Why deterrence failed and the second ‘flood’ is coming as Israeli arrogance persists
Palestinian man reacts to the destruction after an Israeli strike on the Sheikh Radwan Health Centre run by UNRWA in the north of Gaza City on 6 August 2025
Robert Inlakesh writes in The Palestine Chronicle on 11 February 2026:
Key Takeaways
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- Israeli political and media discourse increasingly frames post-October 7 actions as a restoration of “deterrence”.
- The October 7 operation shattered long-standing assumptions about Israeli military supremacy and security.
- Ongoing destruction in Gaza and Lebanon has not eliminated resistance movements despite massive force.
- Regional actors appear less deterred than repositioned, expecting further confrontation.
- Without a political resolution, conditions that led to October 7 are likely to re-emerge.
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The Return of the Deterrence Narrative
As Israel continues to violate the Gaza Ceasefire on a daily basis, having killed around 100 Palestinians last week alone, its domestic media is increasingly discussing the framing of the outcomes of its actions since October 7, 2023, as having achieved “deterrence”.
The return of Israeli “deterrence capacity” discourse, beyond simply the rhetoric of its political leadership, is to be taken note of. This language has interestingly returned to even the likes of Haaretz News.
What the rise in “deterrence” talk appears to suggest is that at least a portion of the Israeli population is beginning to justify their national project of committing a genocide, passing it off through the lens of a “security achievement”. In fact, the obsession with security is an even more prevalent theme in Israeli Hasbara and domestic supremacist thought than many may think.
The Shock of October 7
When the Hamas-led October 7 attack occurred, it immediately shattered this notion of “deterrence”. Although in the Western corporate media, the al-Aqsa Flood operation was sold as a devastating assault on civilians, it was much more than this. The pillars on which the Zionist project was built and has sustained itself are on the idea of total supremacy; security as a result of deterrence; and that their racist regime was a safe place for the favored population of the ethno-State.
Within hours, the Palestinian resistance factions, with only a few thousand men – armed with locally produced and/or light weapons – swiftly collapsed Israel’s southern command, dealing a blow, the likes of which has never been dealt to the prestige of the Israeli military. The scenes that emerged from that day suddenly flipped the Israeli script on its head. Arab populations in the likes of neighboring Jordan, and for a brief period in Egypt and Lebanon, came to the streets and even approached the borders, sensing that Israel’s end could be near.