Within days of the start of the Israeli assault on Gaza after Hamas's 7 October attacks, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had fallen into a trap. Hamas would not readily be defeated. By the end of the year, the group was persistently staging attacks in areas of northern Gaza supposedly already cleared by the IDF, and Israel's war was faltering.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded with a horrific policy of collective punishment of Gaza's whole civilian population. This is still ongoing as the war enters its ninth month, and the carnage is devastating. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, another 10,000 are missing - many of them buried under masses of rubble - around 80,000 are injured and much of Gaza is in ruins.

The IDF is preparing Israelis for a war lasting at least until the end of this year, if not longer. There may be some possibility of a ceasefire given US president Joe Biden's current endeavours but there is little to indicate Netanyahu will agree to any deal without the complete defeat of Hamas. This is an impossible aim, but one he is not prepared to desist from, with an Israeli official telling NBC: "Israel has not changed its conditions to reach a permanent ceasefire. That will only happen after our objectives are met, including destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities."

The prime minister depends on the war for his own political survival among both the public and the ultra-Zionist and religious fundamentalist parties in his coalition. The trauma of the 7 October atrocities continues to resonate deeply within Israeli society - intensified by fears for the 100 or so hostages still held by Hamas and exacerbated further as hostages are killed by Israeli bombs.

From a conviction among most Israelis before last October that they were in a secure state has come the shock of deep insecurity. This has ensured that most support the war even if they despise Netanyahu himself. But Israel is increasingly polarised, with many coming, perhaps reluctantly, to the view that Hamas cannot be defeated. A poll by Israel-based Midgam Institute last month found that 62% now believed "total victory" in Gaza to be impossible.

Israel's huge loss of international standing appears to be less recognised within the country, based on the lack of debate and discussion of the topic in its media. This is partly because most Israeli media outlets give little if any coverage to the slaughter in Gaza - with tight state media control and rigorous censorship helping to ensure the government's position is dominant. The cabinet also banned one of Israel's few previously available international sources, Al Jazeera, last month, shuttering its operations in the country and raiding its office.

IDF officers offer answers to Western questions about the war and the high death toll and malnutrition in Gaza that might be acceptable in Israel but have little credibility elsewhere - in part because of al Jazeera's coverage of the war. Though banned from broadcasting in Israel, the channel has maintained a presence in Gaza since October, reporting extensively on the deaths and destruction that have become the norm. It remains the go-to source across the the Middle East and much of the Global South and its coverage filters through to the West, whose own media outlets are very rarely able to travel into Gaza.

We have also seen first-hand the brutality inflicted by Israel through courageous documenting of the devastation by Gazans, who have recorded the horrific bloodshed and loss even as they struggle with intense grief and pain.

Foreign medical personnel and health professionals, who have attempted to keep up the work of humanitarian organisations in hospitals and clinics, have also reported back on the situation on the ground to their own countries, including the United States, UK, France, Italy and elsewhere. What they have experienced and described has been utterly shocking, not least the persistent reports of the deliberate starving of civilian populations with the probable life-long impact of malnutrition on Gaza's children.

Add to this the utterly inadequate facilities for medical care leading to Palestinians dying because of lack of drugs, children being operated on without anaesthetics, newborn babies dying and a host of other grim experiences. All are now known to be the reality of Israel's war, with its military and government increasingly viewed as perpetrators of war crimes.

All of this means that while many in the West may have given Israel the benefit of the doubt, not least because of knowledge of what the Jewish community suffered in the Holocaust, this is not so much the case now. Israel's fall in standing is particularly evident among those in Western Europe who had previously been prepared to accept its decades-long attachment to military power and frequent fighting of wars as the necessary means of ensuring security.

What Hamas did with the 7 October atrocities was incite an already hardline Israeli government to engage in a bitter and hugely costly war that it cannot win. While it has been Palestinians who have paid the huge price, from the perspective of Hamas's military leadership Israel is now seen as a rogue state right across the world. This should last at least a generation and provide a stream of young recruits to its cause, making a lasting peace even more difficult to achieve.

From openDemocracy