Two Years of Big Negative Hole - Can A Solution and Peace Return At last

This week saw the two-year anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas militants and the start of prolonged response action from Israel. It has been a nightmare for Palestinians in simple terms and one of the deadly destructions the modern world has seen. The war reminds of two things – 1. Anything positive in the world will be accompanied by negative outcomes as well 2. We need to live with empathy to spread peace and lessen the suffering of the unfortunate people caught in the war. These two factors are the urgent necessities to work upon. For we never know when the negative aura will spread on our own country and we never know when our own countrymen will suffer endlessly. The war on Gaza is one of the biggest negative holes of our times. It simply tells that anything that is extremely good on the surface has hidden dangers beneath it. It tells that construction follows destruction, rise and rise follows fall and fall, positivity in the world will be overshadowed by extreme negativity as well. If you think something is extremely good for the country, the very factor will become opposite and bring negative results upon us. Just like when you think something is extremely good for the world, the very next moment, it might cast a lethal spell. The scare is if this negativity spreads all across and the seemingly good countries basking in extremely good times will turn into wreckage. The scare is when the so-called good men, positive influencers of today will turn lethal tomorrow. This war tells we should responsibly act to avert another negative consequence in the world by treating the wound at its root. It should be our resolve such a bad state shall not pass in our times and the times far after us. Peace and cordial talks, relationships should be our mainstay in this broken, divided world to arrest any negativity from taking gigantic shape. 

It is still a big puzzle why war on Gaza happened in our times. Isn’t it our collective failure to see someone else suffer. Does our empathy to other people suffering die down so badly that we are seeing millions agonize in this highly connected world. Isn’t it a shame on our rationale, a shame on our moral conscience and a shame on every right-thinking global citizen of this small world village to let this pass in our times. The barbaric act of invasion by Hamas without any foresight and the subsequent devastation is utterly incomprehensible in an otherwise sane world living in better times. After two years, we should hope peace falls upon the land and rapid restoration, recovery take place. But for that to happen there has to be complete peace as envisaged by one and all and brokered by great President of US. Let us collectively heal the wounds of Israel and Palestina and put the negative forces in the world on check. I would devote this blog post to the finer details of this unimaginable tragedy and how this should be a big lesson in preventing, averting such acts of violence. 

What led to the terror attack is a question to ponder. The answer lies in caging and creating a blockade for Gaza without any commitments on Palestinian statehood. It has been a volcano that has accumulated over a long period and erupted at last. For over 16 years before October 7, Gaza was under a near-total blockade by Israel and Egypt. The population — about two million people, half of them children — lived with little access to clean water, reliable electricity, or movement across borders. Unemployment exceeded 50%, and despair was systemic. To Hamas, which controls Gaza, this situation was untenable and humiliating — both a political failure and an existential cage. 

Repeated flare-ups (2014, 2021) had not changed the status quo. By 2023, negotiations toward Palestinian statehood had all but died. For Hamas, launching a large-scale assault was seen internally as breaking the deadlock — violently forcing the Palestinian question back onto the world’s table. 

Hamas leaders declared that the October 7 attack was in retaliation for Israeli actions in Jerusalem, particularly at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and for decades of occupation and displacement. But beyond the rhetoric, the timing was strategic: 

1. Israel was politically divided in 2023 over judicial reforms and internal protest. 

2. Regional normalization was accelerating — Israel was nearing a Saudi peace deal, which Hamas and its backers feared would leave Palestinians sidelined. 

The attack thus sought to derail normalization, unite the Arab street around the Palestinian cause, and reassert Hamas’s relevance amid growing Palestinian disillusionment with both local leaderships and global diplomacy. Thus the attack on Israel unfolded on the October 7, 2023 by Hamas  — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and the start of one of the most devastating wars in modern memory as a product of a convergence of political, territorial, psychological, historical, and negative forces of the world. 

This was not just a military operation; it was the eruption of decades of humiliation, control, and helplessness turned outward in fury. But these same forces — fear, hatred, vengeance — exist on both sides. They feed each other, forming a self-sustaining cycle where every atrocity justifies another. 

There are also geopolitical negative forces: external actors — Iran, regional militias, arms suppliers, and global powers — that benefit from instability. The Middle East’s conflicts often become proxy theaters for broader power struggles. These influences amplify the local anger into large-scale catastrophe. 

Israel’s reaction after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack was swift, overwhelming, and driven by deep national trauma. The assault — in which Hamas militants killed over 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages — shattered Israel’s sense of security and unity. Within hours, the government declared a state of war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “eradicate Hamas,” calling the attack “Israel’s 9/11.” 

What followed was the largest military campaign in Israel’s history: relentless airstrikes, a ground invasion of Gaza, and a total siege cutting off water, fuel, and electricity. The goal was to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, though the human cost quickly drew global condemnation. Israeli forces targeted command centers, tunnels, and weapons depots, but civilian casualties mounted dramatically. 

Inside Israel, grief and fury unified a fractured society. Families mourned their dead and pleaded for the return of hostages, while soldiers mobilized en masse. The war revived feelings of existential peril and collective vengeance — a nation wounded, determined to ensure such horror never happens again. Yet as months passed, the moral burden of destruction and the images from Gaza left Israel struggling between justice, survival, and the haunting question of what victory truly means. 

Two years after the October 7, 2023 attacks that reopened this brutal war, the human cost is staggering in Gaza: tens of thousands dead, many more wounded, and entire communities erased. Palestinian health authorities and independent counts place the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza at over 67,000 people — a huge share of them children — while Israel has also suffered large numbers of dead, wounded and dozens of hostages still held. 67000 killed in just two years of complete annihilation is a dangerous sign of the times. 

Whole neighborhoods and towns in Gaza have been turned to rubble. Humanitarian and media surveys report that hundreds of thousands of buildings — homes, apartment blocks and commercial structures — were damaged or destroyed; dozens of hospitals and hundreds of schools were hit or rendered unusable, leaving basic services collapsed across the territory. Large parts of the built environment are uninhabitable and will require years of reconstruction. 

The economic and physical damage is enormous and measurable: rapid assessments by international institutions estimate widespread destruction of infrastructure (water, sanitation, electricity), markets and agricultural capacity, and warn of crippling long-term losses to Gaza’s economy and public services. The World Bank’s interim damage assessments documented intense damage to health and WASH systems and projected large reconstruction needs running into the billions. 

Displacement has been nearly universal. UN agencies report that roughly 1.9 million people — nearly the entire population of Gaza — have been displaced at some point, many repeatedly, living in overcrowded shelters, informal sites, or pushed into the smallest remaining pockets of habitable land. That mass displacement has produced cascading crises: shelter shortages, disease outbreaks, sharply increased child malnutrition, disruption of education, and huge psychosocial trauma. 

Beyond direct blast and blast-related deaths, indirect fatalities have risen because hospitals and supply lines were disrupted, clean water became scarce, and food and medicine were blocked or delayed. Studies and humanitarian agencies warn that official tallies likely undercount the true toll: collapse of health systems, missing bodies under rubble, and deaths from famine and preventable disease mean the real lethal impact is higher than initial figures show. 

Beyond direct blast and blast-related deaths, indirect fatalities have risen because hospitals and supply lines were disrupted, clean water became scarce, and food and medicine were blocked or delayed. Studies and humanitarian agencies warn that official tallies likely undercount the true toll: collapse of health systems, missing bodies under rubble, and deaths from famine and preventable disease mean the real lethal impact is higher than initial figures show.  

The humanitarian response itself has been obstructed and strained. Repeated access problems, insecurity at distribution points, and damage to logistics hubs limited aid delivery during peak phases of the fighting. Where aid did arrive, shortages of fuel, medical supplies and cold-chain capabilities meant clinics and lifesaving services could not operate at needed scale. The result has been preventable suffering — mothers and children deprived of basic nutrition and care, dialysis and emergency surgeries delayed, and routine vaccination campaigns interrupted.  

Cultural and environmental losses compound the human tragedy. Historic sites, community institutions and cultural life have been devastated; agricultural land and fisheries were heavily impacted, and unexploded ordnance and rubble will pose contamination risks for years. The war’s damage is therefore not only physical and economic but also social and intergenerational — a lost education, traumatized childhoods, and the erasure of family records and communal memory.  

Two years on, the maps are marked by absences: empty schools, collapsed hospitals, vacant neighborhoods, and the unfinished graves of civilian life. Rebuilding will demand sustained political breakthroughs, enormous funding, safe and unfettered humanitarian access, and long-term commitments to restore services, clear rubble and address trauma. Without that, the wreckage will calcify into a permanent scar — a generation carrying loss, interrupted education, and the economic wreckage of livelihoods extinguished overnight. 

Across both societies, a shared human exhaustion has set in—an emotional crater deeper than the physical ruins. Cemeteries overflow, schools stand empty, and generations have been robbed of their future. The world watches, often powerless, as each passing month deepens the “negative hole”—a void where homes, hope, and humanity once stood. 

After nearly two years of relentless bloodshed, a U.S.-brokered peace deal has finally brought the guns in Gaza to silence. Announced on October 9, 2025, and mediated through Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, the agreement was spearheaded by Washington under former President Donald Trump’s revived peace initiative. The plan, endorsed by Israel and Hamas, establishes a multi-phase ceasefire, beginning with the release of Israeli hostages and the exchange of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces have begun a partial withdrawal from several parts of Gaza, while large convoys of humanitarian aid have started entering the enclave for the first time in months. 

For the first time in years, no major attacks have been reported in Gaza or southern Israel for more than forty-eight hours — a fragile but significant calm. Both sides claim cautious victory, while U.S. officials describe it as “the first real step toward ending the Gaza war.” Challenges remain — including Hamas’s disarmament, Gaza’s future governance, and political fractures within Israel — yet a deep sense of weary hope lingers. After two years of ruin, a door, however fragile, has opened toward peace. 

Let the world now answer Gaza’s silence with deep empathy and compassion, nurture the fragile return of peace and dignity, and, with collective courage, weed out the dark forces of hatred and pride to turn a wounded land into a graveyard of hope.