More than half of Gaza remains under Israeli military control, and around 90% of the territory’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, as Wednesday marked the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack.
Large parts of Gaza’s cities now lie in rubble. Most of the territory’s roughly 2 million people live in tent camps, while restrictions on goods and aid have deepened a severe hunger crisis. No events were expected in Gaza on Wednesday.
Occupation and displacement
Israel’s control in Gaza grew from an initial 53% to around 63% during the ceasefire, according to the Israeli military, which said it kept about 40 army posts in the area it holds. The ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, and stopped the heaviest fighting, but Israeli strikes continued almost daily.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 74,000 Palestinians had been killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, doesn’t separate civilians from militants and said women and children made up around half of those killed. U.N. agencies and independent experts generally consider its figures reliable.
The ministry said 1,145 Palestinians had died in Gaza since the ceasefire, while seven Israeli soldiers had been killed during that period. In a separate accounting, the Hamas-run health ministry reported more than 74,200 Palestinian deaths, including more than 1,400 since the October 2025 ceasefire. The Israeli military said it believed the ministry’s overall count was largely accurate and estimated two to three civilian deaths for each militant killed.
Hamas called the Oct. 7 attack a response to decades of Israeli military occupation, land seizures and settlement construction. It killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people to Gaza, according to the article. Israel said its campaign sought to topple Hamas’s government in Gaza, destroy the group and free the hostages. An independent Palestinian state appeared more distant.
Military campaign and regional fronts
Since the war began, the Israeli military said, it has struck approximately 100,000 targets: 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, including 10,200 projectiles from Gaza, at least 5,000 of them on Oct. 7 alone.
The military said its figures left out rockets that Israeli officials said numbered at least in the thousands and were fired by Gaza armed groups but misfired into the Strip. Its tally also left out Hezbollah rockets that fell short in Lebanon and Iranian ballistic missiles that failed to reach Israel. The IDF didn’t say how many drones and missiles had been launched from Iraq.
The assault also sparked fighting across the region. Hezbollah began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas, and Israeli troops later occupied a large part of southern Lebanon. More than 300,000 Lebanese remained displaced. Israel seized areas in Syria and Lebanon, while violence grew in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where extremist settlers attacked Palestinians and destroyed property, according to the article.
West Bank arrests and Israeli reckoning
Since Oct. 7, the Israeli military said, its troops had arrested more than 45,000 wanted Palestinians for questioning in the West Bank, including people it said were terrorists planning imminent attacks. The Palestinian Authority health ministry said Israeli forces or settlers had killed more than 1,100 Palestinians there since the war began. The IDF said most were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
At a military conference on Sunday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the army was wrapping up its investigations into the Oct. 7 attack. He said the military needed to learn lessons and “move forward,” and called for expanding the security margin and the IDF’s force structure.
Haaretz analysis said Israeli intelligence and security had collapsed, the officials who dismissed warnings remained in charge, and the Netanyahu government was delaying an independent inquiry. Families of those killed and abducted marked the anniversary amid divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war and his reluctance to order an official inquiry. The government held official memorial services on Oct. 5, closer to the Hebrew-calendar anniversary, ahead of a contentious Israeli election due at the end of the month.