Three Years After October 7, the Region Is Unrecognizable
Three years after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Gaza remains devastated and the conflict’s aftershocks have reshaped the wider Middle East.
Three years after October 7, 2023, the Middle East bears little resemblance to the region that existed before the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel. The attack, the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the conflicts that followed have transformed security calculations from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Yet the popular idea that one day single-handedly caused every later war is too simple.
Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and allied Palestinian armed groups breached Israel’s Gaza perimeter, attacked communities and military positions, killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most of those killed were civilians. The violence, hostage-taking and attacks on noncombatants were grave violations of international law and left Israeli society with trauma that remains politically decisive.
Israel’s response devastated Gaza. The territory’s Health Ministry says more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed; international agencies describe mass displacement, enormous destruction, repeated aid restrictions and a health system unable to meet civilian needs. Israel says it targets Hamas and disputes accusations that it deliberately attacks civilians. Human-rights organizations, UN experts and South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice allege genocide. The ICJ has issued provisional measures but has not delivered a final merits judgment, so responsible reporting should identify “genocide” as a legal and political claim rather than falsely implying that the court has completed the case.
The West Bank also became more violent, with expanded Israeli operations, settler attacks and Palestinian armed activity. It is geographically and legally distinct from Gaza, so casualty totals and allegations should not be merged casually. What connects the territories is a wider collapse of confidence in a political settlement and growing international concern over occupation, displacement and civilian protection.
Regionally, October 7 acted as an accelerant. Hezbollah opened a front with Israel from Lebanon, leading first to sustained cross-border fighting and later to larger wars. Ansarullah in Yemen attacked shipping while saying it was acting in solidarity with Gaza, disrupting the Red Sea and drawing foreign military action. Israel and Iran moved from indirect confrontation toward open exchanges, eventually contributing to a broader Gulf conflict.
Those events were connected, but they were not mechanically caused by Hamas alone. Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, the United States, Yemen’s factions and Gulf governments made independent decisions. The Assad government’s collapse in Syria, for example, grew from a civil war more than a decade old, Russian and Iranian constraints, domestic weakness and renewed opposition pressure. October 7 changed the strategic environment; it did not erase all other causes.
Saudi-Israeli normalization is another case where “collapse” overstates what was formally achieved. Negotiations were advanced before the attack but relations had not been fully normalized. The Gaza war made a public agreement politically harder and raised the price Saudi leaders would demand on Palestinian statehood and security guarantees.
For Israel, the three years brought tactical military successes alongside deeper strategic isolation. Hamas and Hezbollah lost senior leaders and infrastructure, while Iran’s regional network suffered major blows. At the same time, Gaza’s destruction damaged Israel’s international standing, widened disputes with allies and failed to produce a stable postwar political order.
For Palestinians, the cost has been catastrophic. Families face bereavement, disability, displacement and destroyed communities. Hamas remains a political and armed actor despite enormous losses, while the Palestinian Authority has not emerged as a broadly accepted replacement. Reconstruction is stalled by disputes over governance, security and Israeli withdrawal.
The anniversary should therefore resist two competing simplifications: that October 7 justifies everything that followed, or that the attack can be discussed without its Israeli victims. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been repeatedly reduced to arguments in someone else’s narrative.
The most durable change may be the disappearance of assumptions. Israel can no longer treat the Palestinian question as containable. Iran’s network of partners is neither a perfectly controlled alliance nor a vanished force. Arab governments cannot pursue regional deals indefinitely while ignoring Gaza. And US military power has not produced a political settlement despite deep involvement across several fronts.
What to watch next
Watch Gaza governance and reconstruction, Israel’s October election, the ICJ proceedings, Palestinian political reform and whether regional ceasefires survive. Three years of escalation have altered the balance of power, but they have not answered the conflict’s central political questions.