In September 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan boasted that the Middle East is quieter today than it has been in two decades. One week later, unprecedented violence in Gaza and Israel shattered the status quo and shocked the world.Hamass Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge punctured delusions of stability as hundreds of militants burst forth from the Gaza prison camp. In the ensuing carnage and firefights, 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more taken hostage.Israels retaliation turned the besieged enclave into a howling wasteland. Nearly 20,000 people were killed in two months, including more than 7,000 children, and over 60 percent of homes were damaged or destroyed. Israel targeted the wounded and infirm, newborns and near-dead, as Gazas healthcare systemhospitals, clinics, ambulances, medical personnelcame under a systematic attack unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare.The Hamas massacre and the Israeli extermination campaign which followed together mark a historic turning point in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The reverberations have also shaken politics far beyond, not least in Europe and the United States, where gigantic, round-the-clock protests for Palestinian rights pitted politicians against the public and exposed a growing statist authoritarianism.In this groundbreaking bookthe first published about the 2023 Gaza warleading Palestinian, Israeli, and international authorities put these momentous developments in context and provide an initial taking-stock.Why did Hamas attack? What is Israel trying to achieve? Did this catastrophe have to happen? And is there a way forward? The books expert contributors address these and other questions, which have never been more urgent. Jamie Stern-Weiner is an Associate Editor at OR Books and a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford. Israeli-born and London-raised, he has written extensively about the history and politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as the contemporary politics of antisemitism. His publications include Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestines Toughest Questions (OR Books, 2018), Antisemitism and the Labour Party (Verso, 2019), and How the EHRC Got It So Wrong (Verso, 2021). His articles have been published in The Nation, Jacobin, Jadaliyya, Middle East Eye, and elsewhere. He co-founded the New Left Project. ORdio Sample: (Intro) Deluge – Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm Edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner