Terror attack, then war
Hours after Palestinian militants launched the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, kidnapping 240 and firing a barrage of rockets, the Israeli air force began bombing the Gaza Strip, kicking off a military campaign that has killed more than 28,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials.
Later that month, Israel launched a ground offensive into northern Gaza, with tanks and troops piercing the enclave’s perimeter fence to fight in its densely crowded streets, many of which have been turned to rubble. Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate and have since turned its attention to the south, where many of those people fled.
Hamas, meanwhile, has been firing rockets into Israel, an exchange that reignites every few years but never before at this scale. In the occupied West Bank, locals and human rights groups report a rise in violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers. Critics say the Israeli government has enabled and even encouraged such attacks, while Israel says most deaths in the West Bank are not settler-related but instead can be attributed to security forces carrying out counterterrorism raids against militants.
