One year after the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel it seems as though the worst possible scenario could be playing out in front of us: open war between Israel and Iran. In reality this is a dropping of facades, no more hiding behind proxies for Iran. Last week Iran launched missiles into the heart of Israel, one of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East. And while the long-term consequences are yet to be seen, it is clear that this latest development is not good for any of the parties involved.

The conversation within the United States over the past year has largely been about how to avoid this moment. We can have a debate about whether or not our policy, both official and unofficial, has actually encouraged de-escalation, but it now seems as though we were unsuccessful in that goal. The world now stands at a precipice which will have generational consequences and could end up re-ordering the region, and perhaps, the world. We don’t know yet what the final human cost of such re-ordering will be, but it has already been devastating. No doubt it will end up being one of the great human catastrophes of our lifetimes.

Perhaps this is the inevitable result of Hamas’ attack on Israel one year ago. On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters crossed the border between Gaza and Israel in gliders and launched a campaign of terror upon Israelis living in nearby kibbutzim and attendees at a music festival, killing almost anyone they encountered save for the hostages they dragged back to Gaza, some of whom remain in captivity. But we cannot take events out of the context in which they occurred. The atrocities committed by Hamas on that day happened within the broader context of Israel’s generational oppression of Palestinians living in both Gaza and the West Bank. There are no good guys here, no heroes. There are only men who will do whatever it takes to maintain their power and the civilians, mostly women and children, who have to pay the price, far too often with their lives.

And while there is decades-long context for this most recent battle, October 7, 2023, certainly marks the first domino in the current chain of events. The attack by Hamas was followed by a brutal bombing campaign in Gaza which preceded a ground invasion by Israeli Defense Forces. Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed proxy like Hamas, responded by launching rockets from Lebanon. Israel responded late last month with an operation that looked like it was out of a James Bond movie, building pagers for Hezbollah fighters and packing them with explosives. It was a brutally effective intelligence operation that Israel followed up with the bombing and killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah. Within the week after the pager operation, several Hezbollah commanders had been killed.

The precision and effectiveness of the operation carried out against Hezbollah over the past few weeks has surprised even those who were aware of Mossad’s (Israel’s intelligence organization) capabilities. Many of the Hezbollah commanders who were killed in the operation had successfully eluded death for decades. The success of those attacks was another domino falling.

The next domino came down last Tuesday when Iran launched missiles at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv. Israelis crowded into bomb shelters as sirens went off. In the aftermath, Israeli media claims that no one was killed as a result of the attack, although there were some direct hits. At least one individual is confirmed dead by other media outlets, however, a Palestinian worker from Gaza who was killed by fragments of a rocket that hit Jericho in the West Bank. And so here we are, with nation states openly firing ballistic missiles at each other. Meanwhile, six people were killed on the same night as the Iranian attack by a terror attack carried out by two people on civilians waiting for a train.

As of this writing, Israel has not yet responded, the latest domino has not yet fallen, but there are some talks within Israeli leadership of targeting Iranian leadership. Iran is also saber rattling and threatening more attacks should Israel retaliate. No matter what happens next, there can be no doubt that the result will be yet more agony for those living in the region, a condition that is all too familiar to those who have nothing to do with the current conflict yet tragically have to bear its greatest burdens.