Israel, Palestine, and the Road to October 7: Dead End or Deadly Detour?

An abandoned peace process, increasingly severe Israeli restrictions on Gaza, and divided Palestinian leadership set the stage for the October 2023 surprise attack by Hamas. The devastating Israeli response has left much of the territory in ruins and decimated Hamas’s top ranks, while setting off a wider regional war involving Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Iran. US-led attempts to negotiate a cease-fire and resurrect the goal of a two-state solution have proved futile to date, as both sides remain irreconcilable, even in terms of basic understandings of the situation. Peace appears more distant than ever, though global views of the conflict are shifting.