The path forward is clearly to end the apartheid. Rabin was assassinated by extremist Jews for coming to this conclusion.

A solution exists as ratified by the UN where much of the West Bank and Gaza are allotted to Palestine.

The risk, though, is that wouldn't be a solution.

Certainly it would resolve the most severe privations being suffered by the Palestinian people. But it doesn't resolve the underlying conflict. Hamas' goals are not only to secure a Palestinian state. They inarguably include eliminating the Israeli state - undoing the Nakba and returning the entire area to the status quo ante before the arrival of the Jews. They also include killing as many jewish people as possible, though they would probably deny that this is still the case.

Creating an independent Palestinian state in which Hamas controls Gaza does not end the conflict. It merely elevates it into an intolerable security threat. Hamas will still fire rockets and stage assaults from Gaza into Israel - only they'll have the resources and military materiel that being an independent sovereign state allows them to accumulate. Then Israel retaliates, attacks Hamas positions in Gaza and seals the border....and we're right back where we started, except that Israel's position is vastly worsened and Hamas' is greatly strengthened. But make no mistake - the conflict and violence very much can continue even if "apartheid" is ended and the West Bank and Gaza is allocated to a new Palestinian state. One can optimistically believe that ending the immiseration of Gaza would "solve" the problem, but it's far from a certain outcome - and given the new geopolitical balance in the region after the Iraq war, probably not even the most likely one.

This is all the more the case after the recent attacks. If Hamas' atrocities lead demonstrably to the creation of a Palestinian state, they will be enormously popular among the Palestinian people. Their approach to the conflict will have been proven correct, and they will be the ones who brought a Palestinian state into existence. There is no way that any other political entity or organization would be able to displace them as the de facto rulers of Palestinians in Gaza.