Israel started bombing Gaza on 7 October 2023, after Hamas crossed the border, killed about 1,200 folks and took 251 others hostage to Gaza.
When floor operations started every week later, most observers contained in the nation and past anticipated the combating to final weeks. As a substitute, it prolonged for 15 months till Wednesday’s announcement of a ceasefire, to grow to be Israel’s longest struggle for the reason that 1948 battle that led to the nation’s creation.
Nearly all of these killed by militants on 7 October had been civilians, and the size and ferocity of the assault was unprecedented. So was the size and ferocity of Israel’s response.
After one transient ceasefire and hostage launch deal in November 2023, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to maintain combating, promising “whole victory” over Hamas.
The influence of the marketing campaign on civilians dwelling in Gaza led to accusations of genocide, together with from rights teams, students and international governments. South Africa introduced a case to the worldwide court docket of justice.
Omer Bartov, a former Israel Protection Forces (IDF) soldier and historian of genocide, wrote that by Might 2024 “it was now not potential to disclaim that Israel was engaged in systematic struggle crimes, crimes towards humanity and genocidal actions”.
The UN Human Rights Workplace stated in November that information on verified deaths signifies “an obvious indifference to the dying of civilians and the influence of the means and strategies of warfare”.
Even Israel’s staunchest ally, america, restricted some weapons shipments over the issues, and in September the UK suspended some arms export licences over Israel’s conduct of the struggle.
Netanyahu and his former minister of defence Yoav Gallant have been issued with arrest warrants by the worldwide felony court docket for alleged struggle crimes regarding the battle. Hamas army chief Mohammed Deif has additionally been issued with an arrest warrant.
Beneath is a abstract of the price of the struggle for Gaza and its folks.
The lifeless and wounded in Gaza
Greater than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed inside Gaza by Israeli assaults, in response to well being officers within the territory. Many of the lifeless are civilians, and the full represents about 2% of Gaza’s prewar inhabitants, or one in each 50 residents.
Greater than 40,000 have been recognized, together with 13,319 baby victims, the youngest solely a few hours previous. The aged lifeless embody a 101-year-old great-great-grandfather.
One other 110,000 have been wounded, over 1 / 4 of whom now dwell with life-changing accidents together with amputations, main burns and head accidents.
But these figures don’t inform the complete story of Palestinian losses. The official rely of the struggle lifeless contains solely these killed by bombs and bullets, whose our bodies have been recovered and buried.
About 10,000 folks killed by airstrikes are considered entombed in collapsed buildings, due to the dearth of heavy gear or gasoline to dig by metal and concrete ruins on the lookout for them.
A examine printed within the Lancet journal this month discovered the official toll underestimated deaths from traumatic accidents within the first 9 months of the struggle, failing to seize two in each 5 casualties. That may recommend that by October 2024 “the true mortality figures most likely exceeded 70,000”, the authors famous.
Starvation, lack of shelter and drugs, the fast unfold of infectious illnesses and the collapse of the healthcare system have killed many different Palestinians in the course of the struggle. Authorities plan to rely these lifeless when the combating stops, Dr Marwan al-Hams, the director of discipline hospitals on the ministry of well being, has stated.
Israeli officers query the dying toll given by the authorities in Gaza, arguing that as a result of Hamas controls the federal government there, Gaza’s well being officers can not present dependable figures.
However docs and civil servants within the territory have a credible file from previous wars. After a number of conflicts between 2009 and 2021, United Nations investigators drew up their very own lists of the lifeless and located they carefully matched ones from Gaza.
‘Domicide’ and displacement
Israel’s marketing campaign of intense aerial bombing and mass demolitions has levelled swathes of Gaza, and left complete neighbourhoods barely inhabitable.
9 out of 10 houses within the territory have been destroyed or broken, the newest UN figures present. Faculties, hospitals, mosques and cemeteries, outlets and places of work have additionally been repeatedly hit.
The devastation is so intense that some consultants say that the large-scale destruction of houses and the infrastructure of each day life ought to be recognised as a brand new struggle crime, “domicide”.
Even when houses are nonetheless standing, many residents have been compelled to depart. Eighty p.c of Gaza’s territory was positioned beneath evacuation orders that had been nonetheless lively in late December.
Some 1.9 million folks have been displaced, 90% of the inhabitants, with a lot of them compelled to maneuver repeatedly.
A whole lot of 1000’s now reside in tent cities and severely overcrowded shelters with poor sanitation and entry to little clear water. Shelters have additionally been attacked.
For rebuilding to start out Gaza will want a staggering clean-up operation. The struggle has left over 40m tonnes of particles, in collapsed buildings which may be laced with explosives together with boobytraps and unexploded bombs. It may take over a decade to take away, a high UN de-mining official warned in spring.
The Israeli army says that its combat is towards Hamas and never Gaza, that its bombardment is proportional to threats and that it makes each effort to warn residents of imminent assaults.
Faculties and training
Virtually each faculty constructing in Gaza has been broken or destroyed, and none are in operation. Gaza’s 660,000 school-age youngsters haven’t had any entry to formal training for over a yr.
The struggle will set training again there by as much as 5 years, and dangers making a misplaced technology of completely traumatised youth, a examine by Cambridge lecturers and the UN discovered.
There have been 564 faculty buildings in Gaza on 7 October 2023. Of those, 534 have been broken or destroyed and 12 are labeled as “potential injury”. The standing of the remaining 18 faculties is “at the moment not recognized”, Unicef stated in an October report.
Faculties run by the Unrwa company for Palestinian faculties have been transformed into emergency shelters. They host giant numbers of displaced folks and are clearly marked on maps, however many have been bombed, with some focused a number of instances.
Israel says strikes focused Hamas fighters, claiming they shelter within the buildings and use civilian residents as human shields.
Hospitals and healthcare
Israeli forces repeatedly bombed, besieged and attacked hospitals in Gaza all through the struggle. Medics had been killed, injured, detained and tortured.
There have been 654 assaults on well being amenities recorded for the reason that begin of the struggle, the World Well being Group (WHO) stated in January 2025.
Over 1,050 healthcare employees, together with nurses, paramedics, docs, and different medical personnel, many of their place of business. Dozens of others had been detained, and no less than three died in Israeli custody.
On the finish of 2024, simply 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals had been even partially useful. Providers had been boosted by 11 discipline hospitals, however Israeli controls on the entry of help and aid employees meant these had been typically in need of docs and medical provides.
A UN fee concluded that Israel’s “relentless and deliberate assaults on medical personnel and amenities” constituted struggle crimes.
They amounted to “a concerted coverage to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as a part of a broader assault on Gaza”, the UN Impartial Worldwide Fee of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory discovered.
The dearth of hospitals, healthcare workers and drugs compounded the struggling of individuals injured within the struggle, and affected by illnesses induced or compounded by lack of shelter, meals and clear water.
In 2024, greater than 1.2 million respiratory infections had been recorded, together with 570,000 circumstances of acute diarrhoea, UN figures confirmed.
Starvation and help shortages
Israeli controls on help coming into Gaza, and the destruction of agricultural manufacturing contained in the territory, led to widespread starvation and malnutrition.
In November 2024, the UN stated help and industrial shipments into Gaza had been on the lowest ranges since October 2023, and a world watchdog stated famine was seemingly “imminent” within the northern Gaza Strip.
In January the UN stated over 96% of kids beneath two years previous and ladies in Gaza weren’t getting their required vitamins, 345,000 folks confronted catastrophic meals shortages, and 876,000 confronted emergency ranges of meals insecurity.
Malnutrition in being pregnant and childhood stunts psychological and bodily improvement, so many youngsters who survived the struggle will endure lifelong impacts from meals shortages.
Israel stated it didn’t restrict help shipments and blamed logistics failures at help companies, or Hamas theft of meals help, for any shortages.
Surroundings
Not less than half Gaza’s tree cowl has been razed, soil and water have been contaminated and there’s large injury to agricultural land. The destruction may have long-term impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, meals safety and the well being of residents, ecologists and lecturers say.
Some injury has come straight from Israeli assaults on farms and different infrastructure.
By March this yr, roughly 40% of the land in Gaza beforehand used for meals manufacturing had been destroyed, an investigation by Forensic Structure discovered. Satellite tv for pc evaluation revealed to the Guardian reveals farms devastated and almost half of the territory’s bushes razed.
The Israeli army broken or destroyed least 31 of 54 water reservoirs by late August, Human Rights Watch discovered. Poisonous residue from munitions and fires have polluted each soil and water provides.
Different types of injury have been oblique. When Israel lower off gasoline, electrical energy and chemical provides inside the first week of the struggle, all wastewater remedy and most sewage pumping vegetation had been compelled to close down, resulting in sewage overflows into the ocean and groundwater.
Amid widespread help shortages Gaza’s hungry and freezing residents have additionally burned poisonous plastics and lower down bushes to make use of the wooden for gasoline and cooking.
The struggle in numbers
Palestinians killed in Gaza: 46,707
Kids confirmed killed in Gaza: 13,319
Palestinians reported buried beneath rubble in Gaza: 11,000
Palestinians injured in Gaza: 110,265
Palestinians displaced in Gaza: 1.9 million (90% of the inhabitants)
Assaults on healthcare amenities in the course of the struggle: 654
Well being employees killed: 1,060
Faculties broken or destroyed: 534 (95% of colleges)
Kids out of formal training: 660,000 (all school-age youngsters)
Houses broken or destroyed: 436,000 (92% of whole)
Individuals killed inside Israel on 7 October 2023: about 1,200
Individuals kidnapped to Gaza from Israel on 7 October 2023: 251
Hostages nonetheless in Gaza in January 2025: 101 (37 believed lifeless)
