Two years on from the Hamas-led large-scale attacks that triggered Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, it is Palestinian civilians who continue to bear the brunt of this conflict, with widespread atrocity crimes being committed by Israeli forces. Following the latest military assault, the situation in the territory, where a man-made famine has been confirmed, has further deteriorated, leaving more than two million people fighting for survival.
Meanwhile, talks on a US-driven peace plan continued on Tuesday in Egypt, raising glimmers of hope for an end to the brutal conflict.
“The pain is indescribable” on the anniversary of the “abhorrent” attacks, said UN relief chief Tom Fletcher in a statement on Tuesday. He renewed his call for the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages and urged their humane treatment until they are released.
October 7, 2025, marked two years on since members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched thousands of rockets toward Israel and breached through a perimeter fence of Gaza at multiple locations. The armed groups entered Israeli towns and communities, as well as military facilities near the Gaza Strip, killing and capturing Israeli forces, civilians and foreign nationals.
More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, most of them civilians, were reportedly killed, and more than 5,400 were injured in the attacks on October 7, 2023, and in the immediate aftermath. More than 200 hostages were also taken.
“Civilians everywhere have to be protected. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Hundreds of thousands endure starvation and displacement,” Fletcher said.
“So we renew the call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, for all civilians to be protected, and for humanitarian aid to flow freely at the scale needed.”
He added that there is “now a glimmer of hope that this can happen. We must keep it alive.”
Indirect technical talks have been underway since Monday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, which, along with Qatar and the United States, has been mediating negotiations to end the war in Gaza. The principles behind a 20-point US proposal, which would see fighting cease, hostages released and aid poured into Gaza, have been endorsed by Israel and Hamas.
After Israel agreed to the plan earlier last week, on Friday Hamas said it had agreed to significant parts of the US proposal, including the release of all Israeli hostages, both living and dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Since mid-August, the intensification of Israel’s brutal military offensive in Gaza City has forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – many of whom have already been displaced multiple times – to flee to overcrowded enclaves in the south of the occupied territory.
They lack security, access to clean water, food, medical care, shelter, and life-sustaining infrastructure. According to a recent assessment by aid agencies, one million people in Gaza currently have access to less than the emergency minimum of six liters of drinking water per day.
The war in Gaza has displaced over 1.9 million people, many of whom have fled dozens of times as the fighting continues. Since March 2025, over 1.2 million civilians have been displaced. In September alone, approximately 380,000 people were forced to flee the north for the south.
Those in Gaza City and the surrounding area are facing deteriorating access to the means of survival, collapsing lifelines, and an increasing number of aid organizations forced to suspend operations.
Aid workers continue to be hindered by the Israeli authorities' denial, delay, or obstruction of humanitarian convoys. Israel deliberately obstructs humanitarian operations and impedes the movement of aid into and within Gaza.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine, shelter, and other desperately needed supplies ready to enter Gaza from across the region. As soon as conditions allow, UN aid teams in Gaza "stand ready to deliver at scale" to alleviate famine, widespread hunger, and malnutrition.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), highlighted the continuing obstacles to aid delivery when he told journalists in Geneva today that, over the past two years, 45 percent of the more than 8,000 requests for humanitarian missions inside Gaza that required coordination with the Israeli authorities were denied or impeded en route.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted that teams in Gaza are waiting for approval to retrieve incubators and ventilators for premature babies evacuated from northern Gaza.
“We've managed to move [the babies] to another facility when the hospital they were in needed to be evacuated, but we haven't managed to move the incubators […] it's been denied so far,” said spokesperson Ricardo Pires.
The go-ahead “to move our convoys to pick up those incubators [is] not being given because of safety and military operations happening on the ground”, Pires explained.
“One in every five [children] born in Gaza is born premature without the infrastructure to receive them and keep them safe and alive,” he stressed. “We're talking about children sharing oxygen masks in order to stay alive.”
Pires went on to say that 61,000 children have reportedly been killed or maimed “since the horrors Hamas unleashed in Israel and what followed after the disproportionate response from Israel, that is still ongoing”.
“That's an average of one child either killed or maimed every 17 minutes,” he said, “an unacceptable, staggering figure”.
The UNICEF spokesperson deplored the fact that children have been “suffering in their bodies and their minds for way too long”, traumatized and “exposed to horrors that no child should ever have to look at or live”.
Referring to the peace plan proposed by the United States, which has been the subject of negotiations in Egypt for two consecutive days, Pires welcomed “the plans by the US Government which bring a glimpse of hope to the region and to civilians and children in Gaza, that a better future is ahead”.
His words echoed those of UN Secretary-General António Guterres who said in a statement on Monday that the recent proposal “presents an opportunity to that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end”.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, nearly 90 percent of Gaza has been designated as Israeli military zones or forced displacement areas, and there is undeniable evidence that the Israeli government has committed mass atrocities, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
For nearly two years, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been subjected to a relentless escalation of atrocities perpetrated by Israeli government and military officials, with little to no rest, justice, or protection. The cumulative impact of famine, widespread hunger, and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.
Hunger-related deaths are mounting. According to Gaza officials, more than 450 malnutrition-related deaths, including over 150 children, have been documented since October 2023. However, the true death toll due to the ongoing famine is expected to be much higher.
It is estimated that 132,000 children under the age of five are suffering from acute malnutrition, including 41,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Additionally, more than 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and 25,000 infants are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition and require urgent nutritional support.
On Tuesday, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier recalled that, according to the latest UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report in August, over half a million people are trapped in the famine in Gaza.
He stressed that “640,000 people [are] facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.”
“We know that most indicators are worsening,” said UNICEF’s Pires, warning that the famine that was declared in Gaza City “is slowly moving to the South as more people get displaced, leaving what is now again a combat zone”.
On Monday, OCHA reported a reduction in airstrikes in recent days, though shelling, gunfire, killings, and injuries of civilians continued.
According to health officials in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed over 66,000 Palestinians, most of whom were children, women, and elderly individuals, and injured more than 169,000 others in attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Among the fatalities are at least 562 aid workers, 376 United Nations staff members, 1,722 healthcare workers, and 251 journalists.
However, the true death toll is expected to be much higher. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble. Additionally, it is estimated that thousands have died from indirect causes, including starvation, lack of medical care, dehydration, and lack of shelter.
Meanwhile, the number of casualties among people trying to access aid supplies has surged, reaching over 2,500 fatalities and approximately 19,000 injuries since the militarized supply site system was established in Gaza on May 27. Most of the deaths and injuries have occurred near the supply sites, with over 1,000 occurring along the supply routes.
According to UN commissions, international and Israeli human rights organizations, human rights experts, and the world's leading genocide scholars, Israel's actions in Gaza— including the blockade and obstruction of humanitarian aid — not only meet the legal definition of war crimes and crimes against humanity but also amount to genocide against Gaza's population.
They conclude that the Israeli government has deliberately inflicted living conditions intended to destroy a group or part of a group, as defined in the Genocide Convention. Genocide is widely regarded as one of the most egregious international crimes, alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
At the same time, Israel's assault on Gaza is marked by grave war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated with impunity by Israeli military personnel and government officials.
These crimes include using starvation as a method of warfare, denying humanitarian aid, and collectively punishing civilians. They also include carrying out indiscriminate attacks, targeting civilians, aid workers, and journalists; deliberately attacking civilian objects and undefended buildings; forcibly transferring people; torturing individuals; and forcibly disappearing people.
Human rights groups and rights experts have repeatedly demanded that governments around the world take immediate action in accordance with their international legal obligations to prevent and stop atrocity crimes and to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip, which includes imposing an arms embargo and implementing targeted sanctions against Israel. They have also called for support of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Looking ahead, it will probably take years, maybe decades, to hold accountable the tens of thousands of Israeli government officials, military officers, and soldiers accused of committing some of the worst crimes known to humanity during the Gaza war, as well as those foreign nationals — including government officials and business leaders — complicit in these crimes.
Israeli courts and the ICC will hardly be able to cope. National courts in other countries operating under the principle of universal jurisdiction, as well as international criminal tribunals, will likely have to shoulder some of the caseload to end impunity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory once and for all.