Gaza war (2023–present)

Overview

The Gaza war began with the October 7 attacks of 2023, when Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel, murdered civilians in their homes and at public gatherings, attacked soldiers and abducted hostages. The massacre came 50 years and one day after the Yom Kippur War began. Hamas and Islamic Jihad also launched more than 5,000 rockets during the war’s opening phase, most toward Israeli urban centers; Iron Dome intercepted many of them. Israel’s declared objectives were to dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and return the hostages. The ensuing campaign combined airstrikes, ground operations, intelligence work and negotiations while exposing civilians in Gaza and Israel to prolonged danger.

Fighting moved through northern, central and southern Gaza, including Gaza City, Khan Yunis and Rafah. Israeli forces confronted tunnels, weapons stores and armed groups operating among homes and civilian institutions. Hamas remained capable of renewing activity in areas from which Israeli units had withdrawn, contributing to repeated operations. The war also became a hostage crisis, a humanitarian emergency and a regional confrontation as Hezbollah and partners of the Iranian regime acted in support of Hamas. Its conduct and consequences generated intense international debate, including disputes over civilian protection, aid, casualty reporting and the reliability of information emerging from Gaza.^[1][2][3]

Background

Israel withdrew its forces and Jewish communities from Gaza in 2005. Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007 and built an armed organization alongside its governing apparatus. Its founding charter glorifies death for Allah, and its military infrastructure grew within a densely populated territory. Earlier wars followed rocket attacks and Israeli operations against Hamas’s weapons, tunnels and command structure. In July 2014, for example, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in response to rocket fire and sought to destroy terrorist infrastructure, including tunnels beneath the border. Those earlier conflicts provide context for the scale of military preparation on both sides before October 2023, while remaining distinct from the war that began with the October 7 massacre.^[4][5]

Hamas’s preparations exploited weaknesses in Israeli intelligence judgment. Assessments built on past success can discourage scrutiny of assumptions and contrary evidence; the surprise on October 7 demonstrated the cost of such confidence. The attack struck communities near Gaza as well as military positions. In Kibbutz Nir Oz, Johnny, Tamar, Shahar, Arbel and Omer Siman Tov were murdered in their home. Aviv and Livnat Kutz and their children Jonathan, Yiftach and Rotem were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. A rocket strike killed Hannah Ben-Artzi (Shor) in Kfar Aviv. These individual losses formed part of a much larger assault that brought hostage-taking and mass violence into Israeli homes.

Israeli society mobilized rapidly after the attack. Reservists reported to their units, while communities hosted families evacuated from fighting zones. Individuals and companies donated food, clothing and toys and supported households whose members had enlisted. Opposition leader Benny Gantz joined Israel’s war cabinet. A November 2023 Israel Democracy Institute survey found that 70 percent of Arab citizens felt part of the State of Israel and its problems, compared with 48 percent in June. The same survey found exceptionally strong identification among Jewish citizens. The findings captured an early period of solidarity amid fear, displacement and the demands of a growing war.^[6]

Course of the war

Israel opened its campaign with extensive air operations and preparation for a ground offensive. President Joe Biden ordered a second United States aircraft carrier task force into the eastern Mediterranean as Israel prepared to enter Gaza. During the first four months after October 7, the Israeli Air Force struck 31,000 targets across multiple fronts. Its aircraft included F-35 and F-16 fighters, Hermes 450 Zik armed unmanned aircraft and Apache helicopters. In Gaza, aircraft also carried out 7,000 strikes requested by ground forces facing immediate threats or urgent operational needs. The scale and tempo of combat intensified Israeli debate over weapons inventories, domestic production and reliance on United States supplies.

Ground forces advanced into northern Gaza and fought Hamas formations in and around Gaza City before expanding operations toward central Gaza and Khan Yunis. The campaign involved infantry, armor, engineers, intelligence units and special forces. The Golani Brigade and other formations fought through built-up areas where tunnels and concealed explosives complicated movement. Combat engineers searched for shafts, weapons and underground routes. The Shin Bet and military intelligence, including Unit 8200, supported operations against Hamas networks. After four months in Gaza, Golani and the IDF’s 36th Division redeployed to northern Israel to prepare for possible war against Hezbollah.

By January 2024, Israel began rotating some brigades out of Gaza and shifting toward more localized operations. The IDF announced that five brigades would leave the territory as forces reorganized for prolonged fighting. This change reduced the size of the standing ground deployment without ending the campaign. Hamas and other terrorist groups subsequently returned to areas where Israeli units had withdrawn. In 2024, repeated returns to Jabaliya prompted another operation aimed at holding cleared ground. The pattern exposed a central difficulty: destroying a local fighting force did not, by itself, prevent Hamas from rebuilding a presence or asserting authority after Israeli troops moved away.^[1]

Operations at medical sites illustrated the difficulties of fighting an organization embedded in civilian infrastructure. In March 2024, Shayetet 13 personnel helped kill senior Hamas commander Ra’ad Thabet as he tried to flee into Shifa Hospital’s courtyard. The unit operated with the Shaked Battalion, Duvdevan and the Nahal Reconnaissance Battalion during the Shifa operation. At Kamal Adwan Hospital, Shayetet 13 located and confiscated grenades, guns, ammunition and other military equipment. Military activity in such settings endangered patients, staff and nearby residents and made careful assessment of each operation essential.

Rafah became a major turning point. About 1.4 million people were in the city when Israel began its May 2024 operation, including more than one million displaced during the war. Israel and the Biden administration disagreed over the operation’s military objectives, civilian safety and Gaza’s postwar governance. Israeli forces issued evacuation instructions through messages, flyers and social media before and during operations. Fighting in Rafah also constrained the movements of Hamas leaders. Yahya Sinwar, a leader of Hamas and a central figure in the war, was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024. His death removed a principal decision-maker but did not immediately end Hamas’s armed activity or resolve the hostage crisis.^[7][8]

Fighting continued into 2025. Israeli forces pursued tunnels and commanders while Hamas retained the capacity to attack troops. In June, the IDF’s 605th Combat Engineering Battalion worked in Gaza to locate and dismantle terrorist tunnels and shafts. On June 24, an explosive struck a Puma armored engineering vehicle in Khan Yunis, killing seven soldiers, including Matan Shay-Yashinovsky and Corporal Ronen Shapiro. Other losses included Captain Eitan Israel Shkenazi and Major Dvir Zion Revach, killed in Beit Hanoun on January 6, 2025. As another Gaza City campaign began in 2025, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation planned to expand aid distribution to eight sites within six weeks. Combat and aid operations thus continued alongside efforts to reshape control of territory.

The hostage crisis shaped military decisions throughout the war. Israel sought to free people seized on October 7 while pursuing Hamas commanders and infrastructure. The United States, Qatar and Egypt initiated hostage-for-ceasefire negotiations in Doha during a period of threatened retaliation against Israel by the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. Talks repeatedly centered on releases, pauses in fighting and terms for a longer ceasefire. Israel opposed a major Turkish role because Ankara continued supporting Hamas after the massacre. In June 2025, the IDF recovered the body of tank commander Shay Levinson, whom Hamas had killed on October 7 and abducted to Gaza. His recovery showed that the crisis included both living captives and the remains of those murdered.

Israel's conduct and the protection of civilians

The war caused severe suffering among civilians in Gaza. Fighting damaged homes and public services, displaced families and made access to food, medical care and shelter a continuing concern. Rafah’s population of about 1.4 million at the start of Israel’s May 2024 operation shows the scale of displacement confronting military planners and aid providers at that point. Israel established humanitarian zones, facilitated large-scale aid deliveries and supported a polio vaccination campaign. Its forces used advance warnings, loudspeakers, text messages, aerial leaflets and humanitarian corridors to reduce civilian exposure to strikes and ground combat. Warnings could give people time to move, but movement itself imposed hardship on families already displaced.

On April 7, 2024, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant identified Hamas’s destruction, the hostages’ return and humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza as priorities. Israel also used warnings before some strikes on buildings containing Hamas missiles, including rounds fired at a roof to signal occupants to leave. During the Rafah campaign, evacuation instructions appeared through direct messages, printed flyers and social media. The United States Central Command led a maritime initiative to increase humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza. Aid access also depended on decisions outside Israel’s control: in May 2024, Egypt held back aid destined for Gaza for more than two weeks despite an available route through Israel’s Nitzana crossing.

Civilian protection remained difficult where Hamas placed fighters, command posts and weapons in residential neighborhoods, schools, mosques, clinics and hospitals. Its operatives wore civilian clothing, hid weapons in homes and used children to carry military equipment. Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Roy Danino, describing 400 days of combat in Gaza, said that apart from October 7 he had not seen a Hamas operative displaying signs of being a combatant. His account illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing fighters from civilians during an encounter; it does not remove the duty to assess each target and protect people who are not fighting. Hamas’s use of civilian sites exposed Gaza residents to danger while complicating Israeli operations.

Fatality figures require attention to how deaths were recorded and whether combatants were distinguished from civilians. A Washington Institute examination published on May 17, 2024, found that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs relayed Gaza fatality data from Hamas-run bodies without independently verifying deaths or separating combatants from civilians. Its analysis found that records supplied through different methods did not support treating every published demographic total as equally reliable. Such limits do not diminish the suffering of people killed or injured; they matter when a precise count or civilian percentage is presented as established. Dated population, aid and fatality figures serve different purposes and should not be treated as interchangeable measures of harm.^[9]

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

Hamas designed its war strategy to impose political and diplomatic costs on Israel because it could not defeat Israel through conventional combat. Operating among civilians made Israeli attacks harder to conduct and gave images of destruction an immediate role in the information campaign. Hamas placed military infrastructure in homes, hospitals, schools and mosques, including weapons stores and command posts. Damage to a civilian building therefore cannot be understood solely from its appearance after a strike; its use at the time and the civilians present both matter. Hamas’s test of victory in a ceasefire was whether it remained in power in Gaza, regardless of destruction and civilian suffering.

Claims from the battlefield were especially hard for outside reporters to verify. During the war, Israel restricted foreign journalists’ entry into Gaza to periodic assignments embedded with Israeli troops. International outlets consequently depended heavily on local reporting and remote interviews. A Washington Institute study examined anonymous sourcing across seven major United States news platforms during the war’s first six months. It identified 436 stories using anonymous sources; 379 relied on officials or people described as knowledgeable about sensitive political, military or diplomatic matters. Once those were separated out, 57 stories cited local people anonymously. The Washington Post accounted for 72 percent of citations of anonymous, unofficial local Gaza sources in the study.^[10]

In 41 Washington Post stories examined closely, more than half of the local unofficial Gaza sources received anonymity for safety, security or privacy without an explanation of the specific threat. Anonymity can protect a person facing genuine danger, but it also limits readers’ ability to assess an account when reporters cannot independently meet or check the source. A former Associated Press editor described a Gaza story in which the fact that Hamas fighters dressed as civilians were counted as civilians was omitted after a reporter said he had been threatened. These examples show why casualty classifications, eyewitness accounts and claims about events inside closed combat areas require careful corroboration rather than automatic acceptance or dismissal.^[10]

Israel answered the information campaign through regular public briefings by IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, battlefield videos, intelligence releases and interviews by Ambassador Mark Regev. Hundreds of civilian organizations, online creators and other citizens shared evidence of October 7 with international audiences. At the same time, Hamas, Russia, China and the Iranian regime circulated anti-Israel narratives online. Al-Qaeda tried to regain relevance by aligning its messaging more closely with Hamas and issuing guidance to supporters; in July, senior figure Saif al-Adel called for a boycott of Western products to pressure Israel and Arab governments. Propaganda and genuine criticism circulated together, making the provenance and evidence for each claim consequential.^[2][3][11]

Outcome

The war’s result cannot be reduced to territory seized or targets struck while hostages, Hamas’s remaining capabilities and governance of Gaza remain central questions. Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in 2024 and other Hamas commanders, dismantled military infrastructure and repeatedly disrupted armed formations. Yet Hamas operatives returned to some areas after Israeli withdrawals, showing the difference between clearing a location and preventing renewed control. A ceasefire that left Hamas governing could allow it to reorganize and present survival as victory despite the destruction suffered by Gaza’s residents. Israeli planning therefore faced a continuing question about who would administer cleared areas without restoring Hamas’s ability to rule and attack.

The conflict widened beyond Gaza. Hezbollah, a terrorist organization based in Lebanon, and other partners of the Iranian regime acted across several theaters in support of Hamas. Their actions forced Israel to prepare for simultaneous threats and helped prompt the redeployment of experienced Gaza units to its northern front. The Iranian regime threatened retaliation during periods of intense diplomacy. Threats to shipping associated with the wider regional crisis contributed to Operation Prosperity Guardian. Within Israel, rocket fire also affected ports: restrictions on unloading hazardous cargo at Ashdod shifted some ships to Haifa, while a rocket falling near Ashdod Port lightly damaged a foreign vessel at anchorage.

Aftermath and legacy

The war reshaped Israel’s security debate. October 7 renewed scrutiny of intelligence assumptions, border defenses, weapons stockpiles and domestic arms production. By March 2024, wartime demand had intensified discussion of reducing dependence on United States supplies. The campaign also tested the United States–Israel relationship, particularly over Rafah, civilian protection and Gaza’s future governance. Egypt and Israel maintained security dialogue and their commitment to their peace treaty despite hostile public rhetoric. Security and economic cooperation among Abraham Accords partners accelerated even as public diplomatic ties came under strain.^[7][12]

Political and legal arguments extended well beyond the battlefield. On November 21, 2024, an International Criminal Court pretrial chamber issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Gallant. In 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza; 28 percent of its 500 members participated in the vote, and 86 percent of participating voters supported the resolution. Those actions became part of the war’s international legacy, alongside disputes over evidence, legal standards and the responsibility of Hamas for initiating the war and operating among civilians. Criticism of Israeli government decisions also remained part of public debate within Israel.

For families in Israel and Gaza, the war’s legacy is immediate as well as political. Israeli families continued seeking the return of hostages and mourning those killed on October 7 or in later combat. Gaza families endured deaths, repeated displacement and damage to homes and essential services. The killing of Sinwar altered Hamas’s leadership without settling the questions of captives, security and civil administration. Any durable outcome depends on those questions being resolved in practice. The war also demonstrated how regional armed networks, humanitarian needs and contested information can prolong the effects of an attack far beyond its opening day.^[3][13]