More than 74,200 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, including more than 1,400 since the October 2025 ceasefire, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. On Wednesday, the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israelis gathered to mourn the roughly 1,200 people killed that day. Gaza held no events. About 90 percent of the population has been displaced, often multiple times.
The Humanitarian Picture
Most of Gaza’s roughly 2 million people live in vast, squalid tent camps. Large parts of its cities lie in rubble. Restrictions on goods and aid have contributed to a severe hunger crisis, while Israeli forces retain control of more than half the territory. Israel expanded its hold during the ceasefire, from an initial 53 percent to around 63 percent, and maintains about 40 army posts in the area it controls.
The Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says women and children account for around half of those killed. It doesn’t distinguish civilians from militants. U.N. agencies and independent experts consider its figures generally reliable, and the IDF said it believes the overall count is largely accurate. Israeli military officials estimated that two to three civilians were killed for each dead militant. The IDF said it killed more than 24,000 combatants in Gaza.
The ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, halting the heaviest fighting. It hasn’t stopped the killing. Israeli strikes continued almost daily, and the ministry said 1,145 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since the truce, compared with seven Israeli soldiers killed in the same period. Talks on Hamas disarmament and reconstruction have made only limited progress, leaving Gaza divided between Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas. An independent Palestinian state looked more distant.
Israel Mourns, and Argues
In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters and the site of the Nova music festival, where militants overran a gathering. The Hamas-led attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages. For the first time, all hostages had returned by the anniversary.
Elkana Bohbot, 37, marked his first anniversary back in Israel. Abducted from the Nova festival, he spent 738 days in captivity, most of it 50 meters (165 feet) underground in a dark, damp tunnel. His captors kept him in a small cell with other hostages, gave him very little food and let him bathe only every few weeks. They made him appear in propaganda videos, including one in which he acted out a fake call to his family.
Since his release 11 months ago, Bohbot has undergone physical and emotional rehabilitation, written a book and begun a speaking career. In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, Michele, fulfilling a promise he made in the tunnels to give his 5-year-old son, Reem, a sibling. “So this child is the message for you that we were here, and we will always be here forever,” Bohbot told The Associated Press.
Grief has brought anger, too. Families marked the date amid divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war and his reluctance to order an official inquiry into the failures of Oct. 7. The government held its official memorial services on Oct. 5, while a contentious election is due at the end of the month. A Haaretz analysis said the collapse of Israeli intelligence and security remained unresolved, officials who dismissed warnings were still in charge, and the Netanyahu government was delaying an independent inquiry. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the army was concluding its own investigations, “out of an understanding of the magnitude of the disaster, alongside the understanding that we must not become mired in them.”
Wounded Soldiers and a Region Unsettled
The IDF reported that 970 soldiers, reservists and local security officers have been killed and 6,424 wounded since Oct. 7. Of the dead, 472 were killed during the ground offensive in Gaza, and 85 died in friendly fire or other military-related accidents. The Defense Ministry said more than 30,000 wounded soldiers and security personnel have sought care through its Rehabilitation Department. About 63 percent were receiving treatment for psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Among those wounded, 249 had severe head injuries, 29 were blind and 106 were amputees. The department expects its caseload from all of Israel’s wars to exceed 100,000 by 2028.
The strain on reserves is clear. Combat reservists are expected to serve an average of 80 to 100 days this year, rather than the initial estimate of 55 days annually, “due to evolving operational needs.”
The war spread far beyond Gaza. Hezbollah began firing on Israel in 2023, and Israeli troops later occupied a large part of southern Lebanon, where more than 300,000 Lebanese remain displaced. Israel and Iran fought directly in several rounds, including 12-day and 40-day wars. The IDF said it struck approximately 100,000 targets since the war began: 65,000 in Gaza, 28,000 in Lebanon and Syria, 4,500 in Iran and 80 in Yemen. It said more than 31,500 rockets, missiles and drones had been launched at Israel from multiple fronts.
In the occupied West Bank, the IDF said it has arrested more than 45,000 wanted Palestinians for questioning since Oct. 7. The Palestinian Authority health ministry said Israeli forces or settlers had killed more than 1,100 Palestinians there. The IDF said the vast majority were gunmen, rioters who clashed with troops or attackers. Violence rose as Israel’s far-right government emboldened extremist settlers to attack Palestinians and destroy property.
Why This Matters: Three years on, neither side can claim the war delivered what it promised. Israel’s wars across multiple fronts have brought neither victory nor an end to fighting, according to Haaretz, and an independent body still hasn’t examined the failures that allowed Oct. 7. For Palestinians, the cost is more than 74,000 dead, a displaced population, a hunger crisis and shrinking territory under their control, even during a ceasefire. Hamas described its attack as a response to decades of occupation, yet a Palestinian state now looks further away. The regional spillover, from Lebanon to Iran, shows how unresolved grievances and the lack of a political track keep widening the circle of suffering. Without an accounting in Israel and a political horizon for Palestinians, little stands in the way of the past three years repeating.