Displaced folks return to Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, a day after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into impact.
Jehad Alshrafi//AP
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Jehad Alshrafi//AP
TEL AVIV — Israel is commemorating a grim anniversary: two full years because the Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed nearly 1,200 people and resulted in 251 folks being taken hostage.
The struggle that Israel unleashed in Gaza practically instantly thereafter has plunged the Palestinians residing there into staggering ranges of destruction and demise.
Greater than 67,000 folks have died within the struggle, practically a 3rd of them kids, in keeping with Gaza’s ministry of well being. Rescue staff say extra our bodies lie buried beneath rubble, and that the demise toll is larger than reported as a result of they can not retrieve folks whereas Israeli bombardment continues.
“When the struggle ends and the search and correct counting start, your complete world shall be shocked by the dimensions of the tragedy that has befallen Gaza,” Mahmoud Basal, Gaza’s civil protection spokesman, stated.
The Gaza Strip itself has been practically leveled, with the United Nations estimating 78% of constructions having been broken or destroyed, leaving a monumental activity of rebuilding for whoever will govern the enclave subsequent.
Its residents suffer from famine, as Israeli navy border controls proceed to limit the food and aid that enters.
However two years on, the anniversary can be lit by hope, because the leaders of Israel and Hamas are pushed by Arab countries and the U.S. towards a potential end to the war.
Lower than a whole victory
Folks stroll with humanitarian support packages that they acquired from a distribution middle run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Basis, on the so-called “Netzarim hall,” in Nuseirat within the central Gaza Strip, on Sept. 30, 2025.
Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Photos
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Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Photos
This isn’t the place the leaders of both Hamas or Israel needed to finish up.
An Islamist militant group within the Gaza Strip, Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., EU and plenty of different Western nations. Hamas’ high management has been assassinated, its combating capability severely curbed in Gaza. The group has lost much support from Arab nations. The American ceasefire plan being negotiated this week may enable Israel’s navy to stay contained in the Gaza Strip, and Israel has been calling for Hamas to be fully demilitarized.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has forged the struggle in Gaza — regardless of preliminary intelligence failures main as much as the Oct. 7 assault — as a part of a string of safety victories towards Israel’s regional enemies, particularly nuclear-armed Iran and the Lebanese proxy group it funds, Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks through the eightieth session of the United Nations Normal Meeting, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, at U.N. headquarters.
Stefan Jeremiah/FR171756 AP
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Stefan Jeremiah/FR171756 AP
“Collectively we pushed again the plans of annihilation from our enemies. From Gaza to Rafah, from Beirut to Damascus, from Yemen to Tehran, collectively we achieved nice good points,” Netanyahu stated in a televised speech final week.
Whereas the continuation of the struggle has slowed a corruption case towards Netanyahu, the struggle has additionally taxed the economic system, stretched its exhausted combating forces, sharply divided Israeli society and left its international standing severely tarnished by accusations of genocide, which the Israeli authorities strenuously denies.
“Our authorities does not give a rattling and does not actually do its job and has managed to place sticks into the wheels of each try and get an settlement,” stated Gabriela Goldschmidt, who has attended weekly demonstrations in Tel Aviv towards Netanyahu’s authorities for the final two years.
And two years on, Israeli society is haunted by a counterfactual: May it have saved the lives of extra hostages?
“If Netanyahu had accepted Lapid’s proposal over a 12 months in the past, maybe greater than 40 hostages, who had been murdered or killed in captivity, could be alive right now,” Vladimir Beliak, an Israeli parliament member, wrote this week, referring to a previous plan backed by Israel’s opposition chief Yair Lapid and Arab nations.
Gaza in ruins
Palestinians from Gaza Metropolis transfer southwards with their belongings, on the coastal street close to the Nuseirat refugee camp within the central Gaza Strip, on September 19, 2025.
Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Photos
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Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Photos
In Gaza, the place lethal Israeli shelling continued final weekend regardless of Hamas’ acceptance of the primary section of the U.S. peace plan, Palestinians are marking the top of a second 12 months of fixed death and hunger.
“We pray that every one this destruction results in one thing good. I swear to God,” stated Mohammad Naher Nassar, 31, who has remained in Gaza Metropolis despite Israeli orders to town’s inhabitants final week to depart instantly or be thought-about a militant or Hamas sympathizer.
He and the practically 2 million folks in Gaza are holding out for long-term respite from compelled displacement, frequent airstrikes which have typically annihilated entire families and armed sniper drones which have focused civilians.
“Day by day life — it was once about college, the health club, sports activities. All of a sudden it grew to become about discovering a spot to take a seat, water, displacement, your son, your nephew… searching for the place your father went , the place your brother, the place he went,” stated Ahmed Abu Saif, 22.
Even after a possible ceasefire, the duty of rebuilding shall be daunting and will take a long time.
“I’m ready for the displaced to return as quickly as doable — right now earlier than tomorrow in order that life can return — celebrations, youngsters ululating and laughing within the streets — in order that the outdated days come again, God keen, like earlier than the struggle,” says Nassar.
Their hopes are tempered by the data that vital daylight stays between how Israel and Hamas envision their future presence in Gaza, and {that a} earlier ceasefire this 12 months ended after simply three months.
“It’s like now we have been bottled up so tightly … and now we are able to take a breath,” stated Iman Abu Aklayn, 48, a mom of 4 kids in Gaza Metropolis. However only a small breath, she says, “as we’re nonetheless residing a nightmare.”
Recollections run deep
Adel Rubin (L), who misplaced each her dad and mom through the Oct. 7, 2023, assaults, reacts as she visits a home that was left heavily-damaged after the occasion in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on October 6, 2025, a day earlier than the second anniversary of the assaults.
John Wessels/AFP/Getty Photos
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John Wessels/AFP/Getty Photos
At Kibbutz Nir Oz within the western Negev Desert, residents additionally say they haven’t moved on.
The tiny agricultural neighborhood was one of many hardest hit through the Hamas-led assault two years in the past. About one quarter of the tight-knit neighborhood was killed or kidnapped. 9 of their members stay captive in Gaza, and plenty of surviving members have been too traumatized to return to their houses.
Tzvika Tesler, the chairman of the kibbutz, says his neighborhood is now debating whether or not to tear down the charred and bullet-ridden husks of houses that had been attacked or to protect them like monuments.
“The kibbutz has but to decide,” he stated. Possible, they’d pursue each choices: “There shall be a really organized course of; the kibbutz is turning into each a residing neighborhood and a remembering one.”
A lady sits subsequent to a grave on the Nir Oz Kibbutz cemetery throughout a ceremony commemorating the two 12 months anniversary of the seventh of October Hamas led assault.
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Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance/Getty Photos
Within the kibbutz’s cemetery, rows of latest, gleaming headstones every bear the identical date of demise: Oct. 7, 2023. Standing among the many graves throughout a commemoration occasion this week, Sagui Dekel-Chen described the battle to grasp residing when a lot of his neighbors had been killed. Hamas kidnapped him from Kibbutz Nir Oz and held him captive in Gaza for a 12 months and 4 months earlier than releasing him in February 2025.
“Why does not the sorrow come solely on particular events? Why does not it keep right here, within the cemetery? Why is it with me on a regular basis, in every single place?” requested Dekel-Chen, his voice choked by tears. “I am above all this, however not previous all this.”
As he and others spoke, there got here the occasional Israeli artillery growth from Gaza, lower than two miles away: a reminder that the struggle continues, and so does the ache, for each Israelis and for Palestinians.
Itay Stern contributed reporting from Nir Oz, Israel, and Anas Baba contributed reporting from Gaza Metropolis, Gaza Strip.
