This volume describes the large gap between the image of the October 7 massacre by Hamas against Israelis and the ensuing Gaza War as a minor neighborhood rift between Israel and the Palestinians. But it ended up with two global forces arrayed against each other: Iran, the head of the Octopus with its tentacles in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen, backed by the entire Islamic world and by Russia and China, the former to divert attention from Ukraine, the latter to ensure its oil supply; and the other, the U.S. that supports Israel in that rift, with several Western countries backing them only hesitantly and temporarily due to domestic Muslim pressures within their own borders. About the Author: Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of more than 100 books and 100 articles.