Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, warned Tuesday that Gaza’s people would pay a “heavy price” if Israeli forces were harmed. More than 74,200 people there have already been buried.
Katz said he had put the military on high alert ahead of the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which falls on October 7, 2026. His office said the instruction came “in light of intelligence regarding Hamas’s intentions to attempt to carry out attacks and terror operations against our forces in Gaza on that day.” Then came the line that drew the sharpest attention: “If, heaven forbid, our forces are harmed, the ones who will pay the heavy price will be Hamas and the population of Gaza -- beyond all proportion,” the statement said.
The word “population” matters. Katz didn’t limit the threat to Hamas fighters. He extended it to a civilian society with no say in what the militants decide to do.
Civilian Toll
The toll on that society is stark. Israel launched its military offensive in response to the 2023 attack. It has left most of Gaza in ruins and killed more than 74,200 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Hamas authorities oversee the ministry, but the United Nations considers its figures reliable.
The ceasefire declared last October hasn’t stopped the dying. Since it took effect, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,440 people in Gaza, the ministry said. That’s a toll piling up under a truce, in a territory where most buildings are rubble.
For families already living amid the destruction, a threat of disproportionate punishment lands on people with little left to lose and nowhere to go.
The Weight of October 7
None of this erases what happened on the day Israel is preparing to mark. Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack was the deadliest day in Israel’s history, killing 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Militants also dragged 251 hostages into Gaza. Forty-four were already dead when they were taken.
Those figures explain why Israeli officials treat the anniversary as a moment of acute risk. A military that lost so many civilians in a single morning has reason to guard against a repeat, and Katz’s office cited specific intelligence about Hamas planning attacks on Israeli forces inside Gaza. Hamas’s willingness to attack, and the suffering it has brought to Israelis and Palestinians alike, remains the backdrop to every decision now being made.
Netanyahu’s Vow
On Monday, at a state ceremony marking three years since the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there would be “no Hamas rule in Gaza.” He vowed to keep targeting anyone involved in the attack or anyone who held hostages.
Together, the statements point to continued force rather than a political path. Neither offered a vision for who would govern Gaza, how its civilians would be protected, or what a durable end to the fighting would look like. One source for this report, Reuters, couldn’t be fetched, so its reporting on a Gaza plan and on aid deliveries isn’t included here.
Why This Matters: A ceasefire under which more than 1,440 Palestinians have still been killed is a ceasefire in name more than in practice. A defense minister’s promise of punishment “beyond all proportion” raises the prospect that the toll will climb again. For Gaza’s civilians, the question isn’t abstract. Could a single attack on soldiers trigger collective consequences for a population already living in ruins? International humanitarian law requires military force to be proportionate and civilians to be distinguished from combatants; a public pledge to exceed proportionality tests that principle directly. Israelis who lost 1,221 people on October 7 have a legitimate claim to security. But without a political framework beyond “no Hamas rule,” the cycle of attack and retaliation has no obvious end, and civilians on both sides keep paying for it.