A year of war between Israel and Hamas has changed the lives of many for generations
Sky News’ Yalda Hakim reflects on a year of war between Israel and Hamas, tracing the fighting, grief and future through one year, two sounds, three miles and four weeks
One year…
It’s been just over one year since the day that changed the lives of Israelis and Palestinians for generations.
The tragedy of 7 October lives inside most Israelis in a visceral way that is magnified by a unique history.
After enduring bloody pogroms and the Holocaust, this is a nation whose modern existence was meant as the ultimate guarantor that ‘never again’ would the Jewish people be slaughtered defenceless.
Yet on that day, as Hamas infiltrated Israel, a bloody chime of history sounded as 1,200 Jews were murdered.
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What happened on 7 October 2023
For those in Gaza and now Lebanon, it is one year since Israeli retaliation began against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Displacement, disease and death hang in the air in these places, creating tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people.
And what began as a terrorist attack against Israel increasingly feels like it has become a regional war that risks engulfing the entire Middle East.
A year ago, it felt like the once inconceivable normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia might be inevitable.
Instead, the Palestinian issue is back on the international agenda at the price of thousands of dead.
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Across the world, and especially in the United States and Europe, the war in Gaza has polarized and enflamed societies in a way no other conflict has – with an outpouring of emotions about Israel and the Palestinians.
Hundreds of thousands march in capitals every weekend calling for an end to the conflict.
Two sounds…
The morning at the memorial was sombre and emotional. Parents wept for their lost children.
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Silence, screams and the sounds of war
As I walked around the site of the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, I was struck by two distinct sounds.
First, the anguished wailing of mothers – breaking the silence to cry out in unspeakable grief. The other – every 90 seconds – was the sound of artillery fire going into Gaza.
These are two sounds which have become inextricably linked over this year.
As mothers cry in Israel, just three miles away in Gaza, mothers also weep for their dead children.
According to the UN – at the time of writing – 11,355 children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli bombardment.
The health ministry in Gaza puts the total number of dead at over 42,000 people.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are an estimated further 10,000 people still not found under the rubble.
In Lebanon, the death toll is also growing. Their health ministry says over 2,000 people have now died as a result of Israeli bombardment, and a fifth of the population is now displaced.
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Father of 7 October victim speaks to Sky
Three miles…
That is the distance between where I was standing at the site of the Nova Music Festival memorial and the Gaza Strip.
All that separates the two worlds – because they do feel like separate worlds – is a wall. A wall that was torn through on 7 October 2023.
In the early hours of that day, Hamas brutally killed more than 350 people gathered here at a music festival and took as many as 40 others hostage.
People hid for hours on end, watching helplessly as their friends were killed in front of them and others were dragged back into Gaza.
Many texted relatives saying the IDF was coming but it took the army five hours to arrive – arguably the worst intelligence and security failure in Israeli history.
In other communities, it was as many as 12 hours.
Three miles away, Hamas is no longer in control of Gaza, yet the overwhelming majority of hostages are still not freed and Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the 7 October attack, has not been captured or killed.
Gaza itself is in rubble. One in five buildings has been destroyed, and almost half damaged. Mosques, schools and shops are flattened.
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Life has changed for every single person in the Gaza Strip. The UN says nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced.
Four weeks…
It’s now just under four weeks until a knife-edged US presidential election.
Whoever wins is likely to inherit a widening war that is no longer centred on just the Israelis and the Palestinians, but Iran, its regional proxies and allies stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, and the fate of its quickening nuclear programme.
On one hand, Donald Trump is unpredictable. He says he would end the Ukraine war on day one, he claims there would never have been 7 October if he had been in the White House, and he warns darkly about the threat of World War Three absent his return to power.
But what would he do? Will he embolden and support Israeli pushback on the Iranians, or will he rein them in? No one knows for certain – including perhaps Trump himself.
Kamala Harris’s foreign policy will probably look similar to Joe Biden’s: Words of warning to Benjamin Netanyahu, but military and economic support to Israel.
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Israel’s offensives in the last few months have showcased the limits of American power, at least as wielded under President Biden.
Before Americans vote, however, it seems all but certain the Israelis will strike Iran – retaliation for an unprecedented ballistic missile attack on the Jewish State earlier this month that Israel and the US largely blunted.
How and when Israel hits Iran is the source of intense speculation – including whether the target could include the country’s energy infrastructure or nuclear sites.
The term ‘October surprise’ was coined in 1980 when Ronald Reagan feared that a last-minute deal to release American hostages in Iran might earn Jimmy Carter enough votes to remain as president.
Forty-four years later, and less than a month before election day, Iran and the wider Middle East could once again deliver another surprise.
World
‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high
At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.
The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.
Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.
Ten children were reportedly killed when Israel attacked near a clinic on Thursday. Pic: AP
The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.
Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.
Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.
“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.
The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.
It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.
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US aid contractors claim live ammo fired at Palestinians
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.
The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.
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GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
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In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.
A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.
The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.
The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
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US aid contractors claim live ammo fired at Palestinians
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.
Read more:
GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
Ten children and two women are among at least 15 killed in an airstrike near a Gaza health clinic, according to an aid organisation.
Project Hope said it happened this morning near Altayara Junction, in Deir al Balah, as patients waited for the clinic to open.
The organisation’s president called it a “blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no one and no place is safe in Gaza“.
“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” added the group’s project manager, Dr Mithqal Abutaha.
“It was a horrific scene. People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”
Operations at the clinic – which provides a range of health and maternity services – have been suspended.
Some of the children were reportedly waiting to receive nutritional supplements, necessary due to the dire shortage of food being allowed into Gaza.
Israel‘s military is investigating and said it was targeting a militant who took part in the 7 October terror attack.
“The IDF [Israel Defence Force] regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” added.
The deaths come as an agreement over a 60-day truce hangs in the balance – with President Trump cautiously saying it could happen “this week, or next week”.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the Nasser Hospital reported another 21 deaths in airstrikes in Khan Younis and in the nearby coastal area of Muwasi.
It said three children and their mother were among the dead.
Israel said its troops have been dismantling more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites in Khan Younis over the past week, including missile launch sites, weapons storage facilities and a 500m tunnel.
On Wednesday, a soldier was shot dead when militants burst out of a tunnel and tried to abduct him, the military added.
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Do Trump and Netanyahu really get along?
Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks – one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months.
A 22-year-old Israeli man was also killed on Thursday by two attackers in a supermarket in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the Magen David Adom emergency service.
People on site reportedly shot and killed the attackers but information on their identity has so far not been released.
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Lack of food and water ‘lethal’ for Gaza children
Negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire are ongoing and President Trump reportedly put “heavy” pressure on Israel’s leader, who visited the US this week.
A major sticking point is said to be the status of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza during the 60-day ceasefire and beyond, should it last longer.
However, Sky News understands the Israeli government thinks the chances of a permanent truce are “questionable”.
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More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war – more than half are women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry.
Its figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The war began in October 2023 after Hamas killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251 others.
Some of them remain In Gaza and are a crucial part of ceasefire negotiations, which also include a planned surge in humanitarian aid into the strip.
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