A year on from October 7, do Palestinians still believe liberation is possible?

One year ago, the lives of millions of Palestinians changed forever — Israel’s war (or more fittingly, genocide) on Gaza has left a huge psychological and physical imprint on the nation's refugees, including the millions scattered beyond Israel and Palestine's borders.

When Hamas launched an unprecedented assault into southern Israel on 7 October last year, the date became emblematic for many Palestinians in besieged Gaza, who momentarily believed their lost homes and land beyond the wire were one step closer to being liberated.

The assault — which killed 1,139 Israelis and saw 254 people taken captive — was the single deadliest blow to Israel since its founding in 1948, when it expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during an event known as the Nakba, or "The Catastrophe".

Israel’s response was predictably disproportionate, indiscriminate, and vicious with at least 42,175 Gazans killed since 7 October. It has also seen an assault on the occupied West Bank widening, with hundreds more killed.

More recently, Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon have been uprooted again or endured massive Israeli bombardments on their residences.

A two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been firmly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government, while the international community appears to have given up on the idea of peace.

Palestinians with the more maximalist demand of a single state covering all the territories of historic Palestine have also been dealt a blow by Israel's destruction of large parts of Gaza.

'We're not leaving'

Mohammed Abu Salama is one of 1.7 million refugees in Gaza whose ancestors came from what is now Israel, and grew up in Gaza City's Jabalia camp, which has been the target of countless Israeli military assaults since 7 October 2023.

"Me and my family rejected the idea of fleeing from northern to southern Gaza, my family did not accept the idea, and because of this we’ve remained steadfast here," he told The New Arab.

Abu Salama’s grandparents came from Beit Jirja, a small village 15 kilometres northeast of Gaza which was destroyed by Zionist militias during the creation of Israel. Given the recent developments in the region, Mohammed has little hope of ever seeing the remains of his ancestral home.

"Based on what we see on the ground in Gaza…I say with all honesty that Palestine will not be liberated except when neighbouring countries, and not political factions, join hands," he said. "Palestine will only be liberated through international solidarity."

Despite being aged just 27, Abu Salama has lived through four wars and now the genocide in Gaza, but despite this, he still hopes for a peaceful future and slammed factionalism within the Palestinian resistance to Israel.

"As a young man who lost many of his relatives and neighbours and friends, I hope there will be peace between us and the [Israeli] occupation, but before there is peace, let there be a Palestinian state fully recognised by the [Israeli] occupation state," he said.

"Unfortunately, this war has revealed a lot to us, and because of this, I don’t believe in empty national slogans. Let me be completely honest with you, all of Gaza’s people now share one thought: that all parties used us in the name of Palestine and resistance. For this I just want there to be peace."

'A promise from God'

For Atallah, whose family moved to south Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp from a village close to Acre, now in Israel, hopes of a liberated Palestine is tied to his Muslim faith.

"Whether a genocide happened or not, we are committed, to the greatest limits, to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque," says Atallah.

"This is a promise from God, that we will liberate Jerusalem."

While he views this from an Islamic perspective, he also believes Christians and Jews can play a role in defending Palestinian rights and achieving justice.

He has never trusted the international community to do this.

Arab governments, he said, are guilty of failing to pressure Israel to live up to its responsibilities in the 1993 Oslo Accords.

"This makes no difference to us and our struggle for liberation," he adds.

'The resistance gave us hope'

Dr Ahmad Abu Qadoum, 63, was born in Bethlehem to a father who was wounded in a landmine explosion during the 1948 Nakba and later became an imam at a mosque in Jordan, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians found refuge following Israel's invasion of the West Bank in 1967.

Hamas' 7 October infiltration through the seemingly impenetrable Israel-Gaza border gave the Palestinian diaspora "hope" he said, with the unprecedented scenes of Palestinian fighters parading through kibbutz settlements surprising the world.

"What the resistance did in Gaza proved to us that when there is a will there is a way," he said.

"The crime  being committed... in Gaza will not deter the resistance movements from their goal, which is to liberate all of Palestine, no matter how long it takes," he told TNA.

He, like many in the diaspora, does not believe a two-state solution is a realistic way of ending the conflict, given the repeated failures of international community to pressure Israel on this issue. But he believes it could be the first step towards a broader peace with one Palestinian state.

"Here we are, more than 30 years after the Oslo Accords, and we have not even been able to visit Palestine," he said.

'Israel’s strategy is working for it'

Iranian-American author and academic Vali Nasr gives TNA a more strategic insight. He seems less optimistic about the near future.

"I don’t see a breakthrough in the short run, largely because Israel obviously has committed itself to a military solution to the security problems that it sees in Gaza vis-à-vis Iran," he tells TNA.

Nasr, a former senior advisor to the US State Department, says Israel will continue with its strategy in Gaza and the West Bank as long as it succeeds in pushing back Hamas and other Palestinian groups it deems as threats to its security.

"Israel now sees itself victorious, having turned the tide in its favour a year on and resisting a ceasefire" in Gaza, he says.

"I don’t think that, based on the strategy they’ve committed to, Israel is looking for a settlement that would be satisfactory for the Palestinians and the Arabs," he added.

Nasr says Israel’s military actions in the West Bank and displacement of Gaza’s population makes the idea of independent Palestinian state now impossible.

"They’ve committed themselves at minimal level to creating a buffer zone [in Gaza]. If this succeeds, it means Palestinians will not be allowed back into northern Gaza. Israel’s military strategy is not connected to the idea that they’ll allow Palestinians back."

Although he cannot rule out dramatic regional changes and a shift in power in the current war, Nasr says a Palestinian state does not seem imminent.

"Israel’s policy is much clearer going forward," he said.