MONITORING (SW) – As the war in Gaza enters its second year and a wider Middle East conflict is on the verge of breaking out, one question remains: How, if it at all, does this end?
On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led fighters streamed across the border from Gaza into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping some 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.
The next day, Israel formally declared war on Hamas, and in the past year, more than 41,800 people in Gaza have been killed, and more than half of them women and children, according to the strip’s health ministry, from relentless bombing by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip where, according to reports, over 60% of Gazans have lost family members since 7 October 2023.
Palestinian authorities have reported that as many as 10,000 Palestinians had been disabled by injuries related to the war.
Since then, the region has been riven by compounded conflict, reported ABC.
Israel has taken a stronger stance on Hezbollah after months of trading fire across the border, and launched massive air strikes inside, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah, following it by a ground invasion from the south.
Iran then launched its second retaliatory air strikes in five months directly at Israel in response to the killing of Nasrallah, as well as Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
In Gaza, the fighting has already changed since the IDF opened a new front against Hezbollah.
Israeli infantry operations have largely stopped, and the presence of Israeli troops is now more similar to that in the West Bank, where they maintain strategic positions and conduct raids and intermittent air strikes.
The two million people still living in Gaza need urgent rebuilding of homes, hospitals, water treatment and sewage plants, electricity infrastructure and schools. The United Nations says war in Gaza has left children extremely vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.
