remain in captivity or are feared dead.
On both sides, the sense of insecurity and pain is palpable. The war has brought out Israelis’ existential fears in ways not seen for decades. Palestinians are largely demoralized, as day-to-day life moves from tragedy to tragedy. They have little sense of agency and see no end in sight to this devastating war.
As the fighting expands to Lebanon and beyond, the widely held impression is that the October 7 War has already been the most brutal and catastrophic that Israelis and Palestinians have ever fought — and it is likely to get worse. Since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in 1948, both peoples have known violence, distrust and obstinacy toward “the other,” all of which have long-made diplomatic breakthrough elusive. But the past year seems to have dwarfed prior rounds for Israelis and Palestinians alike in terms of how they perceive and experience the scope and scale of horrific violence, injustices and extremism at the hands of the other — suggesting that efforts to find a resolution to the conflict may have been set back for generations.
October 7 will be a turning point in the history of the conflict: it will forever be looked at through the lens of “before” and “after” that day.
October 7 will be a turning point in the history of the conflict: it will forever be looked at through the lens of “before” and “after” that day. Many prevailing assumptions about the possibility of simply “managing” the conflict; of the ability of the United States to step back from the Middle East; and of the potential for regional normalization and integration to proceed without a political horizon for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been called into question. While many are asking those questions, there is little agreement on the answers.
Indeed, over the past year, one of the few ideas approaching consensus is that the pre-war status quo is gone. But whether something better — a just, secure and sustainable end to this conflict for all concerned — can come from the war, is still very much to be determined.
Dibble: The October 7 attacks and ongoing war in Gaza have catapulted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a two-state solution to resolve it, to the top of the global agenda. The unprecedented levels of death and destruction, coupled with the war’s destabilizing potential to send the region into further turmoil, have forced regional actors to confront the previously sidelined Palestinian issue head-on and reconsider how the impact of the conflict’s concerning trajectory affects their own long-term strategic interests.
Across the Middle East, the deteriorating plight of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank has reenergized Arab public sentiment on the issue. Widespread protests against U.S. and Israeli policies have maintained momentum since the start of the war, and this public outrage and outpouring of Arab solidarity toward the Palestinian cause has forced regional governments to carefully navigate their relationship with the U.S. and with Israel. For Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel in the name of pursuing shared interests and fending off shared threats, this vision is becoming increasingly harder to sell to their publics.
Egypt and Jordan — who both have peace treaties with Israel — have been forced to strike a balancing act between maintaining their decades-long relationship with Israel and navigating the challenges to their national security and domestic interests that the ongoing war poses. As a result of geography, history and demography, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hits close to home for both countries, who each harbor concerns over the destabilizing potential of possible displacement of Palestinians into their respective territories and of popular anger toward any action or inaction by their governments that could be construed as supportive or enabling of Israel.
The Abraham Accords were a diplomatic breakthrough that carried potential to promote Arab-Israeli peace under the framework of regional integration. However, they did not leverage this new reality toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the accords have proven resilient, to an extent, in the post-October 7 landscape, they have suffered their setbacks as Arab partners have had to recalculate the perceived costs of their engagement with Israel in the context of its deadly and destructive military campaign in Gaza.
As the war persists, it remains unclear if the accords can be deepened, let alone expanded to include other Arab countries, dealing a setback to ongoing U.S. administration efforts to broker an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel. The result of these dynamics has been a revival of an older formula for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Abraham Accords upended the paradigm of Palestinian statehood before normalization with Israel that was embodied in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The events that have unfolded since October 7 have pushed regional stakeholders back into insistence on this “order of operations,” with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman firmly tying the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Kurtzer-Ellenbogen: The scope and scale of the Middle East crisis does not readily suggest exit-ramps, but it does cry out for them. Despite the regionalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack, the reality is that any path toward a more secure and peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians will also require a regionally supported effort. In this regard, the past year’s upending of so many assumptions about regional actors’ capacities and calculus, and the implications for miscalculation that could exacerbate the situation, hold some potential to motivate regional and international stakeholders to seek or create diplomatic openings.
The reality is that any path toward a more secure and peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians will also require a regionally supported effort.
Despite the deterioration of Arab-Israeli relations, many regional actors are still signaling fealty to a formula for regional integration. The Saudis have formed an international alliance to promote a two-state solution that embeds the promise of eventual regional integration and coexistence with Israel. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that 57 Arab and Muslim countries “are willing to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation an allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.” Even if prospects seem remote, the vision of an integrated future seems to persist.
In this regard, all eyes are on the scale and target selection of an expected Israeli retaliatory response for Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on the country. An Israel-Iran war will place many Arab countries in a difficult position — and, in the case of Jordan, in the literal line of fire. While Israel and many regional actors share an assessment of Iran as a threat to their respective and collective security, the U.S.’s Arab partners will find themselves increasingly challenged if put in a situation of having to directly or indirectly help fend off attacks aimed at Israel. These countries’ populations are deeply animated by the ongoing plight of the Palestinians — a cause that Iran directly, and through its proxy and partner non-state groups, has sought to leverage through claiming the mantle of resistance. Jordanian leadership, both in April in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel, and again in October, found itself defending its downing of Iranian missiles as an action taken in its own, rather than in Israel’s, defense.
It is in this context that reports have emerged that the U.S. and Arab states are engaged in talks with Iran to achieve a diplomatic agreement aimed at deescalating all active fronts. Whether the requisite political will and trust across all relevant actors are there for such an effort to succeed is a significant question. Once again, at a time when state and non-state actors in the region are defying pre-existing expectations and assumptions regarding their strategic calculus and even capabilities, all bets are off. However, such reports point to the potential for the depth of crisis to animate exploration of new channels toward avoiding intractability and opening the door to creative and coordinated crisis diplomacy. Conditions may not argue for optimism in this regard, but they do for urgency, as one year on from October 7 the region remains mired in suffering that, absent breakthroughs, stands only to widen.