The war that Trump’s Board of Peace is attempting to end began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating attack into Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage. That attack, and Israel’s response to it, transformed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in ways that make peace harder than it has ever been.
Before October 7, the peace process — such as it was — operated on the assumption that Hamas could be managed through a combination of economic pressure, deterrence, and negotiation. October 7 destroyed that assumption. Israel concluded that any Hamas presence in Gaza was an unacceptable threat, and its military campaign set out to eliminate Hamas’s military and governing capacity.
Two years later, Hamas has been severely degraded but not eliminated. Its political leadership remains intact. Its capacity for governance is diminished but not gone. Its willingness to disarm — particularly before a Palestinian state is established — appears limited. And its October 7 attack has given Israeli political hardliners the domestic mandate to insist on conditions for peace that Hamas finds unacceptable.
For the Board of Peace, October 7 is the inescapable context. It explains why Israel’s disarmament demands are so comprehensive, why Netanyahu has made reconstruction conditional on full disarmament, and why the trust deficit between the parties is deeper than any previous negotiating round. It also explains why the international community — including board members — feels the urgency of reaching a settlement before another cycle of violence begins.
Building peace on the rubble of October 7 requires acknowledging both the legitimacy of Israel’s security concerns and the catastrophic scale of Palestinian suffering in the war’s aftermath. Trump’s board must hold both truths simultaneously if it is to forge a durable settlement.