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There were two things expected before Oct. 7, 2023: that Hamas would carry out military operations and that Israel had a list of regional targets it intended to destroy. What happened simply gave Israel the license to carry all of that out at once.

Of course, Hamas is to blame for the collapses and tragedies. First, its attacks were a massacre of massive scale by Palestinian standards, with children, women and civilians among the targets. It is also to blame for prolonging the tragedy, since it could have made the same concessions it is making today more than a year ago, sparing the blood of tens of thousands of Gaza residents who have perished because of Hamas.

The Oct. 7 attacks accelerated the changes that Israel had long sought to achieve, even if in different phases.

Those changes included destroying Hezbollah’s capabilities, cutting Iran’s supply line through Syria, disrupting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and reducing Hamas’ power. All of these were part of Israel’s pre-Oct. 7 objectives.

What Hamas did was help and speed up the transformations Israel had already mapped out

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed

What Hamas did was help and speed up the transformations Israel had already mapped out. Hamas’ attacks were akin to President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran in 1967. The Egyptian president miscalculated, while Israel had been waiting for an opportunity to settle its confrontations with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran, which join the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, providing maritime passage to Israel’s port of Eilat, which became blockaded.

Israel considered the closure an act of aggression and, two weeks later, it launched its broad war. The scale and speed of that war showed Israel was fully prepared. In just six days, it seized the Sinai Peninsula, which is three times the size of Israel, as well as Jordan’s West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights.

The massive and precise post-Oct. 7 operations that eliminated Hezbollah’s leaders, killed and wounded about 4,000 of the group’s members in the famous pager operation, wiped out the top tier of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards leadership and ultimately led to the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime all reflect that sequence.

What Hamas committed on Oct. 7 put in motion Israel’s plan, one it might otherwise have implemented gradually and on separate occasions.

To this day, we still cannot understand why Hamas carried out such a large-scale attack — one that would entirely predictably provoke an Israeli frenzy and the destruction of Hamas and everyone who stood with it.

We still cannot understand why Hamas carried out an attack that would predictably provoke an Israeli frenzy

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed

Esmail Ghaani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, which oversees Tehran’s regional military operations, spoke this week in an interview about the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. It is not clear whether the Iranians were involved in its arrangements.

He said: “On Oct. 7, I arrived in Lebanon in the evening. I was thinking on the way: how will I discuss this event with Hassan (Nasrallah, the Hezbollah secretary-general)? What must be done? And what should be avoided?” The operation had taken place after six in the morning and he arrived at night. He continued: “That night, I was his guest … neither we nor Sayyed Hassan had any prior knowledge of this operation. Even Hamas’ own leadership did not know. Ismail Haniyeh, for example, was on his way to Iraq as a guest of the government and turned back from the airport upon hearing the news.”

He then added: “The operation had unique characteristics that required the highest degree of secrecy.”

Most likely, Iran was involved in the planning and coordination but was stunned by the horrifying results and therefore chose to withdraw and leave Hamas to its fate. It advised Nasrallah not to enter the battle to avoid a potential confrontation. Yet he entered the fight late, through limited operations — but enough to give Israel justification to destroy him.

To be continued.

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a Saudi journalist and intellectual. He is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @aalrashed