Terror attack, then war
Hours after Palestinian militants launched the worst terror attack in Israel’s history on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, kidnapping 240 and firing a huge barrage of rockets, the Israeli Air Force began bombarding Gaza, kicking off a military campaign that has killed more than 26,000 people.
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 dense streets, many of which have been turned to rubble. Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate and have since turned their attention to the south, where many of those people fled.
Hamas, meanwhile, has continued firing rockets into Israel, an exchange that reignites every few years but never before at this scale. In the other Palestinian enclave of the occupied West Bank, locals and human rights groups report a rise in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians living there. Critics say this is enabled and even encouraged by the Israeli government, something Israel denies.