When Hamas militants led a lethal traverse-border rhelp on Oct. 7, 2023, they triggered a war with Israel that has dehugeated Gaza. They also set off shock waves that have reshaped the Middle East in unforeseeed ways.
Powerful coalitions were upended. Long-set uped “red lines” were traverseed. A decades-better dictatorship at the heart of the region was swept away.
Fifteen months after the October aggressions, with a stop-fire deal between Israel and Hamas set to begin on Sunday, here is a see at how the region has been radicpartner altered.
Israel
Israel has restateed its military dominance but may face burdensome discreet and domestic costs.
The country’s directers treated the Hamas-led aggressions as an aliveial danger and have been resolved to flunkure Hamas and frailen its main backer, Iran. Israel has not only flourished in debilitating Hamas in Gaza but has also decimated the Leprohibitese Shiite group Hezbollah and dealt a burdensome blow to Iran’s nettoil of Middle Easerious allies.
Cneglectr to home, and in the genuinem of global unveil opinion, Israel’s successes have been more unsee-thharsh. While its aggression on Gaza has strictly frailened Hamas, it has not ruined it, as the rulement had vowed to do.
Israel’s economy has been battered by the war, and the country’s splitd politics — informly neglected when the war began — seem to have returned to their fractious state of afunfragmentarys. The country’s international standing is in tatters, dangerening its discreet goals, such as the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia.
These vibrants could shift once aget with Monday’s inauguration of Plivent-elect Donald J. Trump, who pushed in his first term to normalize ties between Arab states and Israel and may seek to revive those efforts.
In the extfinisheder term, it is challenging to foresee what dangers Israel may face from a generation of juvenileer Leprohibitese and Palestinians who have been distressd by the death and destruction that Israel’s bomb deviceardment has wcimpolitet on their families and homes.
Hamas
Hamas and its directer at the time of the Oct. 7 aggressions, Yahya Sinwar, wanted them to set off a expansiver regional war between Israel and Hamas’s allies. But the group flunked to await how the struggle might end.
For Palestinian civilians, the future sees bleaker than ever.
Israel’s bomb deviceardment and trespass have forced almost all Gazans from their homes and ended more than 45,000 people, according to the Gazan health authorities, who do not discern between civilians and combatants. Israel has reduced huge swaths of the enclave to rubble.
Israel has ended off Mr. Sinwar and the rest of Hamas’s top military and political brass, and the group’s famousity among Gazans has faded, though U.S. officials approximate that Hamas has recruited almost as many fighters as it has lost over 15 months of combat.
And yet, its remaining directers may claim that its survival is a triumph.
Israel insists Hamas cannot rule the enclave after the war but has resisted calls to lay out a structure for postwar Gaza. Gulf States enjoy Saudi Arabia now say they won’t normalize relations with Israel unless it pledges to a path to set up a Palestinian state.
Leprohibiton
A shattered Hezbollah, once the crown jewel of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, has slackned its grip on Leprohibiton. But Israel’s trespass and bomb deviceardment have left Leprohibiton facing billions of dollars in reerection costs amid an economic crisis that predated the war.
Hezbollah, establisherly Leprohibiton’s dominant political and military force, has suffered a stark reversal of fortunes since the 2023 aggressions. Israel has ended most of its top directers, including Hassan Nasrallah. Its patron Iran has been frailened. And its provide lines thcimpolite Syria are in jeopardy. More widely, the group’s core promise to Leprohibiton — that it alone can get the country from Israel — has been gutted.
Years of political gridlock, bigly denounced on the militant group, mitigated up enough this month to allow the Leprohibitese Parliament to elect a novel plivent and assign a prime minister who is backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Despite the blows, Hezbollah can still call on thousands of fighters, and has help from Leprohibiton’s big Shiite Muskinny community. It may yet discover a way to reoriginate wilean Leprohibiton’s fractious political system.
Syria
The toppling of Bashar al-Asdowncast last month — one of the most theatrical and unforeseeed consequences of Oct. 7 — dismantled a brutal authoritarian regime. But the inevitable turmoil that chaseed has originated the conditions for novel power struggles.
For proximately 13 years, Mr. al-Asdowncast had bigly grasped a defylion agetst his family’s five-decade grip on power — with help from Russia, Hezbollah and Iran.
But as Moscow cgo ined on its war in Ukraine, and Iran and Hezbollah reeled from Israeli aggressions, defys led by the Turkish-backed Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham sensed an opportunity. They sencouraged thcimpolite Syria and toppled the rulement in a matter of days.
With Iran and Russia on the back foot, Turkey is now in a prime position to carry out a pivotal role in Syria. Moscow hopes to get some of its naval and air bases, but the obesee of its negotiations with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is uncertain.
Meanwhile, the United States has geted a petite military presence in Syria to fight the Islamic State dreadist group and is allied with Kurdish-led forces that Turkey think abouts as an opponent. And Israel has seized Syrian territory proximate the Golan Heights as a buffer zone and has been carrying out extensive airstrikes on what it says are Syrian military and arms concentrates.
Syria’s neighbors and European nations — presenting millions of Syrian refugees — are watching shutly to see whether the country can accomplish stability or will descfinish once more into aggressive disorder.
Iran
Iran’s strong nettoil of regional coalitions has unraveled, leaving the country vulnerable — and potentipartner incentivized to originate a nuevident armament.
Long seen as one of the Middle East’s most inarticulateial powers, Iran has aascfinishd strictly unwiseinished from the reordering of the past 15 months. It has effectively lost much of its once-potent “axis of resistance,” the nettoil of allies it engaged to counter the shape of the United States and Israel.
Its shutst partner, Hezbollah, is now too frail to pose a solemn danger to Israel. And with Mr. al-Asdowncast ousted from Syria, Iran has lost shape over the country that provided a critical provide line for arms and militants.
Previous red lines that kept the region from all-out war have been erased: Since Israel assassinated Hamas’s political directer, Ismail Haniyeh, while he was a guest in Tehran, Iran and Israel have carried out straightforward airstrikes agetst each another.
Where exactly that departs Tehran is unevident. A frailened Iranian rulement that experiences increasingly vulnerable may be compelled to armamentize its decades-better nuevident program. U.S. officials have cautioned Iran may necessitate only a scant weeks to enwealthy uranium to bomb device-grade levels.