Three years after the Hamas-led attack on Israel of 7 October 2023, Gaza remains devastated and Israeli strikes continue almost daily, despite a ceasefire that took effect on 10 October last year. According to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN considers reliable, more than 1,470 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,100 wounded since the truce began. The ministry puts the total death toll since October 2023 at more than 74,000. The UK-based charity Islamic Relief says that amounts to a Palestinian killed or wounded every 90 minutes on average, with at least 320 of the dead being children.

The ceasefire brought the release of all 48 remaining hostages in return for thousands of Palestinians held by Israel, and ended large-scale bombardment, which allowed more aid to enter. The war began when the 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel says its current strikes target Hamas operatives and accuses the group of violating the truce. Residents describe a different reality. Ahed, whose wife Fida al-Toutah was shot dead in her tent in central Gaza on 21 September, told the BBC: "Every day there's a shooting." The Israeli military told the BBC it had no record of that incident, nor of the killing of a 14-year-old boy who his family say was shot while fishing off Rafah, in southern Gaza.

The physical toll is immense. Islamic Relief says about 82 percent of Gaza's structures are damaged or destroyed, more than half of health services have closed, and over 20,000 severely ill patients have been denied permission to leave for treatment. Israeli forces control roughly 65 percent of the territory, behind the so-called Yellow Line, squeezing around 2.1 million people into the remainder, many in tent camps, some built below sea level and vulnerable to flooding. Satellite imagery analysed by the research group Forensic Architecture shows buildings being levelled and rubble cleared behind that line, even though many bodies may still lie underneath. More than 10,000 people are estimated to be missing. Israel, citing security, restricts heavy machinery, and a legal scholar at Utrecht University warns that clearing rubble may also destroy evidence of possible war crimes.

Political progress has stalled. The October 2025 deal envisaged a technocratic Palestinian administration, an international force, gradual disarmament of Hamas and Israeli withdrawal, followed by reconstruction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed, while Hamas links handing over heavy weapons to an end to Israeli attacks and a pullout. A $2.45bn recovery plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, but rebuilding has not begun.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, analyst Khalid Elgindy argues the stalemate risks making Gaza uninhabitable and paving the way for displacement, pointing to statements by Israeli ministers favouring Palestinians' departure. He says the plan could still be saved if Washington and mediators enforce obligations in parallel. Meanwhile, Islamic Relief warns that "a ceasefire in name only cannot be an excuse for international inaction."