You clear your throat & spit into the sink.  
Downstairs, a frothing fills my canvas  
like the sea. A need once met  
& met again. The fleetingness of meeting
given way. Each day, the paper on the stoop
ripe for the taking, for the making into something
better than the news. On the record player,  
something bluesy, not too sweet. On the hot plate,  
eggs. We’ve got one fridge between us. One decent suit.  
One roof.

In the hours following Hamas’s large-scale surprise attack on Israel early this morning, Israelis on social media quickly dubbed the day a “second Yom Kippur”—referring to the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria in 1973—or an “Israeli 9/11.” Not since the 1947–49 Arab-Israeli War had Palestinian or Arab forces captured Israeli villages.

Editor’s Note: Washington Week with The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, was ousted from his role as speaker of the House this week, and the race for someone to replace him is under way.

Updated at 3:12 p.m. ET on October 7, 2023 What a difference a week makes.Just eight days ago, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking at The Atlantic Festival, rattled off a long list of positive developments in the Middle East, developments that were allowing the Biden administration to focus on other regions and other problems. A truce was holding in Yemen. Iranian attacks against U.S. forces had stopped. America’s presence in Iraq was “stable.

War is a perpetual concern in Israel, but it has been decades since Israelis have had to wonder whether today might be the day that their borders will be overrun and their enemies will go building to building deciding whom to slaughter. Early this morning, a few Israeli military outposts and settlements saw an apparent preview of that nightmare—an operation by Hamas that could be a daring single-day raid or the start of a regional war of a scale not seen since 1973.

The attacks by Hamas against Israel beginning early this morning, some of which are ongoing, will be met by Israel with force. How all of this will unfold, and its impact on domestic and global politics, is not clear, but a simple answer may suffice for now: It will not go well. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already warned his citizens that they are at war; civil reservists have been called up; videos are showing hand battles on the streets.