Summary of events from October 2023
An armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israeli military forces broke out on 7 October 2023,with a Hamas attack on southern Israel, to which Israeli military forces retaliated with extensive strikes on the Gaza Stripand a subsequent invasion of Gaza.By the end of October, more than 1,500 Israelis, mostly civilians murdered in the initial attacks by Hamas,and more than 8,000 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 3,000 children, while over 230 Israelis and foreign nationals remained captured or taken as hostages.Gaza was described by UNICEF as a "graveyard" for children.
The Hamas attack began in the morning of 7 October with a barrage of over 5,000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israeli cities and communities,while some 3,000 Palestinian militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, killing civilians in over a dozen massacres and setting fire to their homes, and attacking Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military bases near the Gaza Strip. At least 44 nations, mostly Western, characterized the surprise incursion as a terrorist attack.Meanwhile, Hamas declared that its attack was a retaliation to the "desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque," the Gaza Strip blockade, Israeli settlements and settler violence.
The current war, the fiercest since the Yom Kippur War, is the fifth war in the Gaza strip, and part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.In 2023, before the offensive started, an uptick in Israeli–Palestinian violence saw at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners killed.
According to the Israeli government, over 1,400 Israelis and foreigners, mostly civilians, were killed on 7 October, including 260 people at a music festival in Re'im.Over 200 civilians and captured Israeli soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.After clearing Hamas forces from southern Israel, the IDF conducted airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, as of 31 October over 9,000 Palestinians had been killed,mostly civilians, including more than 50 UNRWA staff.A total of 6,000 bombs were dropped by Israel during the first six days of the conflict, double the number of bombs employed by a US-led coalition against ISIS over one month.
There has been widespread killing of civilians, and human rights groups and a panel of United Nations special rapporteurs have accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes.Fears of a humanitarian crisis were heightened on 11 October, after Israel announced it would cut off food, water, electricity, and fuel supplies to Gaza, on top of the existing blockade by both Egypt and Israel. Israel urged 1.1 million Gazans to evacuate northern Gaza, while Hamas called on residents to stay in their homes and, according to the IDF, blocked roads leading south.The UN reported that around a million Palestinians, nearly half of Gaza's population,as well as over 200,000 Israelis have been internally displaced.
A vote the UN General Assembly on 27 October saw an overwhelming majority of nations calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.On 28 October, when Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza, aid agencies renewed warnings of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Gaza Strip: 9,488 killed 24,158 wounded 2,200 missing Inside Israel: 1,000+ killed 200 captured West Bank: 147 killed 2,200 wounded Elsewhere: Lebanon: 73 killed Syria: 16 killed 12 woundedIsrael: 1,447 killed 5,431 wounded 245 captured or abducted 40 missing.
5 November :
The U.S. is trying to persuade Israel to take a humanitarian pause from airstrikes on Gaza, where Palestinians reported on Saturday that there were multiple fatalities across the besieged enclave.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is making a new push to help civilians, and met with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday in Jordan. That was after his talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. President Joe Biden suggested Saturday that progress is being made on the humanitarian pause.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,448, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids. The UNRWA says 72 of its staff members have been killed.