Free the hostages: tens of thousands call for their release and an end to the war, Tel Aviv, 20 September 2025
Yael Guisky Abas · Sopa · Lightrocket · Getty
The massacres of 7 October 2023 brought about the death of the Gaza Strip. It will be years before it recovers and comes back to life, if it ever does. The Israeli attack on Gaza that followed has also meant the death of the hope for a different Israel.
It is still too early to assess the depth of the destruction the war on Gaza has caused to Israeli society and the state, but it is quite clear that the change is dramatic. Here too, as in Gaza, the removal of the rubble, rehabilitation and rebuilding will take years, and here too, it is doubtful whether it will happen at all. Gaza and Israel have been destroyed, perhaps irreversibly, each in its own way. The destruction of Gaza is clearly visible from afar and is the more shocking. The destruction of Israel is still hidden beneath the surface.
7 October 2023 was a historical turning point. On that day, Hamas invaded Israel and perpetrated unprecedented killing. And on that day, too, Israel began to change. Maybe it just dropped the mask, but maybe the change is even deeper. In any case, the genie that escaped from the bottle on 7 October cannot easily be put back. Not only has Gaza become uninhabitable, but to a certain extent, Israel, although its physical destruction was much more limited of course, is also becoming inhospitable to those who seek a free and democratic life.
Since 7 October, several things have changed Israel’s political and existential consciousness. It was quick to label the events of that day as ‘the greatest disaster that has befallen the Jewish people since the Holocaust’, as Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on 12 October 2023, mentioning the two in the same breath, as if these had been two holocausts, even if one was greater and more terrible than the other. This was of course an absurd exaggeration, baseless but well calculated, intended for propaganda.
This choice of the Holocaust as a basis for comparison was not accidental. It (…)
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