Three Years After October 7, Almost Everything Changed Except The Question
Three years after October 7, 2023, almost every part of the landscape has changed.
Gaza has been devastated by the Palestinian genocide. Palestine has gained recognition from major Western governments. The fighting spread into Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran, and eventually drew in the United States. Israel is approaching its first election since the attack amid deep political divisions, unresolved questions over the security failures that preceded it, and a reported US intelligence assessment warning about the country’s internal stability.
But the most striking fact three years later is this. Despite everything that changed, the fundamental Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.
What Did Israel Know Before October 7?
The debate increasingly reaches backward, into the weeks before the attack.
Israeli reporting alleges that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed warned Benjamin Netanyahu roughly ten days before October 7 that Hamas could be preparing a major operation, and that UAE intelligence separately warned Israel’s Shin Bet. Netanyahu has denied receiving the warning.
Separate testimony from Israeli soldiers concerns the cancellation of Gaza-border patrols during crucial hours that morning. It raises serious questions about operational decisions, but it does not by itself establish who authorised them, why, or that Israeli authorities deliberately permitted the attack.
The Palestinian Genocide That Followed
Hamas-led attackers killed around 1,200 people in Israel on October 7 and took 251 hostages.
Three years later, Gaza’s health ministry reports 74,228 Palestinians killed and 175,188 injured. A United Nations commission put the number of children killed at 20,179. Palestinian authorities give a higher figure of at least 21,000.
Around 60,000 children have lost one or both parents, and more than 26,000 women have been widowed.
Verum calls what followed October 7 the Palestinian genocide. Israel rejects the accusation and says its operations targeted Hamas. Whatever terminology governments choose, the physical transformation of Gaza is impossible to disguise. Reconstruction is estimated at around 70 billion dollars, and it has barely begun.
Up To 10,000 Palestinians Are Still Under The Rubble
Three years on, families are still digging.
Gaza’s civil defence estimates more than 8,000 bodies remain under the debris. United Nations figures have been cited at closer to 10,000. Raed al-Dahshan, who heads the service, says recovering them would take about 90 days with proper equipment, or years without it. Israel has restricted the entry of heavy machinery.
In September a twenty-day operation in the al-Taj area of al-Yarmouk, Gaza City, recovered the remains of 105 people from a residential block destroyed on 25 October 2023. Among those who came to collect their dead was Osama Sharaf, who lost 37 family members and recovered 16 of them that day, including his father, his mother and all of his siblings. Taghreed Al-Hanawi, who lost her daughter, her son-in-law and four grandchildren, said the wound had reopened but that she could finally bury them with dignity. Adham Heriz recovered his wife Hiam after three years. His seventeen-year-old son has still not been found.
93.5 Per Cent Of Gaza’s Cemeteries Have Been Destroyed
Then there is the question of where the dead go.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor examined records for all 62 cemeteries in the Gaza Strip. Thirty-nine were completely bulldozed and nineteen more partially destroyed. Four were left intact. Every cemetery in Rafah was destroyed.
A Ceasefire That Never Became Peace
October 2025 brought a ceasefire and eventually the return of the remaining Israeli hostages. It did not end Palestinian deaths.
More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began, an average of roughly four people a day across a year of so-called peace. Israel says its strikes have targeted Hamas and accuses the group of rearmament.
The deal also promised 600 aid trucks a day. An analysis of Israeli military figures found an average of 459 in the first two months. The United Nations own count for the same period was 113.
Reuters reports Israeli forces currently control 53 per cent of Gaza, including much of its farmland, Rafah and parts of Gaza City. Hamas has not disarmed. Israel has not withdrawn. Reconstruction remains stalled.
Palestine Became More Recognised As Its Territory Became More Threatened
Britain, France, Canada and Australia are among the Western states that have formally recognised Palestine since October 7.
Yet the diplomatic map and the physical map are moving in opposite directions. Settlement expansion and settler violence have intensified across the occupied West Bank. Commanders for Israel’s Security, representing roughly 600 former senior Israeli military, intelligence, police and diplomatic officials, warned that escalating settler violence and policies weakening the Palestinian Authority could produce consequences even more catastrophic than October 7.
Gaza Did Not Stay In Gaza
Hezbollah opened a front from Lebanon. The Houthis turned attacks on Red Sea shipping into an international security crisis. Israel escalated dramatically against Hezbollah. Bashar al-Assad’s government collapsed in Syria, although October 7 alone cannot reasonably explain his fall. And the confrontation between Israel and Iran moved from proxy warfare into direct military conflict, eventually drawing in the United States.
The regional order that existed on October 6, 2023 no longer exists in the same form.
Now The Crisis Is Inside Israel
Israel votes on October 27 in its first general election since the attack. October 7 remains central to the campaign, and Netanyahu has rejected personal responsibility for the failures that preceded it.
Polarisation has deepened. The exemption of many ultra-Orthodox Haredi men from military service has become bitterly contested after years of mobilisation. Prolonged fighting has strained the economy. The West Bank has become more volatile. Israel’s international position has deteriorated.
Drop Site News reported that a classified CIA Red Cell assessment titled “Fracture From Within” warns Israel could face civil conflict or state collapse if those pressures converge. Drop Site says two US sources described the document. It is not publicly available and Verum cannot authenticate it. But many of the pressures it describes are unfolding in public.
Three Years Later, What Was Actually Achieved?
October 7 did not begin the Palestinian story. Displacement, occupation, settlement expansion and Gaza’s blockade all existed before it.
What followed transformed the scale. Gaza was devastated and tens of thousands were killed. Every Israeli hostage has been returned. Palestine gained recognition from more of the world. Israel took control of over half of Gaza, became more isolated abroad and more divided at home. The fighting spread across the region and governments fell.
And still there is no Palestinian state, no permanent settlement, no completed reconstruction and no agreement over who governs Gaza.
Three years later the map changed, alliances changed and governments changed. The Palestinian question did not.
By Shizza Umer
Sources
Reuters: Israelis mark three years since the attack | Reuters: one year of Trump’s Gaza plan | Reuters: partition of Gaza a looming risk | Al Jazeera: remains of 105 people recovered in Gaza City | Al Jazeera: Gaza civil defence on recovering the de.d | Middle East Eye: 8,000 bodies remain under the rubble | Middle East Eye: a man recovers his wife’s remains after three years | Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: 93 per cent of Gaza’s cemeteries destroyed | Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: three years of genocide | UN OCHA: humanitarian situation report, 2 October 2026 | PBS NewsHour: aid deliveries fail to meet ceasefire terms | Times of Israel: UAE intelligence warned Shin Bet | Times of Israel: UAE leader warned Netanyahu | Drop Site News: the reported CIA “Fracture From Within” assessment | Commanders for Israel’s Security: escalating West Bank violence | Commanders for Israel’s Security: annexation and security | Palestinian Information Center: health ministry toll
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