Top of Mind Thursday – October 9, 2025: Has the Day After Arrived?

Tuesday was October 7th, the two year anniversary of the horrific Hamas massacre in Israel, where 1200 innocent people were brutally murdered and more than 250 taken hostage (some alive, some as corpses).

In the aftermath, many people have tagged Israel with genocide, even though the population of Gaza is higher now than it was two years ago—the exact opposite of what defines genocide.

In fact, as early as October 8th, protests erupted in key cities and universities around the world, blaming Israel for the sin of getting their people killed—before a single Israeli defense force unit was mobilized to move on Gaza.

Israel has been blamed for causing starvation and famine—even though plenty of food was entering Gaza. The problem was that most of it was being hijacked by Hamas and sold to hungry Gazans at exorbitant prices.

Throughout the last two years, Israel has repeatedly said the war will stop when our hostages (living and dead) are returned. Hamas refused to do so. Now, it appears Hamas has agreed to a peace treaty developed by US President Donald Trump that has the support of many countries in the Arab world.

The current plan is for all of the hostages to be returned by next Monday—the two year anniversary of the massacre in the Hebrew calendar. A ceasefire will be in effect and a multinational force will take charge of what comes next for Gaza.

Israel has also been blamed for not having developed a “day after” plan for Gaza, which is somewhat absurd. Did the Allies have a “day after” plan for Germany before Hitler was defeated?

But there’s another reason why there’s been no “day after” plan. For Israelis and Jews around the world, it’s been October 7th over and over and over again—like the movie Groundhog Day. There could be no day after until the hostages were returned.

The Trump peace plan is not perfect—no plan is. There are many clauses that are problematic and will be hard to properly implement. But it’s a way to start the process of healing and moving forward.

Maybe now Jews around the world can actually consider that there may really be a day after October 7th. As my grandmother would have said, from our lips to God’s ears.

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