More than 300 days after the Hamas terror attack of October 7th, Israel is stuck in a war that the majority of its society wants to see end, with a governing coalition that most of its population wants to see changed. Just a couple of weeks after US officials stated that we are “closer now than we’ve been before” to an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza, Israel finds itself instead as close as it has ever been to a war with the Iran-led axis.
The trauma of October 7th continues to live on for Israelis, as time goes by without progress towards a more peaceful reality. Hamas still holds 115 hostages; tens of thousands of Israelis are displaced from their homes in the north and south; the fighting in Gaza continues, albeit with lesser intensity but still causing fatalities on both sides; escalation with Iran and Hezbollah seems inevitable, and is impacting daily life; international airlines cancel flights and cut Israelis from the world in the peak of their holiday season; and domestic divisions are on the rise due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition and the back-wind it provides extremists with.
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