Here are a few words about what transpired here from the perspective of an Israeli, my perspective

Today, after two grueling years of a brutal war that exacted unimaginable costs from Israel in every area of life, the fighting has ceased. The war—whose end, in terms of how, when, or if it would ever come, was once unimaginable—has concluded: the final 20 living hostages have been returned to Israel, an agreement was secured for the return of the bodies of the murdered captives, and the hostilities have stopped.

Today, two years after Israel launched this war following the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the nation can finally begin to lift its head above the waves and the storm clouds. It can now start to contemplate the path forward for its long, and very challenging, journey of recovery.

Here are a few words about what transpired here from the perspective of an Israeli, my perspective:

After October 7th, after Hamas finished its rampage of butchery, murder, slaughter, kidnapping, torture, and devastation against infants, children, women, men, the elderly, and the very old—after all this, the bill was presented to Israel: the catastrophic price Israel paid (and is still paying) for fighting a terrorist organization that hides behind civilians and derives immense profit from the killing of those very residents of Gaza.

Fighting a terrorist organization that dug hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, equipped, armed, trained, and built its army for years, and crucially: deeply embedded itself within the civilian population—such a fight is brutal for all sides, and especially for the civilian population in whose territory the fighting takes place.

As Israelis, we have always known the insane price that would be exacted to us if we were forced to truly fight Hamas. The first price is the number of casualties and injured among Israeli soldiers. The second price is the global delegitimization: international ostracization and condemnation, boycotts, economic damage for decades to come, the eradication of tourism, harm to trade, import, and export, immense damage to academic ties, research, and investments in Israel, a massive blow to our image, and the fear of walking around the world as an Israeli.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 (20 years ago!) and left the governing authority in the strip to the Palestinian Authority. In June 2007, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody internal Palestinian conflict between Fatah and Hamas. Since then, for over 18 years, Israel did everything in its power to avoid a full-scale war with Hamas. Every few years, when Hamas's provocation crossed a critical line, there was a round of violence, typically involving limited strikes, rockets fired into Israeli territory, and fire from aircraft into Gaza.

Israel even transferred funds to Hamas in Gaza to prolong the relative calm, and turned a blind eye to Hamas's rearmament and buildup. No one in Israel wanted to go to war in Gaza unless it was absolutely, unequivocally clear that there was no alternative. Israeli public opinion could not tolerate the slightest suspicion that such a war could have been avoided, precisely because every Israeli understood the immense price the country itself would pay.

In retrospect—and hindsight always offers clarity—Israel arguably should have been less forbearing and launched a war to eliminate Hamas many years ago. As time passed and Israel sought every means to avoid a war, Hamas only grew, strengthened, and armed itself, with one singular, unwavering purpose. That purpose has always been singular and will always be singular as long as Hamas exists: the annihilation of the State of Israel. That clear. That simple.

Fighting a terrorist organization embedded within a civilian population is horrific and inevitably creates humanitarian catastrophes. Israel has managed, unfortunately due to many years of operational experience, to inflict the lowest number of civilian casualties compared to any other country that has fought a terrorist organization similarly embedded. Israel has never starved a population, never withheld water, or prevented civilians from leaving a combat zone. And let me be perfectly clear: Israel has never committed genocide. Never!

It is difficult for me to convey to a citizen in a Western country the feeling over the last two years of traveling the world and presenting an Israeli passport. It is a feeling of an outcast, a leper, a murderer, a Nazi. And there is no way to explain that the horrific images from Gaza, broadcast 24/7, are Hamas’s goal. Israel does not want to kill civilians, children, women, and men in Gaza; it is inhumane, terrible, a catastrophe, and Israel pays an immediate price for it. We are neither sadistic nor masochistic. If there is one person in the world who can suggest how to fight a terrorist organization that slaughters, murders, burns, rapes, and kidnaps you in a more humane way—we would be very happy to hear it and implement it immediately.

The suffering of the residents of Gaza is Hamas's objective. It is the tool it uses to prevent Israel from fighting it. It does everything in its power to increase the number of Gazan casualties. Hamas prevents residents from leaving combat zones (using force, violence, and threats of being shot). Hamas loots the food trucks entering the Strip and sells the supplies at exorbitant prices to Gaza residents to fund its continued fighting against Israel. Hamas is a murderous, brutal terrorist organization with one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel. And for that, as far as it is concerned, all means are legitimate, especially the sacrifice of the lives of the residents of Gaza. This is the most readily available and most effective tool Hamas has in its hands.

We know that those who do not live here, who are nourished by the media, and whose knowledge of the conflict between Israel and Hamas amounts to a sentence and a half (try to consider what you really know about the conflict), will form a clear response against Israel.

Above that, Israel has made every possible mistake in the way it has explained itself to the world. There are also (very) foolish people in the Israeli leadership who damage Israel's image every time they open their mouths. The current government in Israel, in my opinion, is a bad government: too religious, too right-wing, too populist, too shallow, too foolish. But the war in Gaza after October 7th is not a matter of political opinion, not of right or left, nor of liberals and conservatives. The war in Gaza after October 7th is in the absolute Israeli consensus, because we know this is a war of no choice, despite the colossal price we, as Israelis, are paying in every area of life and on every scale because of this war. As absurd as it is—that is the painful reality.