Gad Yishayahu
Ultimately, the war has shredded more than a few assumptions about Israeli strategic and military limitations.
Exactly twenty-four months after the October 7 massacre that ignited the October 7 War, the first stage of President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan has taken effect. Under the US brokered deal, Hamas began releasing the last group of Israeli hostages, twenty alive and twenty-eight bodies (so far, fifteen returned), in exchange for 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, alongside commitments toward Gaza’s demilitarization and technocratic governance. The ceasefire, while fragile and dogged by disputes over the return of the remains of deceased Israeli hostages, still looks like it will hold.
Following the back-to-back speeches of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, this moment feels less like the end of a war than the beginning of a new strategic chapter. It is, therefore, an apt time to reflect on the paradigms that have collapsed and those that continue to define the region’s strategic and political trajectory.
For decades, Israel’s own military doctrine, echoed by outside analysts, rested on the belief that survival depended on swift, decisive campaigns designed to restore deterrence and avoid prolonged entanglement. From the Sinai campaign of 1956 and the Six-Day War of 1967 to Lebanon (1982, 2006) and Gaza (2008, 2012, 2014), Israel’s strategic ethos prized speed, initiative, and overwhelming force. The October 7 War shattered that assumption. Over twenty-four months of sustained combat, Israel demonstrated an unexpected capacity for prolonged warfare politically, economically, and psychologically. The public, long accustomed to brief campaigns, absorbed heavy losses without withholding support from the government, while the state maintained operations across multiple fronts.
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