1,000 days of carnage in Gaza

Do you know anyone who seriously imagined that Israel’s onslaught in Gaza that recommenced on Oct. 7, 2023, would last 1,000 days? That was yet another grim milestone passed last week and the carnage continues unabated. No doubt the three-year anniversary will pass this October.
The level of destruction is beyond imagination. Was there any type of building off-limits to Israeli bombardment? The result is an estimated 61 million tonnes of rubble. By October 2025, the UN determined that 81 percent of all structures had been destroyed or damaged. Most Gazans now have only tents for shelter and, although they barely have enough water to drink, they fear the rain because it will flood their makeshift homes.
Israel has brought the health system to its knees. It committed what is known as “scholasticide” by systematically bombing schools. Not one university remains. Even mosques and churches have been targeted. Three-quarters of the road network has been put beyond use.
The human toll remains contested in a macabre back and forth between factions. The official toll may be 73,000 killed, but the real figure is clearly much higher, as thousands of bodies still lie under the rubble. Distinguished medical journal The Lancet found that more than 3 million life-years had been lost by the end of July 2025.
This is also a war on children. The recent UN Commission of Inquiry report reaffirmed that Israel is perpetrating genocide and added that it was deliberately targeting children. Israeli forces have also destroyed neonatal and maternity care centers. A survey in June 2025 found that 10,000 Palestinian children had suffered from hearing loss.
Among the most jaw-dropping stats is that, out of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza, 1.8 million, maybe even more, remain displaced.
Famine and starvation have been used deliberately and openly as a weapon of war. The Israeli government twice announced a complete ban on the entry of food, water, fuel, medicines and other products into Gaza. Famine was formally confirmed in August 2025. This was the first famine ever declared in the Middle East — with more than half a million people trapped in starvation conditions.
These are the measurable and visible consequences. Those of us who have been in war zones know the distant, almost vacant, look of traumatized children. Yet this is a war in which the civilian population was already traumatized and Israel is dishing out a major top-up. A Gazan who was 18 years old in 2023 would have endured six major Israeli wars on the Strip. The adults are also affected. Imagine having to write your name on your body so that you could be identified if bombed.
International law has also been a victim. Rarely has it ever been so cruelly jettisoned. Major powers have not just ignored the atrocities perpetrated by Israel but all too frequently aided and abetted its crimes. Accountability has gone on a long sabbatical.
None of this is over. A ceasefire in name only continues to stalk Gaza. Far from the hope that the genocide would end, the likely prospect is that Israel will return to full-scale atrocities this summer. Israeli military sources state that it is a question of when, not if. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an election to win and he knows killing Palestinians works for him electorally.

This is a war in which the civilian population was already traumatized and Israel is dishing out a major top-up.

Chris Doyle

This is why Netanyahu has expanded Israel’s direct occupation. The Trump peace plan gave Israel direct control over 53 percent of Gaza. Netanyahu raised this unilaterally to 60 percent and then 70 percent. It was no shock when Eli Cohen, the energy minister, said last week that “our control of the territory will only continue to expand until we reach 100 percent.”
Reestablishing illegal settlements in Gaza is far from a distant dream for the Israeli right. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claims that plans for three settlements in northern Gaza await Netanyahu’s approval.
Yet, for all the carnage and horror, what still shocks to the core is the manner in which so many of the world’s leaders, politicians and media institutions callously disregard the mountains of evidence of these crimes. How about the tech companies that have facilitated the scale of this genocide with advanced automated systems?
Other atrocities around the world take place away from the cameras, thereby failing to register with the global public. With Gaza, what Israel is doing is recorded and worse — all too often boasted about, including by Israeli ministers. Who can forget the Israeli soldiers dressing up in their victims’ clothing and posting snuff videos online?
It is the sinister way the world is gaslit with claims such as that Israel does not target civilians and that it has the most moral army in the world, when the polar opposite is reported and recorded in such fine, gory detail.
We let this happen. Our inability to prevent this carnage makes us all complicit in varying ways. Worst of all, there is no sense of “never again” with Gaza. It is more a case of who will be next and when.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech