Gaza War Reaches 1,000 Days: A Tragedy in Numbers

A child amid the rubble of a building destroyed by Israel in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, last Wednesday. (AFP)
A child amid the rubble of a building destroyed by Israel in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, last Wednesday. (AFP)
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Gaza War Reaches 1,000 Days: A Tragedy in Numbers

A child amid the rubble of a building destroyed by Israel in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, last Wednesday. (AFP)
A child amid the rubble of a building destroyed by Israel in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, last Wednesday. (AFP)

A thousand days have passed since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack carried out by Hamas against Israeli military sites and settlements along the Gaza border, and since the start of a bloody war that lasted two years in the enclave.

A ceasefire agreement was reached on Oct. 10, 2025, but it remained fragile amid daily Israeli violations.

Asharq Al-Awsat reviews the most prominent figures published by government bodies and international organizations active in Gaza on the war.

According to the latest cumulative toll, 73,078 people were killed and more than 173,541 wounded, including 1,063 killed after the ceasefire and 3,438 wounded.

The dead included more than 21,500 children, among them 1,022 under the age of one. They included 520 infants who were born during the war and killed in it. The toll also included 12,470 women, more than 9,000 mothers and 22,000 fathers. Some 2,700 families were wiped entirely from the civil registry after attacks hit their homes and killed them all.

About 9,500 Palestinians remain missing under the rubble of destroyed homes. Others are believed to be held in secret Israeli prisons, with no information disclosed about their fate.

Israel bombed 38 hospitals during the war, while 96 medical clinics were forced out of service, despite the start of partial rehabilitation work at some facilities under harsh conditions. Some 1,700 medical personnel were killed, including doctors, nurses, administrators, paramedics and others. Israel also destroyed 16 civil defense centers and 84 vehicles.

Some 22,000 patients and wounded people urgently need treatment abroad as Gaza’s health crisis deepens.

More than 1.9 million cases of infectious disease were recorded, ranging from mild to moderate, with most patients recovering. More than 2 million displaced people remain inside the enclave, living in harsh conditions in more than 132,000 displacement tents, most of them worn out and unfit for living.

During the war, Israel closed the crossings for more than 670 days, blocking the entry of aid trucks and endangering the lives of more than 2 million Palestinians. They included 650,000 children who suffered from malnutrition and hunger.

Some 58,000 children were orphaned after losing one or both parents. Some 460 people died from famine, including 164 children, while 28 displaced people died from the cold, among them 25 children.

Israel continued to target schools, fully or partially, causing extensive material damage. More than 620,000 students were denied their right to education. More than 20,051 students were killed, along with 830 teachers and 194 academics.

Israel completely destroyed 410,000 buildings and housing units, blew up more than 5,080 kilometers of electricity networks, destroyed 1,047 mosques in full, dug up a large number of cemeteries, and destroyed and bulldozed 87% of agricultural land. It also destroyed hundreds of factories and companies. Initial losses from the war exceeded $80 billion.



Israeli Threat to Expand Lebanon’s Occupation, Displace More Than a Million Lebanese

File photo of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank (Israeli Army)
File photo of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank (Israeli Army)
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Israeli Threat to Expand Lebanon’s Occupation, Displace More Than a Million Lebanese

File photo of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank (Israeli Army)
File photo of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank (Israeli Army)

Defense Minister Israel Katz has ⁠warned Hezbollah against attacking Israel, saying the Israeli army was capable of occupying more Lebanese territories and displacing more than a million Shiites.

"Hezbollah will suffer a severe blow and lose additional territories in southern Lebanon within the Nabatieh and Litani regions, which will become part of Israel's permanent security zone. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is prepared to carry out the maneuver," Katz said on Wednesday.

Speaking from the self-declared security zone Israeli forces are ⁠occupying in southern Lebanon, Katz said that a million Shiites would be displaced and that Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut would not be spared.

Israel launched airstrikes and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon this year in parallel with the war in Iran, after Hezbollah fired into Israel in revenge ​for Israeli-American attacks against Tehran.

Hundreds of ​thousands of people from Lebanon's Shiite community were uprooted by the fighting.


UN Peacekeeping Chief Says Talks on Future of Lebanon Mission Must Begin Soon

 United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Beirut, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Beirut, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
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UN Peacekeeping Chief Says Talks on Future of Lebanon Mission Must Begin Soon

 United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Beirut, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Beirut, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Wednesday urged the UN Security Council to begin negotiations on the future of peacekeepers deployed in Lebanon, as Beirut campaigns for an extension to the mandate set to expire at the end of this year.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978, but the Security Council last year ordered the mission to begin withdrawing at the end of 2026.

Since a new war erupted in March between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, ‌the Lebanese government has ‌campaigned for an extension to UNIFIL's mandate, citing its ‌role ⁠in monitoring hostilities ⁠and facilitating aid deliveries to villages in Israeli-occupied zones.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this year presented proposals for a continued uniformed UN presence in Lebanon, but no action has been taken yet, Lacroix told Reuters in Beirut.

"These proposals are on the table of the Security Council. There has been no movement in the Security Council until now, but I believe that the negotiations will begin ... shortly, in earnest," he said.

"I think ⁠it would be better to have a decision soon ‌rather than later, right? Because that would clarify ‌also the horizon for us, certainly from the more limited point of view of our ‌own planning," he said.

FORCES OPERATE HOTLINE TO EASE TENSIONS

Diplomats say the US ‌is not supportive of an extended mandate for UNIFIL, but Lacroix said it was important to focus on Lebanon’s request and that negotiations at the Security Council could yield a constructive outcome.

Some 7,500 UNIFIL peacekeepers are still deployed at about 50 positions in southern Lebanon, which ‌would be expected to be handed over to Lebanese army troops if no new UN force is agreed.

But since most ⁠of those ⁠posts lie in territory now occupied by the Israeli military, it remains unclear how Lebanese soldiers could deploy to take over the positions.

Lacroix said that clarity on whether a new UN force would deploy to southern Lebanon would help UNIFIL make sure it does not "leave those positions prematurely before we know what could come next".

In addition to facilitating aid deliveries and monitoring hostilities, the force operates a hotline to ease any tensions between the Lebanese and Israeli militaries.

Lacroix said the deconfliction role was particularly crucial given the presence of Israeli troops in a self-declared security zone deep in Lebanese territory.

He said that Israeli and Lebanese troops in the same geographic area presented "the risk of escalation, the risk of incidents getting out of control" and that "there is a need for a third party to de-escalate".


Gaza Officials Say Israeli Strikes Kill Four

 Palestinians walk along a street lined with buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk along a street lined with buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
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Gaza Officials Say Israeli Strikes Kill Four

 Palestinians walk along a street lined with buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk along a street lined with buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP)

Palestinian officials said Israeli strikes killed four people in Gaza on Wednesday, days after the anniversary of the declaration of a US-mediated ceasefire.

Two young men died when Israeli forces struck a vehicle near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal and Nasser Hospital said.

Two other people, including a woman, were killed when an Israeli aircraft struck an apartment building in Gaza City, according to Bassal and Al-Shifa hospital.

The Israeli military did not immediately give details on the strikes. Earlier Wednesday, it said it had killed more than 100 "terrorists" over the past four months in an operation in the north of the Gaza Strip.

The military said it also destroyed around eight kilometers (five miles) of tunnels used by fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a tight reelection battle this month, has vowed no let-up in targeting Hamas despite the ceasefire that went into effect on October 10, 2025, leading Hamas to free its remaining living hostages.

Hamas stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, the deadliest day ever for the country. The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally from official Israeli figures, with fighters also dragging 251 hostages into Gaza, 44 of them already dead.

Israel's massive offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 74,300 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas and whose figures are generally considered reliable by the United Nations.