On 7 October 2023, Israel was hit by a terrorist attack on an unprecedented scale, perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinian groups: nearly 1,200 people, 2/3 of them civilians –men, women and children–, were murdered; 240 people were taken to Gaza as hostages, and border villages were ransacked. In response, Israel launched an offensive of unprecedented magnitude which, beyond the destruction of Hamas’s military potential, has had a devastating impact on Palestinian society in a hyper-urbanized environment. 50,000 Palestinians have been killed (8% of whom were elderly, 16% women and 32% children) and more than 115,000 injured (as at 7 May 2025).[1] Approximately 70% of buildings have been destroyed or damaged; 80% of the population has been displaced within the Gaza Strip; supplies of fuel, electricity, water and food have been dramatically reduced.
What effect did the turning point of 7 October have in Israel? Unquestionably, it immediately led to a surge of patriotism that lasted well into 2024: reservists responded, including by returning from abroad; two thirds of Jewish citizens supported the military offensive in the Gaza Strip as well as the invasion of Lebanon to weaken Hezbollah on a lasting basis (September-November 2024). The highly consensual demand for the return of the hostages held in Gaza facilitated the expression of broad solidarity within the population. Despite his judicial setbacks,[2] the Prime Minister managed to embody national mobilization, in particular by forming a war cabinet that included the leader of the National Unity party, Benny Gantz (until June 2024).
Israel intends to fundamentally reshape
the “human geography” of Gaza (…)
Contracting their living space is an obvious
means of exerting pressure to make life
impossible for the Palestinians
Since the resumption of the large-scale military offensive in Gaza in mid-March 2025, the situation has been more mixed, but without the Prime Minister’s political fate being threatened. On the one hand, public distrust of both the security officials and the politicians who were in office at the time of the surprise attack on 7 October is strong. The former have gradually drawn conclusions from their failure: the head of military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, resigned in April 2024, the chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, did the same in March 2025, and the head of the internal security service, Ronen Bar – whom Netanyahu intended to sack anyway – closed the cycle by resigning on 15 June. On the other hand, although 72% of those polled believe that the Prime Minister should leave office, he remains in place, irremovable.[3] Furthermore, contrary to the majority sentiment among Israelis, who consider that the return of the hostages should take absolute priority over the continuation of an endless war against a Hamas that has already been greatly weakened, the Prime Minister is pursuing a hard-line strategy in Gaza.
The reason for this obstinacy is now becoming increasingly clear: Israel intends to fundamentally reshape the “human geography” of Gaza. In the autumn of 2023, at the start of the military offensive, certain political leaders publicly made extremist remarks against the Palestinian population. Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu, for example, declared that there were no “innocent civilians in Gaza” and that it was legitimate to deprive the population of humanitarian aid. At the time, such statements were played down as coming from marginal elements within the cabinet, belonging to the supremacist Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The security cabinet’s adoption in early May 2025 of a plan for the conquest of Gaza now shows that the government’s official policy is indeed to change the human configuration of Gaza. This involves emptying the northern sector of the Gaza Strip of its civilian population and concentrating it in the south. Contracting their living space in this way is an obvious means of exerting pressure to make life impossible for the Palestinians and drive them to emigrate. The highest political authorities are no longer hiding this fact. In March, the government had already approved the creation of a special directorate to organize the “voluntary” departure of Palestinians, and the Prime Minister himself praised the project, saying he was working to identify countries willing to take them in. The Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, was even more explicit, cynically asserting that the devastation of Gaza was a war objective aiming to accelerate the emigration of Gazans.[4] Needless to say, such a policy is absolutely contrary to international humanitarian law.
This plan was made official all the more easily because it was in keeping with the zeitgeist. In early February 2025, President Trump proposed that some of the Palestinians in Gaza be relocated to Jordan and Egypt and that Gaza should be turned into a Floridian “Riviera”! Although Gaza was the focus of attention, the pressure on Palestinians in the West Bank was also stepped up. More than 900 Palestinians have been killed there (since 7 October 2023), fields, orchards and homes have been destroyed, and 40,000 people have been displaced from refugee camps (Nour Shams, Tulkarem, Jenin, etc.) where the army officially intervened to hunt down Palestinian activists. But it was above all the Israeli settlers who, galvanized by the general atmosphere of permissiveness, stepped up their punitive raids on Palestinian villages, with the support of members of the government.
All these developments have not aroused strong political opposition in a public opinion focused almost exclusively on the hostage issue. Admittedly, in the midst of this general apathy towards the situation of Palestinian civilians, activist groups identifying with a decolonial left have been demonstrating in major Israeli cities since the spring of 2025 to make the suffering of Gazans heard. Similarly, at the beginning of May there was movement in the peace sphere, with a major two-day meeting in Jerusalem which brought together more than 60 organizations promoting a political agreement based on the coexistence of two states. The meeting brought together Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, politicians (including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Qudwa) and even family members of those murdered, who all called for an end to the war and the relaunch of a political process. These commendable initiatives are taking place in a climate of widespread indifference to the plight of the Palestinians, facilitated, it must be said, by the virtual absence of images from Gaza (apart from those of soldiers) in the Israeli media. It should also be noted that the military censors banned “1,635 articles from publication and edited 6,265 other articles,” thus restricting freedom of the press in the name of national security.[5]
There is currently no credible political alternative.
Most of the Jewish parties in opposition
largely agree with the use of strong-arm tactics
There is currently no credible political alternative. Most of the Jewish parties in opposition largely agree with the use of strong-arm tactics, whether it be Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Russian-speaking party or the centrist parties of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid. Only Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the Democrats, a new party born out of the ruins of the Zionist left, is playing a different tune by opposing Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued rule head-on. He also advocates the reconstruction of a long-term alternative by allying himself with the Arab parties, currently represented by 10 members in the Knesset. But this progressive movement, often discredited by the current government for its naiveté, or even its complacency towards “Israel’s enemies,” finds only limited resonance in a context overloaded with patriotic rhetoric.
No doubt this patriotism is less flamboyant than it was at the start of the war. In April, nearly a thousand veteran pilots and reservists signed a petition calling for an end to a war that is now considered to be politically motivated (keeping Netanyahu in power, recolonizing Gaza, etc.). Similarly, reservists are clearly tiring, with nearly 30% no longer responding to the call to mobilize. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this abstention is not due to political opposition to the war but to personal reasons, such as the pursuit of professional activities. In any case, this drop in reservist motivation can pose a problem for the army in the conduct of military operations.[6]
7 October 2023 was indeed a turning point for Israel, which embarked on the longest war in its history, on various fronts (Gaza, the West Bank, but also Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and even Iran). This war has mobilized Israeli society as never before. Once the guns fall silent, the same energy should be mobilized in the pursuit of peace, but given the strength of the nationalist movement, this unfortunately seems to be wishful thinking today.
[1] Statistics provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (7 May 2025)”, www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-7-may-2025.
[2] He is being prosecuted for fraud, corruption and breach of trust in various court cases.
[3] “Israelis Are United – It’s Time for Our Leadership to Follow Suit”, The Israel Democracy Institute: https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59230.
[4] “Smotrich says Gaza to be ‘totally destroyed,’ population ‘concentrated’ in small area”, Jeremy Sharon, The Times of Israel, 6 May 2025, www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-gaza-to-be-totally-destroyed-population-concentrated-in-small-area/.
[5] “Breaking new records, Israel sees unprecedented spike in media censorship,” Haggai Matar, +972 Magazine, 2 May 2025, www.972mag.com/israeli-military-censor-media-2024/.
[6] “The Israeli army is facing its biggest refusal crisis in decades,” Meron Rapoport, +972 Magazine, 11 April 2025, www.972mag.com/israeli-army-refusal-crisis-gaza-war/.
Header photo: An ultra-orthodox Jewish woman is seen through a bus window along with a reflection of a Likud party election campaign banner depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump in Bnei Brak, Israel.REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo