When Thore Schröder arrives in Israel on October 8, 2023, Tel Aviv resembles a ghost town. People lock themselves in their homes, shocked by the massacres that Hamas terrorists committed the day before – and were still committing. At this point, the extent of the attack is far from clear. And there are still fights going on. Murders are still going on.
"I don't think I've really grasped that until today," Thore says today, three months later, in the podcast, "I don't think anyone has grasped the dimension of this war yet."
As a war reporter for SPIEGEL, Thore Schröder observed how the Day of Terror changed all of Israel. Took away the country's illusion of security. Since then, a war has been raging for the end of which there are no plans.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) report the complete destruction of Hamas structures in northern Gaza. At the same time, the targeted killing of Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut is exacerbating tensions with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"October 7 changed everything in the country and also in the north. Previously, the people there had already lived within range of the enemy, but of an incomparably stronger enemy. And that was accepted on the assumption that they would be deterred to a certain extent and that an invading army could then be stopped," explains Thore Schröder. That has all changed. There is no going back to October 6, to the state of October 6, 2023."
How much did October 7 change the Land of Israel? How great is the danger of another war against Hezbollah in the north? And how does the Israeli population view the destruction and deaths in the Gaza Strip? Thore Schröder talks about this in this episode of SPIEGEL's foreign podcast Eight Billion.
You can listen to this episode here: