🇵🇸🇮🇱 - Three years ago today, Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, alongside other aligned Islamist and Palestinian nationalist organizations in the Gaza Strip, launched a military infiltration and attack on the Israel, codenamed "Operation al-Aqsa Flood." The subsequent Israeli reprisal and response resulted in the still-ongoing and largely unresolved Gaza war, which has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe and genocide of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Beyond the conflict specifically confined to Gaza and the surrounding envelope, the October 7th attack and Israel's regional response to the attack has permanently changed the Middle East.

The occurrence of October 7th has directly or indirectly precipitated the collapse of Israel's normalization of relations with multiple Arab states (most notably Saudi Arabia,) the two wars fought in Lebanon against Hezbollah and other aligned militias in 2024 and 2026, the collapse and overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the destabilization of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea at the hands of Ansarullah, three separate open confrontations with Iran in April 2024, October 2024, and June 2025, as well as - most notably - the ongoing Third Gulf War involving the United States and the entire Middle East itself.

As we have deeply covered over the last three years, the Middle East has been permanently and irrevocably changed. And, unfortunate as it is, the region will continue to destabilize and grow more and more unpredictable as the war drags on.

The beginning of Rerum Novarum's coverage of the October 7th attacks can be found here.