On anniversary of Israel-Hamas war, fears of wider conflict are closer to reality

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden made no effort to hide his anger after Hamas stormed southern Israel last October, slaughtering 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage in a brazen, early morning attack.

“There are moments in this life – and I mean this literally – when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” Biden said from the White House State Dining Room, three days after the deadly rampage on Oct. 7, 2023.

“This,” he said of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, “was an act of sheer evil.”

One year later, no end is in sight to the bloody war triggered by the attacks, despite U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and hostage-release deal. In fact, long-held fears by Biden and other Western leaders that the conflict could spark a wider war in the Middle East seem dangerously close to reality.

Just last week, the conflict appeared to enter a grim new phase when Iran staged a massive missile attack on Israel following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. Israel has promised to retaliate, further raising fears that what started as a regional conflict will engulf the Middle East.

For Biden, already facing political challenges at home amid a contentious presidential election in which his vice president is seeking to succeed him, the Israel-Hamas war has been particularly troublesome. It has strained U.S. relations with Israel, tested his influence on the world stage, and his administration has been hit with a torrent of criticism over whether it has done enough – or too much – in standing alongside Israel.

The outcry over Biden’s handling of the war eroded his political support among Arab-Americans and progressives, a key voting bloc for any Democrat hoping to win a second term, just as this year’s election was kicking off in earnest. Biden’s unpopularity, along with questions about whether he was physically and mentally healthy enough to serve a second term, raised serious doubts about whether he could defeat former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November.

Bowing to pressure, Biden ended his re-election campaign in July. Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in to become the Democratic nominee and, potentially, Biden’s successor.

Now a lame duck, Biden enters his final three months as president with the sobering reality that the war will almost certainly be raging even after he leaves office – and that the burden of seeing it through will fall to either Harris or Trump.

'We will not stand by and do nothing'

Eleven days after Hamas crossed the border into Israel and began their brazen assault, Biden boarded Air Force One and made a hastily arranged trip to Tel Aviv.

His message to the Israelis and the world: The United States stands with the Jewish state.

Arriving at the Ben-Gurion International Airport, Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a show of solidarity. Later, in remarks to reporters, he compared the Hamas attack to the brutality of the Holocaust.

"The world watched then and knew, and the world did nothing," he said. "We will not stand by and do nothing again.”

Over the coming months, the Biden administration would send billions of dollars in weapons and military equipment to Israel even as it feared the conflict in the Gaza Strip would spread. Fighter jets, surface-to-air missiles, tank ammunition, high explosive mortars, tactical vehicles – a wide range of U.S.-made weapons were made available to Israel as it prosecuted the war.

Biden and Netanyahu have known each other for decades, their paths first crossing when Biden was a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee and Netanyahu was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Washington and later at the United Nations. Through the years, their relationship was at times warm and friendly, other times tested by awkward diplomatic slights and deep policy rifts.

The war in Gaza would become the latest test as the scale of Israel’s assault on Palestinian territory came into clearer view. Over 41,000 Palestinians killed, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry. Entire neighborhoods flattened. Schools and hospitals destroyed by bombs. Nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced. Widespread disease and hunger.

Lives lost: Visualizing the death and destruction of Israel's war in Gaza

In the United States, protests erupted in cities and on college campuses across the country. Supporters of Israel accused Biden of not doing enough to help its U.S. ally. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators denounced the war’s human costs, berated the U.S. for providing weapons to Israel and demanded Biden call for an immediate cease-fire. By the end of 2023, acts of antisemitism across the U.S. would increase by 140%, an all-time high, the Anti-Defamation League reported.

By December, Biden was warning Netanyahu that Israel was losing international support over the war. Five months later, in May, his administration withheld a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel amid concerns Netanyahu was nearing a decision to launch a full-scale attack on the densely populated city of Rafah in southern Gaza. Biden and his administration feared the heavy weapons could not be used in Gaza or any populated area without causing mass casualties and suffering.

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” Biden told CNN. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Netanyahu responded to the cancelation of the weapons shipment by declaring in a speech that Israel was prepared to stand alone if necessary.

And the fighting continued.

'He's had it': Biden's patience with Israel may be wearing thin as Rafah questions linger

In July, Israel hit back at Hezbollah, which had been firing rockets into northern Israel since the start of the war, by carrying out airstrikes in Beirut.

The attacks were a prelude of what was to come. Two months later, pagers, walkie talkies and other electronic devices used by members of Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon, killing at least 37 people, including children, and wounding nearly 3,000 others. Israel was suspected of coordinating the attack. Netanyahu had vowed to go after the culprits and punish them wherever they are.

Western leaders should understand that “when we defeat the murderers of Oct. 7th, we prevent the next Sept. 11th,” Netanyahu said.

In late July, Hamas' top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an assassination at his residence in Tehran – an attack the group and Iran blamed on Israel.

The conflict escalated further with Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, in an airstrike in Beirut last month and with Iran’s missile attack on Israel last week. Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at various targets in Israel, most of which were shot down with the help of U.S. Navy destroyers deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. The attack was Iran’s second on Israel this year. In April, it launched 300 missiles and drones into Israel.

Friends lost, relatives at odds: How Oct. 7 reshaped lives in the U.S.

What's next?

On the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 assault, Biden and first lady Jill Biden lit a candle at the White House on Monday in remembrance of the victims of the attack. A rabbi recited a Jewish prayer that is often spoken during burial and memorial services to honor the soul of the deceased. The prayer was followed by a moment of silence.

Meanwhile, the the world is waiting to see when and how Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack.

Israel launched a ground offensive in northern Lebanon last week that targeted Hezbollah. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and seven others were injured during the fighting on Wednesday. By the end of the week, the Israeli military had warned civilians in at least 20 cities to evacuate as it pressed forward with its ground attack against Hezbollah.

In Washington, Biden said his administration was considering sanctions against Iran over its airstrike against Israel. He urged Israel to respond “proportionally” and said he was discussing whether Israel should be allowed to order airstrikes on Iranian oil facilities.

The Israel-Hamas war has been “a paradigm shifting time in understanding the Middle East,” said Mara Karlin, a foreign policy expert and former adviser to six Defense secretaries in the administrations of Presidents Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

The question now is whether Israel’s response to Iran will be a perfunctory one meant to simply deter other attacks or whether it will be on a grander scale, she said.

Biden, meanwhile, continues to face criticism as his administration continues to push diplomatic efforts to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza. Negotiators for the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have been working for weeks to forge a framework for a temporary cease-fire and hostage release deal. Several times, they have felt that an agreement was within reach. Yet it remains elusive. Biden has said only Hamas stands in the way.

Opinion: I'm a pediatrician. The scars I saw on Gaza's children will take generations to heal.

One of the problems the Biden administration has faced as it tries to navigate the conflict in Gaza has been Netanyahu himself, said Chuck Hagel, a former defense secretary who served alongside Biden in the Senate.

“Netanyahu, I think, is not a good leader,” Hagel said. “I've known him, I've dealt with him over the years. … Biden had the challenge of dealing with an Israeli leader who has not always been honest with us, who has played games with us. That’s the reality.”

The Biden administration’s hands have been tied by Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, whose interests are not always the same as the U.S.’s, said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst who worked in the State Department for more than 20 years as an adviser to Democratic and Republican secretaries of state.

“Diplomacy is critically important,” Miller said, “but diplomacy requires urgency. And it is the absence of urgency on the part of the two key decision makers that has prevented the administration from concluding what is an eminently concludable Israel-Hamas deal, at least, to begin de-escalating the conflict.”

Others fault the Biden administration for what they say has been U.S. efforts to tie Israel’s hands and restrain its ability to conduct the war.

The administration has failed to pursue “a decent foreign policy” in regards to Israel, said Elliott Abrams, a Middle East expert who served as deputy national security adviser under Bush. The U.S., he said, has essentially taken the position that “we want to help you defend yourself – but, please God, don’t try to win.”

The Israeli response has been “that’s bad advice, and we’re not going to follow it,” he said.

Bradley Bowman of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, takes issue with the administration’s public criticism of how Israel has conducted the war in Gaza.

“When your best friend or your best ally in the Middle East is experiencing one of its worst days or years of its life, you don't join the bullies or the terrorists in ganging up on your friend when they've been knocked down,” said Bowman, senior director of the foundation’s Center on Military and Political Power.

“If you have criticisms or concerns with your friend or your ally, you express those concerns privately,” Bowman said. “You do not level public criticisms that hurt your friend when they’re in the fight for their life. That empowers our common adversaries.”

That, he said, invites more aggression against Israel, brings more suffering, longer wars and damages American interests.

In just three months, the problem will no longer be Biden’s. Given recent events, the new president, Harris or Trump, appears almost certain to inherit the continuing conflict in Gaza – and possibly a wider war in the Middle East.

Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.

This story was updated to add a video.

'People are suffering': Hostage rescued in Gaza has a message on other captives

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: On Israel-Hamas war anniversary, wider conflict is closer than ever