“Five hundred days” rings like a death knell in Israel, reminding everyone that the tragedy of the Israel-Hamas war is far from over. It has been 500 days since October 7, when Hamas invaded Israel. Five hundred days of captivity, death, and destruction. After five hundred days, Israeli society is in shambles; Gazan society is irrevocably ruined. Israelis feel as though they are all trapped in Gaza; Gazans truly are.
Israelis cannot avert their gaze from Gaza, as they wait for the 59 hostages, occupying an uncertain superposition of life and death, to emerge from the tunnels and collapse into their loved ones’ arms. The remaining survivors’ dire situation dominates the public’s attention, especially after the negotiations over the second phase of the ceasefire collapsed. Israeli society’s capacity (or inability) to acknowledge the devastation of Gaza amidst their own personal trauma will determine what happens next.
Under the initial ceasefire agreement, all living Israelis should have been released in the second stage, securing a more stable peace and the beginning of rebuilding efforts in Gaza. However, disagreements over who would govern the reconstruction derailed the deal. Although the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor, a strategic road bifurcating the strip that it built during the war, the IDF refused to back out of the Philadelphi corridor to prevent smuggling across the Egyptian border, as promised.
Israel is diametrically opposed to completely relinquishing their position in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prioritized his mantra of total victory as his sole means of recovering politically from the disaster of October 7. The government has made clear that it will reject any arrangement that involves Hamas, but the reality is that the terrorist group has preserved much of its presence in the administration of the Gaza Strip and is still considered the negotiating body within it. The Israeli government’s refusal to compromise came at the expense of the ceasefire and thus the hostages.
Ultimately, Israel and the United States accused Hamas of refusing to release hostages in advance of the second stage and ended the negotiations. Although Hamas publicly maintained support for the original deal and offered to return some hostages’ bodies, Israeli and American officials claimed that these offers belied Hamas’s intractability. Israel resumed its aerial strikes and ground operations on March 18, 2025, arguing that the only way to return the hostages is to reapply pressure on Hamas. Every step of the war has been justified in Israel in terms of the hostages, even if ulterior motives abound.
The return to war has nonetheless prolonged the abandonment of the hostages, which is unconscionable for the majority of Israelis. In addition to weekly gatherings outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem and Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, thousands of Israelis gathered to commemorate 500 days of war and protest his reluctance to proceed with the remaining objectives of the ceasefire. Many of the family members of hostages have denounced the government for failing first to protect them on October 7 and to now bring them back as quickly as possible. Former hostages have also recently urged for the resumption of the ceasefire.
On February 21, four bodies including those of two children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, were returned to Israel, dead from a war whose claimed purpose was to bring them back alive. Their mother, Shiri, was supposed to be included among them, but Israel announced that the fourth body was not her or any other Israeli hostage, accusing Hamas of sabotaging the deal. The images of the Bibas family on the day of their kidnapping have sustained immense outrage in Israel as a symbol of the enormity of Hamas’s brutality. Netanyahu’s vow to ensure that “Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement” transforms them, and the other deceased, into martyrs, absolving the Israeli government of any measure of culpability for their deaths. The IDF has accused Hamas of barbarically murdering Kfir and Ariel, rejecting Hamas’s claims that they died in an Israeli bombing. Nonetheless, Israel’s cynical use of the Bibas family extends to other hostages, who have been knowingly endangered in IDF bombings that targeted high-ranking officials despite intelligence suggesting that Israelis might be nearby. Paradoxically, the family’s “sacrifice” could be used as a justification to return to war, condemning the remaining hostages to the same fate even as Israel demands their release.
In an unfortunate twist of fate, following the government’s early report that the bodies of the Bibas family were handed over, their relatives urged “not to eulogize our loved ones until there is confirmation after final identification.” Friends and families of the hostages (which encapsulates much of Israeli society) have echoed their inability to grieve or begin to process their loss without first experiencing the closure of their return. And so a cliché—that nonetheless resonates with many Israelis—has formed: the feeling that they are still living on October 7.
During the catastrophe, as the south of Israel waited for a rescue that never came and the incomprehensible extent of the attack trickled through the rest of the country, Israelis experienced a sense of helplessness reminiscent of the Holocaust in their collective memory. In some ways, it is no wonder that Netanyahu, along with other high-ranking officials in the government, have made comparisons between Hamas and the Nazis. Especially as the mistreatment of the hostages comes to light, there is a perception that they were suffering in “Holocaust conditions” of starvation and torture. Moreover, the implicit connection is that—just like how German society was complicit in the actions of the Nazis—Gazans too are complicit, with some believing that all Gazans celebrated October 7 and want Israel’s annihilation, legitimizing the tens of thousands of civilian casualties in a war of survival.
Holocaust rhetoric has become normalized in everyday conversations about the war; Israel is still captive to using Auschwitz as the defining reference point to articulate national trauma. Professor Yechiel Klar has observed that Israeli society is shaped by several conflicting voices that emerged from the Holocaust: On one end of the spectrum there is the existential imperative to never be a victim again, and on the other, there is the moral obligation to never be a perpetrator.
As reality sets in, how Israel mourns this unending series of tragedies will determine whether Netanyahu can prolong the war as he wishes. The protest movement is impelled by grief, refusing to stand idly by while the hostages die. Shai Dickmann, the relative of a hostage who was murdered in Gaza, explicitly referenced Israel’s “Never Again” mentality at a recent demonstration: “More than 80 years ago, my grandmother was in the Holocaust and waited for nations to help her… We can’t wait for other nations to decide our fate; we must save [the hostages], now that we have a state, so that it won’t happen again.” The protestors are disaffected by violence as a means to return the hostages, which can be extended to challenge how the war has been practiced in its entirety, especially the disregard of Gazan life. Conversely, anger regarding the abuse of the recently released hostages could reignite Israel’s desire for revenge. This outrage could reinforce internal Israeli demands of the government that Hamas be completely removed from power, putting the second phase of the ceasefire deal into jeopardy.
Notably, both of these approaches are manifestations of Israel’s anathema to victimhood—Israeli support for a ceasefire is not motivated by empathy for Gazans but by preoccupation with their own. The protest movement has been so concerned with the hostages that it has neglected to meaningfully address Israel’s violations of international law in the war. Moreover, the Israeli left has barely addressed what happens after, or if, the hostages return. Meanwhile, Netanyahu supports the “voluntary transfer” of Gazans out of the Strip, a plan advanced by President Donald Trump that effectively amounts to the expulsion and permanent displacement of a population of two million. After returning from his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu triumphantly addressed the Israeli Knesset: “You kept talking about ‘the day after’, and you got it.” The response? Opposition leader Yair Lapid brought up the hostages, recognizing the political capital in criticizing Netanyahu’s neglect of the hostages, not his war crimes: “You all know that they are dying there, and instead of getting a move on, you are slowing down.”
Lapid’s tirade notably omits the other people dying in Gaza: Palestinians themselves. Liberal Israeli media has demanded that the government articulate its post-war vision for months, and yet now there is no political or social will to engage with issues that don’t appear to directly concern Israelis themselves. Yair Golan called for Israel to work with other Middle Eastern countries to rebuild Gaza under a moderate government with an Israeli presence enforcing the transition. His attempt to reconcile security and Palestinian governance will likely fail to appeal to anyone in Israel, even the left itself. For the dwindling left voice in Israel, anything less than a two-state solution is inadequate; for the majority, Palestinian sovereignty is currently inconceivable.
Israeli society demands the release of the hostages—at the exclusion of any other agenda—as a need for control over its own destiny. As long as Hamas holds the hostages, it holds leverage over Israel. Even after the hostages are returned, Israelis’ experience tells them so long as Hamas exists, the group will seek their annihilation, so it is not worth detailing a long-term plan for a future that will never happen. As former Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot articulates, recovering the hostages is seen as strategically beneficial because it removes Israel’s key point of vulnerability in the war. Along with the Trump administration’s unconditional support of Israel, the return of the hostages would give the military free rein to act as it sees fit to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens, which was shattered on October 7. The left has fallen apart because anything more radical than restoring security seems impossible in a society beset by anger and fear. Even so, empathy for Palestinians and their wellbeing can also be framed pragmatically: If Israel ignores the plight of Gazans, further strengthening their hatred of Israel, Hamas and its ideology will only become more entrenched in Gazan society.
For now, Israelis’ current grief leaves no space for the grief of Gazans. But as sorrow and exaltation intertwine in the release of the hostages, even the Red Cross trucks transporting the hostages back to Israel appear to be a part of a funeral procession. With the news that IDF soldiers killed Red Crescent medics on March 23, this funeral procession accompanies the entire war. Perhaps once all the hostages are brought home, Israeli society can finally begin to heal and look outwards. Beyond mourning the dead, Israelis should mourn the war itself and the endless cycle of retribution it engenders. If mourning is an expression of regret, can Israelis also mourn October 7 for what October 7 unleashed on Gaza? Ultimately, the words “five hundred days” must be followed by two more: “Never Again.” “Never Again” in its inclusive capacity for peace.