It was a year of extreme highs – from the painfully belated cease-fire bulldozed through by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Gaza war, and the release of all the hostages but one, Ran Gvili, held by Hamas since October 7, 2023, the principled stamina of the grassroots Israeli protest movement – and many extreme lows: Thousands more Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza, a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu on the rampage against democratic norms and institutions and rampaging Jewish settlers in the West Bank, a short-lived but bloody missile war between Israel and Iran, Israel's ill-advised strike on Doha, ongoing conflict with Hezbollah despite the cease-fire, a Houthi missile strike on Ben-Gurion Airport, the deadliest year ever for Arab citizens, terror attacks within Israel, in Washington D.C., and unprecedented attacks on Jewish communities in the U.K. and Australia.