As the world marks two years since the events of 7 October, 2023, Gaza remains shattered, and the Palestinian people continue to face relentless violence in Israel’s ongoing war.
What began as a moment Israel presented as a “defensive response” has revealed itself as a calculated campaign of mass killing, destruction, and displacement. Today, on this grim anniversary, it is essential to revisit what truly happened and why – not simply to recall the past, but to confront the ongoing tragedy that continues to unfold every day in Gaza and the entire Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The terrifying reality of Israel’s actions against the Palestinians did not begin on 7 October, 2023. For decades, Palestinians have endured a systematic policy of dispossession, siege, and military assault that has eroded every facet of their existence. Yet, the narrative advanced by Israel and much of the Western media suggests that 7 October marked the “beginning” of the violence, a framing that deliberately obscures Israel’s long and bloody record of oppression.
Central to this discourse is a deeply troubling possibility: that Israel was fully aware of Hamas’ planned attacks on 7 October and chose to allow them to unfold, weaponising the tragedy as a pretext to unleash unprecedented destruction on Gaza, escalate mass killings, and push forward a broader project of ethnic cleansing.
This theory is not baseless speculation but one supported by historical precedent, intelligence failures that appear to be too convenient, and the subsequent scale of Israel’s response.
Israel boasts one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence apparatuses. From Shin Bet’s extensive infiltration of Palestinian structures to Mossad’s surveillance capabilities and the constant monitoring of Gaza’s borders with drones, satellites, and high-tech fences, it is inconceivable that Israel was caught entirely off guard. Reports in newspapers like Haaretz and the Financial Times and other credible outlets have pointed to warnings received by Israel in the months leading up to 7 October.
Despite these alerts, the Israeli military presence near Gaza was mysteriously thinned, checkpoints were undermanned, and surveillance systems appear to have failed. Was this negligence, or was it a calculated decision? If history is a guide, from Israel’s manipulation of past wars to justify land grabs and mass displacement, then the latter cannot be dismissed.
Once the attacks had occurred, Israel immediately seized the opportunity to frame its military campaign as an existential struggle, masking its true objectives: the accelerated removal of the Palestinians from their land and the further consolidation of a “Greater Israel.”
Within days, Israeli officials openly called for the “voluntary migration” of Gazans, a euphemism for forced expulsion, and floated resettlement schemes in Sinai. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister for Settlement Affairs and National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, key figures in the current Israeli government, have repeatedly advocated driving the Palestinians out and replacing them with Jewish settlers.
The brutality unleashed on Gaza since then reflects this logic. Over 65,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have been killed in relentless bombings and ground assaults. Entire towns, villages, and neighbourhoods have been flattened, hospitals destroyed, and infrastructure decimated. These are not the actions of a state merely seeking to neutralise Hamas; they are the hallmarks of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing that has been carefully planned and customised.
Israel has repeatedly justified its actions under the banner of “self-defence.” But who defines self-defence when an occupying power subjects millions of people to siege, blockades, and periodic bombardments? International law is clear: an occupier cannot invoke self-defence against the people it occupies.
The reality is that the Palestinians have been resisting a settler-colonial project that began in 1948 and continues with relentless intensity today. Hamas’ attacks targeted Israeli military positions and symbols of state power, yet Israel and much of the Western press framed it as an indiscriminate assault on civilians. This narrative erases both the context of decades of Palestinian suffering and the disproportionate violence Israel unleashes in response.
Israel has a long history of instrumentalising violence to achieve political goals. The 1967 War was used to occupy vast areas of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian land. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon, justified as retaliation for Palestinian attacks, was later revealed to have been planned months in advance as part of a broader strategy to crush Palestinian resistance. Each “security crisis” has been turned into an opportunity for territorial expansion and population displacement.
7 October fits neatly into this pattern. By permitting, or at least not preventing, the Hamas operation, Israel gained the global sympathy it planned and needed to launch one of the most devastating military campaigns of the 21st century, while simultaneously advancing its long-term objectives of removing Palestinians from Gaza and expanding settlements across the West Bank.
It is essential to emphasise that Israel’s killing of Palestinians is not confined to moments of war. In the West Bank, settler violence and military raids have intensified, with hundreds killed since 7 October. Before that, 2022 and early 2023 had already marked some of the deadliest years for Palestinians in decades. The siege of Gaza, imposed since 2007, has deprived its 2.3 million residents of basic rights to food, medicine, electricity, and movement. Palestinians were living, and dying, under slow-motion genocide long before 7 October.
The international community’s complicity in this ongoing massacre cannot be overlooked. Western governments that claim to uphold human rights have poured weapons into Israel’s war machine and provided diplomatic cover while criminalising the Palestinian resistance and ignoring civilian suffering. This selective morality not only emboldens Israel but ensures that the cycle of violence will persist.
If Israel had foreknowledge of Hamas’ plans and deliberately allowed them to proceed, the implications are staggering. It would mean that the Israeli government sacrificed its own people’s lives to secure a pretext for mass killing and ethnic cleansing. This demands independent international investigation, accountability for Israeli leaders, and a fundamental re-evaluation of the world’s uncritical support for Israel.
But even beyond this question, the broader reality remains: Israel has consistently exploited crises to entrench occupation, expand settlements, and push Palestinians off their land. 7 October is only the latest and bloodiest chapter in this long history. It is a repeat of what happened in Deir Yassin and Bahr Al-Baqar back in the 1940s.
To accept Israel’s narrative of 7 October uncritically is to erase decades of Palestinian suffering and legitimise ongoing atrocities. The truth is stark: Israel’s war is not about defending itself from Hamas but about dismantling Palestinian existence altogether.
As free persons, we must pierce through the propaganda and confront the reality that Israel is using 7 October as a shield for crimes that predate that day by generations. Justice for Palestinians requires exposing this deception, ending the impunity of the Israeli state, and affirming the right of a people long denied their homeland to live in dignity and freedom.
On this second anniversary of 7 October, the responsibility is even greater. The international community must stop providing Israel with weapons, aid, and diplomatic cover. Recognising a state of Palestine is not enough. It must demand an immediate end to the war, an international investigation into Israel’s conduct, and a clear roadmap towards Palestinian self-determination.
The way forward must centre the Palestinian voice, not silence it beneath the weight of external narratives. It also requires anchoring the constructive role of Egypt and other neighbouring Arab states whose mediation, border management, and regional influence remain indispensable. Egypt, alongside Qatar and partners in the Arab world, has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to broker dialogue, de-escalate tensions, and provide humanitarian lifelines.
A durable peace cannot emerge from Israel’s strategies of erasure but only from a framework that restores Palestinian ownership, amplifies the Palestinian voice, and situates regional actors as guarantors of justice and stability. Only then can anniversaries like this one change from being markers of grief into turning points for freedom and lasting peace.
The writer is a professor of diplomatic and international law and former head of the Regional Office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) for the MENA region.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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