For the first time since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, every surviving hostage is home to mourn alongside the families who lost people that day. And yet the war it started is still going, in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, and across a Gulf region where the United States and Iran are now trading blows. That is the grim math of year three: the hostages are out, and nobody has figured out how to get everyone else out of the war.
Three Years, 1,200 Dead, 251 Taken
The Associated Press, via NPR, reports that Israelis gathered Wednesday to commemorate the attack that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters, and the site of the Nova music festival, which Hamas-led militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel in its history.
This is the first anniversary that all the hostages are home. AP describes it as a new stage of grief, which is a polite way of saying that the thing everyone was demanding for two years has now happened and the sorrow did not go anywhere.
738 Days Underground
Elkana Bohbot, 37, is marking the date in Israel for the first time. AP reports he was abducted from the Nova festival and spent 738 days in captivity, most of it about 50 meters underground in a dark, damp tunnel. He was kept in a small cell with other hostages, given very little food, and allowed to bathe only every few weeks.
His captors also forced him to take part in propaganda videos, including one where he acted out a fake call to his family. Read that again. They staged a phone call to his family and filmed it.
Eleven months after his release, he has written a book, started a speaking career, and celebrated the holidays and birthdays he missed. In August his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter named Michele, fulfilling a promise he made to himself in the tunnels to give his 5-year-old son a sibling. It is about the only unambiguously good news in this entire story, and it deserves to sit there by itself for a second.
Gaza Gets No Memorial, Just the Rubble
No events are expected in Gaza on Wednesday, according to AP. The offensive has displaced around 90% of the population, often multiple times, and most of the roughly 2 million residents live in vast, squalid tent camps. Large parts of the strip's cities have been reduced to rubble.
The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, with around half of them women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and does not distinguish between civilians and militants, but AP notes that U.N. agencies and independent experts generally consider its numbers reliable. Restrictions on goods and aid have contributed to a severe hunger crisis.
More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military.
A Ceasefire Where People Keep Dying
A ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10 of last year and halted the heaviest fighting. Israeli strikes have continued almost daily anyway, targeting what Israel says are Hamas militants. According to the ministry, 1,145 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began. Seven Israeli soldiers have died in the same period.
So that is a ceasefire in the sense that a leaky boat is a dry dock. The big explosions slowed down. The dying did not stop.
And the Palestinian goal that Hamas invoked to justify the attack, an independent state, looks more distant than ever, per AP. Hamas framed Oct. 7 as a response to decades of occupation, land seizures, and settlement construction. Three years later, the occupation is deeper and the land is smaller.
The Region Caught Fire
The ripple effects are staggering when you list them out. Per AP, Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with Hezbollah, with more than 300,000 Lebanese still displaced. Israel has also seized swaths of territory in Syria.
The United States joined Israel in attacking Iran's military and nuclear program in two rounds, and AP reports that Iran and the U.S. are now locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Arab Gulf countries and has shaken the global economy. AP notes that Israel helped launch that conflict and that the Gaza war paved the way for it, even if they were not directly connected.
Meanwhile, violence has risen across the occupied West Bank, where AP says Israel's far-right government has emboldened extremist settlers who attack Palestinians and destroy their property.
Two Memorials and an Election
Even the grieving is split. AP reports that the government's official memorial services took place on Oct. 5, closer to the Hebrew-calendar anniversary, while families and communities gathered separately on Wednesday. The two sets of commemorations reflect deep divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war.
The biggest sore point is his reluctance to launch an official inquiry into the failures of that day. A contentious election at the end of the month hangs over the anniversary. Three years after the worst security failure in the country's history, there is still no formal accounting of how it happened.
The Dingo Take
In 1914, nobody in Europe wanted a continental war, and then a chain of alliances, ultimatums, and mobilization schedules took the decision out of everyone's hands. Oct. 7 was a different kind of spark, an atrocity rather than an assassination, but the pattern rhymes. One event, followed by a cascade nobody can stop, until the original reason is a footnote and the fighting has a life of its own. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, the global economy. Everyone has a reason, and the reasons keep multiplying.
Here is what should make you furious. A mass-casualty attack happened on Netanyahu's watch, and three years later he still resists an official inquiry into what went wrong. The families who buried their dead had to hold their own memorial on a different day from the government's. Leaders who will not account for failure are leaders who will keep repeating it, and the people paying for it are on every side of the border. Israelis mourning at a festival site. Palestinians in tent camps. Lebanese families who still cannot go home.
The hostages are home, and that matters enormously. Elkana Bohbot got to hold his daughter. But getting everyone out of the tunnels was the easy part compared with getting a region out of the war. Nobody in power seems to be in a hurry to try.
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