Today is October 7, 2026, marking three years since a defining event that changed, and this is no exaggeration, the course of policies across the entire region.
On April 30, 2022, Yahya Sinwar, then head of Hamas's political bureau in the Gaza Strip, emerged to warn Israel and the world of a “regional religious war.”
On October 7, 2023, his men carried out their famous attack, which resulted in many changes in Palestine, to Palestine, and around Palestine, inside and outside Palestine. Before that, as a report by this newspaper documented, Sinwar said in December 2022 to the Israelis: “We will come at you with a raging flood... We will come at you with missiles without count... We will come at you with a limitless flood of soldiers... We will come at you with millions from our nation, wave after wave.”
On October 16, in the same month when it all began, as if October were synonymous with Sinwar's name, Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in a visual scene that will not fade from memory. The question is, after the horrific destruction and terrible killing that befell Gaza, stone and people alike, what was the benefit?!
Some, Palestinians and others, say that we brought the “cause” back to the center of global attention. How did the cause benefit “practically” from this attention?!
Is the Board of Peace established by Trump in Gaza an expression of this attention?! Or the demonstrations and comments by some Westerners against Israel?!
Perhaps... but in the face of the terrible losses and tragedies that befell Gaza and its people, I think the price was small and the pain immense.
A Palestinian source living abroad told this newspaper about the position of Sinwar's “brothers” within Hamas toward the operation after some time: “Support within Hamas was only official at the formal level, but some criticism was occasionally expressed in private meetings among some leaders at different levels.” However, he said, these were procedural, superficial criticisms, not criticisms of the substance of Sinwar's flood.
Palestinian political analyst Mustafa Ibrahim, who lives in Gaza, also told this newspaper about popular criticism of Sinwar and anger over his decision, which he made without sufficient consideration. This was compounded by what the residents of the Strip experienced and by the loss of their homes and possessions. He says that “Palestinians or others outside the Gaza Strip may support what Sinwar did because they simply did not experience the same circumstances of destruction, killing, displacement, and so on.”
Outside Palestine, what did the regional camp to which Hamas belongs gain?! The Resistance Axis led by Iran, as it is described.
I think the answer is clear in Iran itself, Lebanon, and Iraq, and now Yemen, not to mention Syria under Assad, which has completely left this camp.
These words are merely light taps on the large keyboard of the morning of October 7. Otherwise, tracing, scattering, and then gathering these taps and notes would require the stamina and perseverance of an experienced maestro.
