(JNS) Within days, all of Israel’s hostages are expected to return home. The nation, long steeped in anguish, is brimming with cautious hope.

Oct. 9, 2025 will be remembered as one of the landmark days in Israel’s history alongside May 1948, when the newborn Jewish state defied all odds and defeated combined Arab armies that sought its annihilation, and Oct. 16, 1973, when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir announced that Israeli forces had crossed the Suez Canal, turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War.

Now, nearly two years—734 days—after Hamas’s barbaric assault, Israel stands on the threshold of victory over the most sophisticated and lethal coalition ever arrayed against it: a coordinated axis stretching from Iran to the Gaza Strip, encompassing Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon of more than 150,000 missiles, Syrian and Iraqi militias, and the Houthis to the south. Every piece of this terror architecture was planned for decades under Iran’s direction.

Equally strategic, Israel’s response was conceived in concert with the United States. US President Donald Trump understood that without Israel—the Western world’s great defensive...

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