It is Israel’s longest and bloodiest war since the War of Independence in 1948. The number of deaths in the Gaza Strip is higher than ever before. Nevertheless, Israel’s war goals have not yet been achieved.
The outcome of the Gaza war, which has been raging for six months, is devastating. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 33,000 people have been killed and almost 76,000 others injured in the Gaza Strip. The authority does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. According to Israeli figures, around 12,000 terrorists were killed in the Gaza Strip, which would be more than a third of the dead. The information provided by both parties to the conflict cannot currently be independently verified.
The horror began with the worst massacre since the Holocaust
The war was triggered by the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on the Israeli border area on October 7th last year, in which more than 1,200 people were killed. It was the worst massacre in the country’s history; including corpse desecration and rape. In addition, terrorists from Hamas and other extremist organizations abducted more than 250 people into the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli information, 133 people are still being held there today, but at most a hundred of them are believed to be still alive.
On the Israeli side, more than 1,500 people have been killed since October 7, including 600 soldiers. More than 15,000 suffered injuries.
Devastating Israeli response in the Gaza Strip
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a destructive ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. Around 300,000 Israeli reservists were called up at the start of the war.
According to the UN, more than 1.7 million of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the coastal strip have since become internally displaced persons. The area on the Mediterranean, which is about the same size as Munich, is largely in ruins. Among the more than 33,000 dead are paramedics, journalists and aid organization employees.
According to the UN, all Gaza residents are affected by “high, acute food insecurity”, and half of them are even affected by “catastrophic food insecurity”. Aid organizations accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries. Israel rejected this, saying the problem lies in the Gaza Strip because actors there do not appear to be able to distribute more aid.
According to Israel’s Cogat Authority, more than 388,850 tons of humanitarian aid have been transported to the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, in more than 20,700 trucks.
The war caused damage amounting to tens of billions
According to an estimate by the World Bank and the United Nations, the Gaza war caused material damage worth tens of billions of dollars. The institutions estimated the damage to the critical infrastructure in the Gaza Strip at around 18.5 billion US dollars (around 17.2 billion euros). According to the data, this corresponds to 97 percent of the gross domestic product in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in 2022. According to the report, damage to residential buildings accounted for 72 percent of the total damage. The war also caused severe devastation in the Israeli border area with the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Continuous fighting on the border with Lebanon
Since the war began, the so-called “Axis of Resistance” – Iran and its non-state allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, as well as Syria – have engaged Israel in fighting on multiple fronts. Iran has announced retaliation after a suspected Israeli airstrike on an Iranian embassy building in Syria’s capital Damascus that left several people dead.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, there have been daily confrontations between Israel’s army and militant Lebanese groups such as Hezbollah. So far, 18 people have been killed in attacks on northern Israel – ten soldiers and eight civilians. According to media reports, 279 fighters were killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them from the ranks of the Shiite militia Hezbollah. In addition, 68 civilians were killed in attacks.
43 Israeli residences on the border with Lebanon were evacuated. More than 60,000 Israelis and more than 90,000 Lebanese had to leave their respective border areas due to the ongoing fighting. According to Israeli information, more than 3,100 rockets were fired from Syria and Lebanon into the Israeli north.
Attacks also from Yemen
According to information from the Israeli Institute for National Security (INSS), the Houthi militia operating from Yemen has carried out 63 attacks on Israel since the start of the Gaza war. It also attacked ships in the Red Sea 159 times. The militia wants to force an end to Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Increase in violence also in the West Bank
During the Gaza war, the security situation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank also deteriorated massively. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, 438 Palestinians were killed during the period – in Israeli military operations, confrontations or their own attacks. 19 Israelis were killed in attacks in the West Bank or Jerusalem. Around 3,700 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank, 1,600 of them suspected Hamas members.
War goals remain unachieved
According to Israel, the declared goals of the Gaza war are the destruction of Hamas’ leadership and military capabilities and the release of the hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly promised “total victory” over Hamas. However, even after six months of devastating war, these goals have not been achieved.
Despite massive international warnings, Israel is planning a military operation in the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt, where more than a million refugees are crowding. Israel wants to destroy the last Hamas battalions there in order to prevent the terrorist organization from resurgent after the war.
The rocket attacks on Israeli border towns with the Gaza Strip have not yet been completely stopped. According to the military, a total of more than 14,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip since October 7th. More than 9,000 of them were intercepted or hit on Israeli territory.
Among other things, Hamas fights against the Israeli army from an extensive tunnel system hundreds of kilometers long under the Gaza Strip. Even after six months, it has not been possible to capture the Hamas leadership – headed by Jihia al-Sinwar – who is believed to be in tunnels in the south of the Gaza Strip. The assumption is that Sinwar has surrounded himself with hostages for his own protection and an operation against him would therefore be extremely risky.
“Israel has preferred military pressure to negotiations at various times, under the premise that the more Hamas is pushed into a corner, the more flexible its negotiating positions become,” a commentator in the Israel Hajom newspaper wrote on Sunday. “However, Hamas’ hard line in recent months shows that this approach has failed.”
Information from the Israel Institute of National Security UN information on the situation in the Gaza Strip Information from Cogat