The Israel-Gaza conflict, reignited with devastating force after October 7, 2023, has evolved into one of the most entrenched and unmanageable crises in modern history. Despite mounting international pressure, staggering humanitarian losses, and internal political fractures on both sides, peace remains as elusive as ever. Israel’s military campaign aims to obliterate Hamas, while Hamas clings to armed resistance as its only remaining form of agency. Caught between intransigence and ideological extremism are millions of Palestinian civilians, now paying the price of decades-long political failure. This editorial explores the deep-rooted historical, political, and ideological complexities that have turned Gaza into a theatre of perpetual war, where the end of violence seems not just distant, but structurally impossible.
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On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched a surprise assault on southern Israel, killing 1,200 civilians and taking 251 hostages. It was the deadliest single day in Israel’s modern history, likened by many Israelis to a national trauma on par with the Holocaust. In response, Israel unleashed a ferocious and open-ended military campaign on the Gaza Strip. As of mid-2025, the death toll in Gaza exceeds 52,000, with more than a million residents displaced, infrastructure decimated, and famine setting in.
But to understand why peace in Gaza remains elusive, one must look beyond casualty counts. The conflict’s roots stretch back over a century, into colonial promises, partition plans, and failed state-building efforts. Israel’s current leadership, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insists on “total victory” over Hamas. Yet even within Israel’s military ranks, such a goal lacks strategic clarity. Meanwhile, Hamas, deeply embedded in Palestinian society, refuses to disarm, offering long-term truces but not peace.
Rather than heading toward reconciliation, both parties seem trapped in ideological rigidity, political self-interest, and historical grievances that make peace not just unlikely, but structurally impossible under current conditions.
For decades, Israel employed a strategy of periodic containment, launching targeted operations against Hamas while avoiding full-scale invasion. The October 7 attacks shattered that doctrine. Israel now insists that military victory must include the complete dismantling of Hamas’s military and political structures. This goal, however, directly conflicts with another of Israel’s top priorities: the safe return of the remaining 59 hostages, of whom at least 24 are believed to be alive.
Moreover, experts argue Hamas no longer has the capacity to replicate an Oct. 7-style assault, rendering Israel’s continued campaign disproportionate in the eyes of many observers. The logic of permanent war has overtaken the pursuit of practical security.
One of the most glaring obstacles to peace is Israel’s lack of a coherent post-war strategy. While Netanyahu rejects any role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in governing post-conflict Gaza, he has offered no viable alternative. His current plan to maintain Israeli troop presence in “security corridors” effectively means permanent occupation, an idea that has already drawn international condemnation and is unlikely to secure long-term stability.
This strategic vacuum leaves Gaza in a suspended state: too devastated to rebuild, too unstable to govern, and too politically toxic for external actors to engage meaningfully. Without a legitimate, accepted governing body to replace Hamas, the notion of peace remains entirely academic.
Founded in the 1980s, Hamas is not just a militant outfit but a deeply rooted socio-political movement. Over 18 years of rule in Gaza, it has built extensive underground infrastructure, media networks, charities, and a loyal base, despite waning public support. While opinion polls show most Palestinians do not support Hamas, many continue to view armed resistance as the only viable path to statehood. Failed negotiations, endless settlements, and broken promises have discredited diplomacy in the eyes of many.
Hamas has offered to relinquish political control in Gaza in return for Israeli withdrawal but refuses to disarm. For them, this is not just political calculus, it is ideological defiance, grounded in the belief that peace with Israel equals surrender. Peace remains hostage to political interests. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is propped up by far-right parties that demand Hamas’s total defeat. If he agrees to a ceasefire without that condition, his coalition could collapse, potentially triggering elections that may end his 16-year political reign. Thus, Netanyahu’s political survival is now intertwined with the continuation of war.
Similarly, Hamas uses the conflict to reassert its legitimacy as the vanguard of Palestinian resistance, particularly against the backdrop of a weakened and discredited Palestinian Authority. Both parties benefit, politically, if not morally, from the prolongation of hostilities.
International condemnation has done little to shift realities on the ground. While countries like the U.S. publicly express concern over civilian casualties, they continue to arm and support Israel militarily and diplomatically. Meanwhile, powers like China and Russia condemn Israel's actions but offer little in terms of actionable diplomacy.
The current U.S. President Donald Trump has even floated the idea of relocating Gaza’s population, once a fringe right-wing fantasy, now dangerously close to policy under Netanyahu’s government. This has added a new layer of anxiety to an already volatile situation.
The United Nations, Arab League, and other multilateral platforms have failed to present enforceable peace mechanisms. Humanitarian aid is blocked or looted, and the people of Gaza remain collateral damage in a larger geopolitical game.
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The Gaza conflict is not simply a political or military confrontation, it is a clash of deeply embedded narratives, mutual distrust, and existential fears. Both Israel and Hamas are caught in zero-sum logics, one seeks unconditional security, the other demands unwavering resistance. What makes the conflict unmanageable is not just the absence of solutions, but the systemic refusal of both sides to even consider compromise. Until political leadership on either side shifts from ideological entrenchment to pragmatic diplomacy, peace will remain a mirage, receding further with every explosion, every funeral, every lost child.
Gaza has become the epitome of an unmanageable conflict, fuelled by rigid ideologies, failed leadership, and international inaction. Israel’s quest for total security and Hamas’s commitment to perpetual resistance have created a loop of destruction that traps civilians in endless suffering. Without a post-war vision, without a willingness to talk, and without a leadership committed to peace rather than political preservation, the hope of a resolution will remain out of reach. The world must confront an uncomfortable truth, peace in Gaza is not impossible because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of will.
