Although the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the border region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lasted from 1988 to 1994, is little remembered in the West, it remains an open wound for Azerbaijan, which effectively lost most of the territory. In September, a monument was erected in the Azeri capital of Baku to Albert Agarunov, a Jew whose courage in the fighting made him a national hero. Diana Cohen Altman writes:

Azerbaijan’s population is more than 90 percent Muslim. Agarunov was a member of the community known as Mountain Jews in the region of Quba in northern Azerbaijan. On December 8, 1991, he and a fellow soldier, Agababa Huseynov, disabled several Armenian tanks and armored trucks.

Armenia set a bounty on Agarunov’s head. In May 1992, Agarunov, then twenty-three, was killed while trying to save his fellow soldiers as they defended the Azerbaijani town of Shusha, [considered by Azeris to be the] historic cultural capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Decades later, . . . many Azerbaijanis are quick to bring up Agarunov’s Jewishness as an example of “two great nations working together.” . . . Regularly, the discussion leads to remarks about the [relative] absence of anti-Semitism in Azerbaijan, often backed up by affirmations such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Israel-Azerbaijan ties represent “something that we can show the world.”

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”