Within days, all of Israel’s hostages are expected to return home. The nation, long steeped in anguish, is brimming with cautious hope.
Oct. 9, 2025 will be remembered as one of the landmark days in Israel’s history alongside May 1948, when the newborn Jewish state defied all odds and defeated combined Arab armies that sought its annihilation, and Oct. 16, 1973, when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir announced that Israeli forces had crossed the Suez Canal, turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War.
Now, nearly two years—734 days—after Hamas’s barbaric assault, Israel stands on the threshold of victory over the most sophisticated and lethal coalition ever arrayed against it: a coordinated axis stretching from Iran to the Gaza Strip, encompassing Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon of more than 150,000 missiles, Syrian and Iraqi militias, and the Houthis to the south. Every piece of this terror architecture was planned for decades under Iran’s direction.
Equally strategic, Israel’s response was conceived in concert with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump understood that without Israel—the Western world’s great defensive wall—the Middle East would explode in jihadist violence that would eventually reach the rest of the world. Empowered by a new alliance with the radical anti-liberal left, Islamists aimed not merely at destroying Israel but at destabilizing the entire democratic order.
Thus, the vision of a renewed and peaceful Middle East converged with the necessity of restoring quiet to Gaza. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined forces—first on the battlefield in Iran, and then through an intensive diplomatic and intelligence campaign. As part of Israel’s side, Ron Dermer, minister of strategic affairs, demonstrated his strategic abilities and diplomatic prowess to make the deal possible. On the U.S. side, senior mediators, including Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser in his first administration, who helped broker the 2020 Abraham Accords, concentrated their efforts on freeing all of the hostages—Hamas’s most prized symbol of power.
When Israeli forces advanced deep into Gaza City, they applied an unprecedented level of pressure on Hamas.
The resulting agreement now foresees the dismantling of the terror group’s offensive capabilities, beginning with its missile stockpiles. The Israel Defense Forces will maintain a presence in more than 53% of Gaza’s territory to ensure that the atrocities of Oct. 7 will not be repeated.
Released terrorists will be barred from Judea and Samaria and, for the most part, from Gaza itself. Yet this is not, strictly speaking, the “total victory” long promised by Netanyahu’s government. The accord stops short of crushing Hamas entirely. Instead, it disarms and deposes the terror regime, leaving Gaza’s future governance to an international coalition of “willing” states and, potentially, a handful of Palestinian technocrats.
The deeper foundation of this peace lies in a bold strategic realignment linking the Arab world with the West. Trump’s ability to rally eight Muslim nations—each for its own reasons—around a common security and economic vision represents a diplomatic feat worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.
A unique case is Qatar. While hosting America’s largest Middle East military base, it also served as the financial and propaganda pillar of global jihad through Al Jazeera. That duplicity collapsed once Israel—just as it had done against Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other Iranian proxies—demonstrated its willingness to strike directly at the sources of terror, even in Doha. The Middle East speaks only the language of strength. Trump leveraged this reality, compelling Emir Al Thani to demand the hostages’ release.
Had the United Nations and the European Union exerted similar pressure, the ordeal might have ended sooner. But it was the surprise offensive into Gaza City that broke Hamas’s resistance and triggered the wave of hostage releases. Military pressure worked, alongside Trump’s promise of a new regional order that isolates Iran while countering the shadow ambitions of Russia and China.
Now, Israel awaits the return of its sons and daughters. Its endurance, courage and moral clarity have once again triumphed over those who seek its destruction—supported, as ever, by the toxic alliance of radical Islam and Western antisemitism.
It is fortunate that Italy maintained some distance from French President Emmanuel Macron’s misguided initiative at the United Nations, proposing yet another Palestinian state rooted in hatred of Israel (though Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said she would consider doing so under certain conditions). The coming peace will not resemble the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, which brought PLO chief Yasser Arafat back from exile only to ignite the Second Intifada inside the Jewish state between the years of 2005 to 2005, claiming the lives of more than 1,100, killed by Palestinian suicide bombers on buses, in restaurants and other public areas where Jews and Arabs were going about their daily tasks—not to mention those who suffered injuries that permanently disabled so many people.
This time, jihad will have no citizenship. The new peace will not only transform but defend the Middle East—anchored by an Israel that remains unbroken, vigilant and indispensable to the free world.
Source: JNS