Today, October 7, 2025, marks the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, after which Israel launched a full-scale war on Gaza, which continues till today. 

It has been reported that over 1,000 people were killed by Hamas in its surprise attack and incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023. Over 200 people were reportedly kidnapped and their recovery has been a key part of the talks that have so far been held in bids to resolve the issue.

In response, Israel attacked Gaza and turned a large part of it into rubble, even not sparing hospitals, educational institutions and places of worship in its missile strikes. The ensuing war also had a cascading effect in the region as over the two years, Israel attacked Lebanon, Iran and Qatar, with Iran retaliating by launching a counter-attack on Israel.

The war between Iran and Israel continued from June 13, 2025, till June 25, 2025, when both the countries agreed on ceasefire. Meanwhile, the conflict also dragged the United States, which bombed nuclear facilities in Iran claiming to have destroyed them.

Off The School covered the Gaza war in its several podcasts where experts were divided over the rationale and legitimacy of the Hamas’s action on October 7, 2025. 

A major OTS podcast that discussed the Israel-Palestine conflict following the October 7 attacks was uploaded on March 29, 2024, with religious scholar Muhammad Hassan Ilyas, son-in-law of Javed Ahmed Ghamidi who has been assisting him for many years in his scholarly pursuits, as the guest.

Ilyas sb criticised the Hamas attack on Israel, stating that it was not a wise decision. He was of the view that the October 7 attack had diminished even the possibility of a two-state solution and predicted that after some time, the Palestinians would demand two states in the region.

The guest said the Muslims should realise that they are subdued in the current world order that is being governed by the five states that hold veto power in the United Nations. He said Israel was being backed by the United States, which was the winner of World War II.

Ilyas sb said that the victors of World War II behaved just like the conquerors of the past who would redraw boundaries of countries after conquests. All the current boundaries in the world had been created by the US and its allies, he remarked, adding that even in that case, we were lucky as the US had been the most civilised conqueror with which we could debate on the basis of the notion of human rights.

The speaker said the Palestinians’ resistance had so far borne no fruit and it only increased their problems. He stated that the Palestinians should have accepted the two-state solution proposed to them in the past.

Another criticism of Hamas came from religious and literary scholar Ahmad Javaid on the OTS platform who addressed the issue in multiple podcasts. Javaid sb said what Hamas did on October 7 was extremely unwise as they knew that Israel would attack with full force after their adventure and they had no resources to engage in a prolonged war with Israel, which also had the backing of the global powers.

Javaid sb was of the view that Hamas had no strategy to protect their vulnerable population, especially children, in case of a fully-fledged war with Israel, which made Hamas responsible for the thousands of deaths of Palestinians.

He also questioned the ethics of the Hamas’s attack, which was a surprise attack that targeted many non-combatants, including women and children.

The scholar also questioned the supporters of Hamas who cited Quranic verses in support of the October 7 attack, stating that such attempts were like changing the meaning of Quran. He asserted that the Hamas’s action was neither Islamic nor humanitarian.

However, many guests of Off The School had a different perspective. They justified the Hamas attack and berated those who had been criticising Hamas.

One of them was religious scholar Dr Umair Mahmood Siddiqui who came to the OTS two times to defend the Palestinian resistance. In his first podcast, which was uploaded on the main Off The School YouTube channel on April 4, 2024, he said it was a religious obligation of the Muslims to defend Masjid-e-Aqsa, which was a Haram for them similar to Masjid-e-Haram.

Criticising the proponents of two-state solution like Ilyas sb, Dr Siddiqui said the Muslim world had never disowned Masjid-e-Aqsa since it was conquered by the second caliph Hazrat Umar (R). He recalled that when Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders, the Muslims continued attempts to regain the holy land, which succeeded after 90 years when Salahuddin Ayubi defeated the Crusaders.

He also cited various United Nations’ resolutions and International Court of Justice’s decisions against Israel, stating that Israel never complied with them, which showed the Zionist state’s utter disregard for the international law.

In the other podcast that was uploaded on the OTS EdSense YouTube channel on April 13, 2025, Dr Siddiqui said the Palestinian resistance reminded him of the battles of Badar and Uhad.

He said those among the Muslims supporting the two-state solution did not realise that Israel would never accept two states as it intended to create Greater Israel, which would extend from the Nile River in Africa to Iraq.  He said the Jewish eschatology stated that they would govern the holy land of Palestine and rebuild the Temple near the end of time.

He said the Palestinians should not lost hope as Divine Help would certainly come to their aid.

Commenting on whether or not the Hamas’s move was wise, Dr Siddiqui said it was a strategic move, which saved the Palestine issue as some global powers and regional countries had planned a meeting some days after October 7, 2025, in which they would have given the entire land to Israel.

Another guest of OTS who rejected Ilyas sb’s stance was lawyer Yasir Siddiqui. On a podcast uploaded on April 10, 2025, on the OTS EdSense channel, he said Israel was never sincere about the two-state solution and cited Western scholar Dr Norman Finklestein and journalist Glenn Greenwald as credible voices on the Israel-Palestine issue.

The lawyer admonished those who were blaming Hamas for starting the Gaza war. He said Israel was killing Palestinians before the October 7 attack and gradually usurping their land under what it called the strategy of ‘mowing’ the garden.

Yasir sb said those advising the Palestinians to adopt a peaceful struggle should remember that the Palestinians had in 1990s accepted the Western demands of laying down arms and recognising Israel but even then, the Zionist state did not stop its injustices.

He added that although Israeli forces had left Gaza, they maintained its blockade, which was a form of occupation.

He asserted that the Palestinians’ armed struggle was justified under the United Nations’ charter because they had been illegally occupied. However, he did admit that some war crimes were committed during the October 7 attack.