MERIP's winter issue was first envisioned in the Spring of 2023 as a call to Palestinian activists, scholars, organizers and educators to think together about questions of social movements and labor across Palestine. Rather than setting a theme for contributors, the issue was to grow from the ground up and look toward the future. Between the draft submission date in late September and an editorial process stretching into October, however, the ground beneath our collective feet shifted. In the weeks after October 7, 2023, our attention—and that of our contributors—turned to the immediacy of the present. A new issue emerged amid the developments that have followed: Israel's war on Gaza and surging violence across all of Palestine; an unprecedented global solidarity movement and a reactionary clamp down on protest in the west; and the war's regional reverberations and escalation, with the US and Israel’s war machine on one side and the “Resistance Axis” and popular anti-normalization movements on the other. MER issue 309 “Palestine: Before and After October 7” just begins to take stock of these developments and their implications for future political organizing around Palestine.