October 7 attacks in the context of October 2023 Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip

During the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces ordered mass evacuations in Gaza, which the IDF said were to minimize civilian casualties in its war against Hamas, resulting in one of the largest displacements of Palestinians since 1948. On 13 October 2023, just one week after Hamas' attack on Israel, Israel instructed 1.1 million Gazans north of the Wadi Gaza, including those in Gaza City, to evacuate within 24 hours. This evacuation triggered a humanitarian crisis, which Palestinians (and some Israelis) have compared to the Nakba of 1948.

Israel's ground invasion of Gaza began on 27 October 2023. By early November 2024, around 800,000 to 1 million Gazans had relocated to the southern part of the Strip, while 350,000 to 400,000 remained in the north. Evacuees described the perilous journey as filled with fear and insecurity, citing attacks by the Israeli military and the sight of corpses along the evacuation routes. Even after reaching the south, evacuees faced continued bombings, leaving no truly safe place in Gaza.

The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel, fought as part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflicts. The war began on 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Since the start of the Israeli offensive that followed, over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, almost half of them women and children, and more than 170,000 injured. A study in The Lancet estimated that traumatic injury deaths were undercounted and noting a potentially larger death toll when "indirect" deaths are included.

After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched a bombing campaign and invaded Gaza on 27 October. The Israeli Defense Forces launched numerous campaigns, including the Rafah offensive from May, three battles fought around Khan Yunis, and the siege of North Gaza from October, culminating in a 2025 offensive in Gaza City; and have assassinated Hamas leaders in and outside Gaza. A temporary ceasefire in November 2023 broke down, and a second ceasefire in January 2025 ended with a surprise attack by Israel in March. A third ceasefire came into effect on 10 October after Israel and Hamas agreed to phase one of a US-backed peace plan. On 19 October, after alleged Hamas violations, Israel briefly resumed bombing Gaza before reaffirming the ceasefire the same day, doing the same on 28 October.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (an acronym from the Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian nationalist political organisation with a military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.

The Hamas movement was founded by Palestinian Islamic scholar Ahmed Yassin in 1987, after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It emerged from his 1973 Mujama al-Islamiya Islamic charity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially, Hamas was discreetly supported by Israel, as a counter-balance to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state. In the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas secured a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council by campaigning on promises of a corruption-free government and advocating for resistance as a means to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. In the 2007 Battle of Gaza, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah. It has since governed the territory separately from the Palestinian National Authority, and has been criticized for human rights violations. After Hamas's takeover, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. Egypt also began its blockade of Gaza at this time. This was followed by multiple wars with Israel, including those in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, and an ongoing one since 2023, which began with the October 7 attacks.

The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip is a major part of the Gaza war. Starting on 7 October 2023, immediately after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel began bombing the Gaza Strip. On 13 October, Israel began ground operations in the Gaza Strip, and on 27 October, a full-scale invasion was launched. Israel's campaign has four stated goals: to destroy Hamas, to free the hostages, to ensure Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israel, and to return displaced residents of Northern Israel. More than a year after the invasion, fighting in the Gaza Strip halted for two months with the implementation of a ceasefire on 19 January 2025. Another ceasefire went into effect in October 2025, as phase 1 of a multi-phase peace plan.

By April 2025, the Gaza Ministry of Health had reported that at least 50,500 people in the Gaza Strip had died—1 out of every 44 people—averaging 93 deaths per day. Most of the victims are civilians, of whom at least half are women and children. In October 2025, the Gaza Ministry of Health stated that more than 68,500 people have been killed since the war began. Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest. Thousands of more dead bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings. A study in The Lancet estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. As of January 2025, a comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000. The number of injured is greater than 100,000; Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world. On 22 October 2025, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report stating that in the Gaza strip "more than 270,000 people, around 12 per cent of the population, have been killed, injured, or detained since 7 October 2023".

In the wake of the October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip, including children, women, and elderly people. Almost half of the hostages were foreign nationals or had multiple citizenships, and some hostages were Negev Bedouins. The hostages were held in different locations in the Gaza Strip.

168 hostages were returned alive to Israel, with 105 released in the 2023 Gaza war ceasefire, five released by Hamas outside the framework of any ceasefire agreement, eight rescued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 30 released during the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, and 20 released under the Gaza peace plan. The bodies of 84 hostages were repatriated to Israel, with three of the hostages killed by friendly fire after escaping captivity and being mistaken for enemy fighters by IDF troops, the bodies of 47 other hostages repatriated through military operations, eight returned in the January 2025 ceasefire deal, and 27 returned under the Gaza peace plan. According to Israel, 84 hostages were killed on 7 October 2023 or in Hamas captivity. The body of one hostage is still being held in the Gaza Strip, as of 3 December 2025.

The ongoing Gaza war has been marked by widespread violence against both Israeli and Palestinian women, including reports of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women by Hamas and affiliated militants during the October 7 attacks, and reports of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian women by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). At the same time, women have taken on roles as combatants, leadership partners, and participants in informational campaigns.

Following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, there were testimonies and videos indicating that Hamas employed methods of severe torture, including violence and sexual violence against Israeli women and children. Close to 100 Israeli women were taken hostage and held in the Gaza Strip, leading to efforts by Israeli women and organizations to raise awareness and promote their release. The United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and UN Women condemned the gender-based violence against Israeli women during the attacks.

The Gaza peace plan is a multilateral agreement between Israel and Hamas that aims to address the ongoing Gaza war and broader Middle Eastern crisis. Led by United States president Donald Trump, it was negotiated in consultation with many Arab and Muslim countries. The plan was announced by Trump on September 29, 2025, during a press conference at the White House alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was signed on October 9, coming into effect the following day, and was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council on 17 November.

After the 2005 Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip Hamas won elections in 2006 and formed a government, first alone and then in a grand coalition with Fatah, but later seized Gaza in 2007. Since then, repeated clashes with Israel have escalated into major conflicts, culminating in the October 7 attacks by Hamas in 2023, which triggered a large-scale Israeli military campaign and genocide in Gaza. Interim ceasefires in late 2023 and early 2025 collapsed.

The Iran–Israel war (13 June – 24 June 2025), also known as the Twelve-Day War, was an armed conflict in the Middle East. The war began when Israel bombed military and nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, assassinating prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, killing civilians, and damaging or destroying air defenses. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 suicide drones, hitting civilian population centers, one hospital and at least twelve military, energy, and government sites. The United States intercepted Iranian attacks, and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Qatar. On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire under US pressure.

The war followed a decades-long proxy war. Iran has called for Israel's destruction, and armed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Following the October 7 attacks in 2023, both entered open conflict with Israel. In April 2024, Israel bombed Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing senior Iranian military officials. Direct conflict continued in April and October. Iran's nuclear program has caused international concern for over a decade. Israel considers it an existential threat. In 2015, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), six countries lifted sanctions on Iran, which froze its nuclear program. In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the plan. Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and largely suspended International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. The day before Israel attacked, the IAEA declared Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations in a resolution put forward by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

On 16 October 2024, during their operations in the Gaza war, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. His killing was the result of a routine patrol and a chance encounter in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. He had been one of Israel's most wanted men after the October 7 attacks.

In the lead-up to the shootout, members of the 828th Bislamach Brigade reported activity they deemed suspicious and received orders to engage. When their drone spotted three militants leaving a building, the soldiers fired upon them, not knowing that Sinwar was among them. The militants scattered, with Sinwar entering a nearby building alone. A firefight ensued, in which an IDF soldier was severely injured. An IDF tank fired at Sinwar's location and troops advanced into the building, but they pulled back after he threw grenades at them. IDF then sent the drone to survey the interior, detecting the injured Sinwar, his identity still unknown to engaging troops. After entering again the following day, they found Sinwar's body in the wrecked building and suspected it could be his, based on resemblance. They cut a finger from the body and sent it to Israel for identification purposes; later in the day, the body was dispatched as well.

During the October 7 attacks on Israel, Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of Gazan militants and civilian looters attacked the kibbutz, killing and abducting civilians while facing resistance from armed residents. Israeli security forces regained control by the evening of 8 October. A total of 101 Israeli civilians and 31 security personnel were killed and 32 hostages were taken from the kibbutz. At least 100 Gazan militants were also killed and 18 were captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the kibbutz security force.

Among the civilians killed were women (such as peace activist Vivian Silver), children, and one infant, claiming the lives of 10% of the farming community's residents. A total of 125 homes in the community were damaged or destroyed. This incident occurred concurrently with a series of other Palestinian attacks on Israel, including the Netiv HaAsara, Kfar Aza, and Nova music festival massacres. Several newspapers described the massacre as an act of terrorism, with CNN describing it as "the symbol of Hamas’ brutality."

On 7 October 2023, as part of the surprise attack on Israel, Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, led by Hamas, invaded the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. They killed scores of kibbutz residents, burned homes, and abducted civilians. Over 500 Palestinian militants and civilian looters participated in the massacre. A total of 47 people were killed and 76 taken hostage in the attack.

The Netiv HaAsara massacre occurred during the October 7 attacks. Three Hamas fighters on paragliders attacked Netiv HaAsara, an Israeli moshav close to the border fence. The militants killed at least 17 people. Before the massacre, the moshav was home to approximately 900 residents. The lengthy response time of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been criticized by survivors. Additionally, an IDF investigation criticized the conduct of the 37 Israeli soldiers and security officers present, finding that they were unable to stop the massacre.

On 7 October 2023, dozens of Hamas militants attacked Alumim, a kibbutz close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip, as part of the surprise attack on Israel. There were 41 Thai and Nepalese foreigners working at the kibbutz. The militants killed between 16 and 17 of these workers and kidnapped between five and eight of them. The kibbutz's security team were too far away and unable to save the employees. The militants did severe structural damage to the Kibbutz's dairy farming operation.

After heavy fighting, the security team were able to push the militants back with the help of the Israel Defense Forces and police. No deaths among the remaining civilian population of the kibbutz were reported, although one Israeli civilian who had fled to the kibbutz after escaping the Nova music festival massacre was killed by the defenders in a case of mistaken identity. Three Israeli soldiers, two of them off-duty soldiers who had come to volunteer, and a police officer were killed in the fighting.

The Nukhba forces (Arabic: قوات النخبة, romanized: Quwwāt an-Nukhba), Nukhba Force or just (Al-)Nukhba (Arabic: النخبة, lit. 'the elite'; Hebrew: הנוח׳בה, romanized: HaNukhba) is the special forces unit of Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The term is frequently used to refer to Hamas militants. In 2024, the usage of the word roughly corresponds to "Hamas militant" or "Hamas commando".

Israel claims the unit led the October 7 attacks on October 7, 2023, at the beginning of the Gaza war.

On 9 October 2023, Israel intensified its blockade of the Gaza Strip when it announced a "total blockade", blocking the entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity after the October 7 attacks and the ensuing Gaza war. The blockade has been credited with contributing significantly to the Gaza genocide. Israel has conditioned its lifting of the blockade with the return of the hostages abducted by Hamas, which has been criticized as collective punishment and an apparent war crime. As of August 2025, 27 European countries and over 100 international aid organizations have called for an end to Israel's blockade of aid into Gaza.

A few weeks after 9 October 2023, Israel eased the complete blockade, but still continued to severely restrict the amount of aid entering the Gaza Strip. The first supplies entered on 21 October 2023. The blockade exacerbated Gaza's humanitarian crisis. In January 2024, Israeli authorities blocked 56% of humanitarian aid to northern Gaza. On 9 February 2024, UNRWA's director Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel had blocked food for 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.