WhatsappThree years after October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood at Mount Herzl and delivered a message that should define Israel’s approach to this war: there can be no forgiveness for the monsters who carried out the massacre, and there can be no stopping before Hamas is destroyed.
This is not about revenge. It is about national survival.
Netanyahu told the story of 24-year-old Karin Journo, murdered at the Nova festival. Her father, Doron, recently confronted the horrific reality of what remained of his daughter after Hamas terrorists burned her body.
His message to Netanyahu was simple: Finish the mission in Gaza.
Netanyahu promised that Israel would. Israel National News
That promise matters because October 7 cannot become another chapter in the long history of Jewish massacres followed by international pressure on Jews to move on.
For generations, Jews were murdered while others determined when justice had gone far enough.
That era must be over.
The strategic lesson of October 7 is bigger than Hamas. Israel’s enemies must understand that massacring Jews carries consequences extending far beyond the immediate battlefield. Terrorist organizations cannot slaughter Israeli families, retreat behind civilians, wait for international pressure to restrain Israel, rebuild their forces and prepare for the next attack.
That cycle must be broken.
Netanyahu declared that Israel will continue hunting those responsible and will “eradicate Hamas’s regime of blood.” He also connected Israel’s battlefield struggle with another war being fought internationally: the battle against the campaign of lies attempting to transform the perpetrators of October 7 into victims and Israel into the criminal. Israel National News
But perhaps the most important part of Netanyahu’s speech was not about destruction.
It was about rebuilding.
The answer to burned Jewish communities is rebuilt Jewish communities. The answer to terrorism is stronger Israeli sovereignty, stronger communities and a Jewish people increasingly rooted in its homeland.
October 7 began as one of the darkest days in modern Jewish history.
What comes afterward will determine its historical meaning.
Israel cannot erase what happened.
But Israel can determine what happens next.
Destroy Hamas. Hunt the perpetrators. Rebuild the communities. Strengthen the Jewish homeland.
That is how October 7 becomes not the beginning of Israel’s retreat—but the beginning of its renewal.
