Three Years of Gaza War Transformed World

Three years ago, as the dimensions of the Hamas attack on southern Israel were still becoming clear, I wrote in MoneyControl that the real surprise was not that an explosion had occurred, but where it had occurred.

For months before October 7, 2023, warning signs had been accumulating elsewhere: an extraordinary surge in settler violence in the occupied West Bank, repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, accelerating settlement construction and the arrival in government of some of the most uncompromising figures of Israel's religious right.

The assumption among many regional observers was that the next Palestinian explosion would come from the occupied West Bank, perhaps accompanied by unrest among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Instead, it burst through the fences surrounding Gaza and triggered a chain of events that continues to reorder the Middle East and international politics.

Few wars in the post-World War II period have transformed so many relationships and strategic calculations within three years.

What began on the Gaza-Israel frontier spread to Lebanon, Yemen and Syria before becoming part of a direct war involving Iran. It disrupted shipping through the Red Sea, pulled the United States back into a region Washington had hoped to deprioritize, stalled Saudi-Israeli normalization, disrupted India's ambitious plan for an economic corridor through Israel to Europe, and contributed to a search for new security arrangements in the Muslim world.

It has also brought about a profound change in Israel's international standing, particularly among younger Americans and Europeans, while putting Palestine back at the centre of a diplomatic agenda from which it had increasingly been excluded.

Some conclusions in my first assessment proved wrong or premature. Others look considerably more prescient three years later.

The central argument, however, has survived the test of these tumultuous years: it was never possible to construct a new Middle East by simply building around Palestine.

Ghost of 1973

There was a historical irony to October 7 that was apparent even on that first morning.

Amazingly, the attack took place at a time when Israeli strategists were discussing the 1973 Yom Kippur War on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. The Egyptian army in 1973 had surprised Israel by crossing the Suez Canal and breaking through Israeli positions in Sinai, destroying the country's illusion of invincibility that had taken hold after its overwhelming victory over Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Fifty years later, Israeli intelligence suffered another catastrophic surprise.

How Hamas managed to penetrate one of the world's most heavily monitored borders, circumvent sophisticated cameras, sensors, drones and communications surveillance, and evade the attention of Unit 8200 and the Shin Bet became one of the defining questions of October 7.

The parallel with 1973 became even more striking with time.

The significance of the 1973 war lay not merely in what happened on the battlefield. The shock eventually changed political calculations. It helped create conditions in which Egypt and Israel could move towards the Camp David process and ultimately their 1979 peace treaty.

October 7 also shattered assumptions, but three years later it has yet to produce a comparable political settlement.

Instead, it has generated a much larger regional convulsion.

Israelis themselves are still demanding an independent inquiry into how October 7 was allowed to happen, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to face criticism over responsibility for the security and intelligence failures. On the third anniversary, protesters again gathered in Jerusalem demanding accountability ahead of Israel's October 27 election.

Second Front Turns Regional War

My October 2023 report also cited contacts between Hamas leaders in Beirut and Hezbollah and raised the possibility that an Israeli invasion of Gaza could produce a second front.

That prediction materialized, although on a scale considerably greater than envisaged at the time.

Fighting across the Lebanese border developed into a major confrontation with Hezbollah. The Houthis in Yemen began attacking Red Sea shipping and firing missiles and drones towards Israel, linking the Gaza conflict to one of the world's most important maritime trade routes. Israel repeatedly struck Syria and Yemen.

Eventually, the long-running shadow conflict between Israel and Iran, previously conducted through assassinations, cyber operations, sabotage and proxy forces, became an overt war.

The United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28 this year, and the conflict has continued for more than six months, interrupted by periods of negotiation and renewed exchanges of fire. The Middle East that Washington hoped to stabilize sufficiently to reduce its military commitments instead became an interconnected battlefield stretching from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.

October 7 did not by itself cause every subsequent conflict. The Israeli-Iranian confrontation, the war in Yemen and the rivalries in Syria all predated 2023. But Gaza acted as an accelerator that connected conflicts that had previously operated on separate tracks.

In an assessment published immediately after the Hamas attack, I made a deliberately provocative argument:

"Everyone has won, but at the cost of Palestinian lives."

Three years later, that sentence deserves to be revisited rather than defended.

I argued first that Iran had gained because the Abraham Accords and the anticipated Saudi-Israel normalization process had been derailed.

The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco retained diplomatic relations with Israel. But the larger strategic project that Washington hoped would culminate in Saudi recognition of Israel was halted.

Riyadh now insists that normalization cannot proceed without a credible pathway towards Palestinian statehood, something the present Israeli government rejects.

Iran therefore achieved one immediate strategic objective without firing the opening shot: the prospect of a Saudi-Israeli breakthrough disappeared from the diplomatic calendar.

I had also argued that Russia would benefit because international attention would move from Ukraine to the Middle East.

Gaza competed with Ukraine for diplomatic attention, Western political bandwidth and, importantly, military resources.

But Russia did not receive the uncomplicated strategic windfall that the first assessment suggested. Ukraine remained a central European security issue, while instability in the Middle East created new uncertainties for Moscow as well.

The more important point was that the United States suddenly had to divide attention among Europe, the Indo-Pacific and an increasingly combustible Middle East.

The third proposition concerned Washington.

Before October 7, the United States hoped to stabilize the Middle East sufficiently to shift greater strategic attention and military resources towards the Indo-Pacific and the long-term competition with China.

Washington was drawn into protecting Red Sea shipping, defending Israel, responding to attacks against American interests, and eventually participating directly in war against Iran.

China did gain the strategic breathing space I had anticipated, but the larger consequence was that America's hoped-for disengagement from Middle Eastern crises became impossible.

Even America's traditional security architecture in the Gulf is now being questioned. Gulf governments are examining alternative and supplementary arrangements as doubts grow over the durability of the U.S.-centred security umbrella.

Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this altered strategic landscape is the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed on August 7 this year by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan.

Its central clause states that an armed attack against one of the three will be regarded as an attack against all. The three governments say the agreement is not directed against any country and builds on longstanding defence relationships, Islamic solidarity and common strategic interests.

Saudi-Pakistani defence cooperation is decades old, while Türkiye has long pursued greater strategic autonomy. The Iran war, the Yemen conflict and doubts about American security guarantees contributed directly.

Before October 7, one of Washington's principal regional objectives was to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel into a formal relationship. Three years later, Riyadh has instead entered a collective defence framework with Türkiye and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Analysts examining the pact have explicitly connected the changing security landscape to October 7, Gaza, subsequent Israeli operations in the region, the fall of the Assad government and Red Sea instability.

The alliance is already moving beyond paper commitments. Türkiye is now providing Saudi Arabia with technical and defensive assistance as Riyadh confronts Houthi attacks, including air-defence support, intelligence sharing and logistics.

That represents a very different regional architecture from the one being imagined in Washington before October 7.

India's Grand Corridor Collapse

For India, the timing was particularly extraordinary.

Barely four weeks before the Hamas attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had joined American, European, Saudi, Emirati and other leaders at the G20 summit in New Delhi to announce the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC.

New Delhi presented it with considerable fanfare as one of the great diplomatic achievements of its G20 presidency.

The concept was both economic and geopolitical. Indian goods would travel by sea to the Gulf, move by rail across the Arabian Peninsula towards Israel, and then travel from the Mediterranean to Europe.

Behind the railways and ports lay an enormous political assumption: Israel's integration into the Arab region had advanced far enough for India, the Gulf states, Israel, Europe and the United States to construct a common economic architecture.

October 7 arrived less than a month later. The Gaza war stalled Saudi-Israeli normalization, strained Jordan's relations with Israel, made the Israeli segment politically contentious and exposed the fundamental vulnerability in the project.

IMEC has not formally died, and its participants continue exploring alternate ways to develop connectivity. The grand political vision unveiled in New Delhi collapsed under the Gaza rubble.

Israel's Greatest Strategic Loss

The most profound long-term transformation may, however, be taking place thousands of kilometres from Gaza.

Israel entered the war with an extraordinary reservoir of political support in the United States. That reservoir has diminished substantially.

Polling over the past three years has shown Americans becoming markedly more critical of Israel's conduct in Gaza, with the shift particularly pronounced among younger voters.

This does not mean Israel has lost Washington. Military, diplomatic and congressional support remains formidable. But the political foundation beneath that relationship is changing.

A generation of Americans has watched Gaza not through the traditional prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict but through daily images of destroyed neighbourhoods, displaced families, hungry children and mass casualties.

Similar changes are visible across Europe, where public criticism has contributed to arms restrictions, diplomatic disputes and growing recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Israel remains militarily stronger than any neighbouring state, but military superiority has been accompanied by a significant erosion of the international legitimacy and public sympathy it enjoyed in much of the West.

The October 2025 ceasefire initially appeared to offer an exit from two years of devastation.

It secured the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners and allowed more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. But the agreement never became the comprehensive political settlement its sponsors envisaged.

A year later, Israel controls roughly two-thirds of Gaza, while Hamas remains armed in the territory it controls. Reconstruction has barely begun, and more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect. More than 1.2 million people continue to face acute hunger.

The transformation is also visible in the creation of President Donald Trump's Board of Peace.

Three years ago, the prevailing diplomatic project was about integrating Israel into the region while keeping the Palestinian issue contained. Today, an international organization with 28 member states exists specifically to oversee a framework for Gaza's governance, security transition, and reconstruction. Civil authority is envisaged under a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, while an International Stabilization Force is supposed to support security arrangements and an eventual Israeli withdrawal.

The question confronting international diplomacy in September 2023 was how to construct a regional order that bypassed Palestine. In October 2026, international diplomacy is struggling to devise an administrative, security, and reconstruction architecture for Gaza itself.

The political transformation has come at an almost unimaginable Palestinian cost.

Israeli genocide has killed 74,245 Palestinians and injured 175,267 others since October 7, 2023. Around 90 percent of the Strip's infrastructure has been destroyed, while the cost of reconstruction has been estimated at about $70 billion.

At least 10,000 Palestinians remain unaccounted for and are presumed buried beneath the rubble.

Satellite imagery shows the extraordinary physical transformation of the territory, with towns and neighbourhoods erased and much of the population living in tents or damaged structures.

For Palestinians, there is therefore a cruel historical paradox: Gaza has been physically destroyed at precisely the moment Palestine has returned to the centre of world politics.

The transformation can even be seen in the anniversary itself.

On October 7, 2023, international attention was understandably concentrated on the Hamas attack in which around 1,200 people were killed in Israel, and 251 were taken hostage.

Three years later, however, October 7 has acquired another meaning around the world.

From New York and London to Melbourne, Berlin, Ankara and Istanbul, the anniversary has also become an occasion to remember the Palestinians killed in Gaza and to demand an end to occupation, displacement and Israeli military attacks.

Türkiye organized Palestine solidarity activities across all 81 provinces. In Ankara, demonstrators marched between Kocatepe and Melike Hatun mosques, while Istanbul began five days of Palestine Solidarity Days at Üsküdar Square.

In London, students marched through the city chanting "Free Palestine." Melbourne saw a day-long Palestinian vigil. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Palestinian suffering neither began nor ended on October 7 and described Israel's assault on Gaza as genocide.

Inside Israel, meanwhile, the anniversary has become inseparable from demands for accountability over the intelligence and political failures that preceded the Hamas assault.

The same date therefore carries radically different memories, but all of them testify to the reach of a conflict that long ago ceased to be confined to Gaza.

So, Who Actually Won?

The cost to Palestinians exceeded anything imaginable in October 2023.

But there are few convincing winners.

Iran initially benefited from the collapse of Saudi-Israeli normalization but eventually found itself in direct war with Israel and the United States.

Russia benefited when Western attention and resources were divided, but the Middle East became another source of global instability rather than an uncomplicated strategic gift.

China gained some breathing space from America's renewed Middle Eastern commitments, but instability along crucial energy and trading routes hardly represents an unqualified advantage for Beijing.

The United States demonstrated its ability to defend Israel and project overwhelming military power, yet found itself dragged back into precisely the region from which it had hoped gradually to disengage.

India's vision of linking itself to Europe through a normalized Arab-Israeli Middle East ran into the political reality of Palestine.

Israel destroyed much of Hamas's military infrastructure and demonstrated enormous military reach from Gaza to Iran, but it also suffered the greatest intelligence failure in its history, became embroiled in a prolonged multi-front conflict and saw its international standing deteriorate, including in the United States and Europe.

Three years later, therefore, I would rewrite that original conclusion.

Almost everyone believed in October 2023 that the crisis might create some strategic advantage for them. Instead, nearly every major actor has paid a price, while Palestinians have paid incomparably the greatest one.

Before October 7, Washington hoped to reduce its Middle Eastern commitments. Israel expected normalization with Saudi Arabia. India celebrated an economic corridor running through a newly integrated Middle East. Israeli leaders believed military superiority could contain Gaza while settlement expansion continued in the occupied West Bank.

Three years later, America is again militarily entangled in the region, Israel and Iran have fought directly, Saudi Arabia has entered a collective defence arrangement with Türkiye and Pakistan, IMEC remains stalled, Gaza requires an international Board of Peace merely to contemplate reconstruction, and Israel's standing has fallen sharply across important sections of Western public opinion.

The world before October 7 was trying to design a Middle East in which Palestine could be treated as an unresolved but manageable problem on the margins.

Three years of war have demonstrated how badly that assumption underestimated the centrality of the Palestinian question.

The Palestinians were never outside the architecture of the Middle East. Their unresolved dispossession, occupation and statelessness were embedded within it, and the attempt to construct a new regional order without addressing them eventually shook the entire structure.