One year on, Gaza is unrecognizable: 67,000 dead, city under ruins, famine deepens

Geneva: Israel's offensive in Gaza, launched in response to the Palestinian militant group Hamas's attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and laid waste to swathes of territory.

Below is a summary of the extent of the death and damage during the Gaza war, with much of the data drawn from reports released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Deaths in Gaza

Since October 7, 2023, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18, according to Gaza health authorities.

The Health Ministry in Gaza does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally. Israel has previously said at least 20,000 of the dead were fighters.

Israel says its offensive is aimed against Hamas and that it tries to avoid killing civilians, but that the group hides among the civilian population, an assertion that Hamas denies.

A U.N. commission of inquiry last month assessed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza - citing the scale of the killings as one of the acts backing up its finding. Israel called the finding biased and "scandalous".

Israeli deaths

At least 1,665 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed as a result of the war between October 7, 2023 and September 29, 2025, according to official Israeli information. Of these, 1,200 were killed in the October 7 attack.

The Israeli military says 466 of its soldiers have been killed in combat, and 2,951 others wounded, since its Gaza ground operation began on October 27, 2023.

Hamas took 251 people back to Gaza as hostages after the October 7 attack. Israel says 48 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.

Under a plan the two sides are discussing for halting the war, the remaining hostages would be handed over in a swap for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, but a prompt agreement at the talks is unlikely, officials say.

Damaged buildings

Around 193,000 buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, according to an analysis by the United Nations Satellite Centre of the latest figures from July. About 213 hospitals and 1,029 schools have been targeted, it said. Only 14 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are still partly functional, according to the World Health Organization, and those in southern Gaza are overwhelmed.

The U.N. human rights office has expressed grave concern about the level of destruction in Gaza City, the enclave's main urban centre, and said any deliberate effort to relocate the population would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

Displacement

Only about 18% of the Gaza Strip is not now subject to displacement orders or located within militarised zones, according to the United Nations. Many Palestinians have been displaced multiple times.

Since Israel expanded its military campaign in Gaza City in mid-August, vowing to root out Hamas fighters, the U.N. has recorded over 417,000 displacements of people from the north to the south of the enclave.

Israel has urged Gaza City residents to head south. But conditions in southern Gaza are dire, with families crammed into makeshift tents and over-stretched services trying to cope with new arrivals, aid agencies say.

Food and hunger

A global hunger monitor said in August that famine had taken hold in Gaza City and was likely to spread. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the report as an "outright lie".

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people - close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza - were experiencing famine.

At least 177 people – including 36 children – have died from starvation and malnutrition since famine was confirmed in parts of Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Over 60% of pregnant women and new mothers are suffering from malnutrition, the UN Population Fund has said.

Aid

On May 21, Israel lifted an 11-week blockade on supplies entering Gaza. Aid agencies have said the trickle of aid reaching Gaza has fallen far short of needs.

Numerous aid agencies say they still face restrictions and logistical hurdles, including the closure of the Gaza-Israel Zikim Crossing on September 12 and the closure of the Allenby crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan for food aid supplies on September 24.

Israel says there is no quantitative limit on food aid entering Gaza and accuses Hamas of stealing aid, accusations the Palestinian militant group denies.

About 73% of aid trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza in September were intercepted by hungry civilians or forcefully by armed gangs, according to OCHA.

Since May 27, at least 2,340 people have been killed while seeking food or aid in Gaza - about half of them near militarised supply sites and the rest along aid convoy routes, according to OCHA figures as of September 29.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which began delivering food in late May from a small number of distribution centres, has denied incidents occurring near its sites. It operates outside the United Nations and is supported by Israel. It said that as of September 29 it had delivered over 175 million meals.