A timeline of one year of Israel's bombardment of Gaza

October 2023

7/10/23 – A surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israel saw gunmen breach security barriers and launch a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza.

10/10/23 – Gaza’s oldest degree-awarding institution, the Islamic University of Gaza was hit by Israeli forces and its campus destroyed. The university was founded in 1978 and held its first classes in tents. By 2023, it had more than 17,000 students.

11/10/23 – The sole power plant in Gaza ceased operations after running out of fuel because of Israel’s blockade. That left only generators to power the territory, but they also run on fuel, which is in short supply.

12/10/23 – Israel’s then-energy minister Israel Katz vowed that no basic essentials or humanitarian aid would be allowed in Gaza until all Israeli hostages were released. “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” he said.

12/10/23 – Red Crescent ambulances in Gaza were struck by Israel’s forces. Talal Taha, a paramedic, was injured and three of his colleagues were killed. “Our mission is humanitarian, we provide humanitarian service only, and we were targeted without any reason, without any excuse,” he said.

13/10/23 – Israel ordered more than one million people – half the population – to leave northern Gaza within 24 hours in advance of an imminent military ground operation. Though that initial deadline passed, the order raised serious legal and humanitarian red flags – and fears for the safety of civilians.

16/10/23 – Surgeons in Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s main surgical facility, began operating without painkillers. Surgeons were operating on patients without sufficient anaesthesia. Pharmacies were running out of medicine. People with chronic illnesses were set to face life-threatening complications as a result of the shortage of medical supplies.

17/10/23 – The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was hit by a missile, killing 471 people and injuring 342. “There was nowhere to walk because there were body parts everywhere and people injured and dying,” a journalist who arrived at the hospital an hour after the blast said. “The people at the scene were mainly children, older people, women.”

19/10/23 – Palestinian health authorities said that 13 Palestinians, including five children, were killed in clashes in the Nur Shams refugee camp. A spokesperson for UN human rights chief Volker Türk said: “We are extremely alarmed by the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and the increase in unlawful use of lethal force”.

19/10/23 – The campus of the Greek Orthodox St Porphyrius Church in Gaza was shelled by the Israeli forces, killing and injuring a “large number” of displaced people sheltering at the church compound.

20/10/23 – Doctors Without Borders stated thousands of people were at risk of dying “within hours” because it was “impossible” to give them medical attention.  The medical advocacy group said health facilities in the area were under “unimaginable duress” as hospital workers operated with restricted access to electricity and water under the Israeli siege.

22/10/23 – UNRWA announced it would run out of fuel within three days, resulting in “no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries.” Without fuel, aid would not reach those in desperate need. Without fuel, there would be no humanitarian assistance.

23/10/23 – The healthcare system in the Gaza Strip “totally collapsed due to the Israeli war”, health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told a news conference in Gaza City. He said 65 medics have been killed and 25 ambulances have been destroyed in Israeli air raids since October 7. Twelve hospitals and 32 healthcare centres were forced out of service. We are afraid that many more will stop operations in the coming hours due to lack of fuel,” he added.

25/10/23 – The wife, daughter and son of Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Later footage showed him holding the shrouded body of his seven-year-old daughter, Sham, seeming to speak to her as he looked at her bloodied face after the attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp.

27/10/23 – Israel launched a full-scale invasion, called Operation Swords Of Iron and began the heaviest barrage of air strikes on Gaza since the start of the war. It also bombed southern Gaza, where an estimated 700,000 civilians fled after the Israelis urged them to leave the north.

29/10/23 – Reconstructive surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah reported that “Israelis [are] increasingly using phosphorus bombs. Treated a 13-year-old yesterday with distinctive phosphorus burns to both legs and thighs”.

30/10/23 – Israel confirmed that its jets carried out an attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. Gaza’s health ministry and a hospital director confirmed that at least 50 people were killed. Pictures from the scene showed craters and levelled buildings.

31/10/23 – An Israeli air attack killed 106 people in a residential building in central Gaza. It was later confirmed to be an “apparent war crime”, by Human Rights Watch on April 4, 2024.

NOVEMBER 2023

1/11/23 – An Israeli siege forced Gaza’s only cancer hospital to shut down amid fuel shortage. The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital stated it was “completely out of service” after it ran out of fuel to power its generator. It meant that 16 of the Gaza Strip’s 35 hospitals were out of service.

3/11/23 – At least 132 Palestinians, including 41 children, had been killed in the West Bank, 124 of those by Israeli soldiers and some eight by Israeli settlers, since October 7. “The situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent,” said Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

4/11/23 – The entrance of the Al-Nasser Children’s Hospital was hit by an Israeli strike as Israel intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, hitting schools, mosques and more hospitals in the besieged enclave, a day after attacking a convoy of ambulances transporting critically wounded patients from the Al-Shifa Hospital to the Rafah border crossing.

6/11/23 – More than 10,000 people – including 4104 children – were killed in 31 days of relentless Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials.

8/11/23 – Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City shut down “most operations” after running out of fuel and withstanding daily Israeli bombardments around the medical complex since November 5. It shut down fully on November 12.

10/11/23 – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for the “immediate protection of all civilians, including humanitarian workers and medical personnel” in Gaza, as it warned that Gaza’s health system had collapsed. “The healthcare system in Gaza has reached a point of no return risking the lives of thousands of wounded, sick and displaced people,”

13/11/23 – Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital was no longer functioning, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which warned of a “dire and perilous” situation for hundreds of patients and displaced people trapped inside.

13/11/23 – Israeli bombings killed at least 31 people in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency.

15/11/23 – Israeli forces raided Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital after laying siege to the enclave’s largest medical facility for days. Thousands of people were trapped inside, with decomposed dead bodies buried in a mass grave on the hospital premises. The hospital also had 36 premature babies who were taken off their incubators because the station supplying them oxygen was destroyed in Israeli shelling three days ago.

15/11/23 – Al-Quds Open University was destroyed.This university was established by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1991 and was the first open learning institute in the Palestinian territories. At its peak, it had 60,000 students studying across 19 branches and centres throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, making it the biggest non-campus university in Palestine. Israeli forces turned university buildings into military barracks, before bombing them.

16/11/23 – The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza was “completely out of service” due to a lack of supplies and an overwhelming number of patients amid Israel’s assault on the besieged territory, hospital director Atef al-Kahlout said. Footage from the hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip showed wounded Palestinians lining the hallways of the facility and lying amid pools of blood. It was raided and left in ruins by Israeli forces on November 24, with the belief it would never open again.

18/11/23 – The US vetoed a UN resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in the Israeli bombardment. The US was the sole vote against the resolution with 12 members voting in favour and Russia and the UK abstaining.

19/11/23 – The number of fatalities reached 11,000, with 27,490 injuries and 1.6 million people displaced, UN humanitarian body OCHA confirmed.

20/11/23 – As of November 3, almost two-thirds (67%) of those killed in Gaza were women and children, the UN said. “Women killed in this conflict have come from all walks of life, and included journalists, medical staff, United Nations personnel and members of civil society organisations,” said Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.

23/11/23 – Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya (below), head of Al-Shifa Hospital, was detained and held in Israel. He was tortured and kept without adequate food or access to medical services and some of his colleagues died in Israeli detention. He was later released on July 1, 2024, after more than seven months in a detention centre.

29/11/23 – Israel announced a massive illegal settlement expansion. The approved plan proposed the construction of 1738 housing units on Palestinian land.

DECEMBER 2023

1/12/23 – Palestinian health officials said 178 Palestinians had been killed in renewed Israeli bombardments of Gaza following the expiration of the truce with Hamas.

3/12/23 – The director-general of the government’s media office in Gaza told Al Jazeera that more than 700 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the last 24 hours.

7/12/23 – Dr Refaat Alareer, a renowned poet, teacher and professor of English Literature at Islamic University in Gaza City, was murdered in a targeted airstrike on his sister’s home. His brother, sister and her four children were also killed. Dr Alareer is famous both for his own work and the “We Are Not Numbers” project which supports young writers in Gaza.

8/12/23 – A 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Far’a refugee camp in the West Bank was among six murdered after Israeli forces stormed the refugee camp to arrest suspected Palestinian fighters.

10/12/23 – OCHA updated its estimated death toll in Gaza since October 7 to 18,000 Palestinians. The Ministry of Health stated just under 50,000 people had been wounded since the start of the conflict.

12/12/23 – Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the only remaining health facility in northern Gaza, after besieging and shelling it for several days, the Palestinian health ministry said. Ashraf al-Qudra, a ministry spokesperson, said Israeli troops were rounding up men and boys in the courtyard of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, including medical staff.

16/12/23 – Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila called for an “urgent probe” after Israeli forces were accused of crushing Palestinians, including wounded patients, using bulldozers in the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Doctors and other witnesses said Israeli forces bulldozed tents housing displaced Palestinians near the hospital – one of the 11 hospitals still functioning inside Gaza – and crushed them to death.

17/12/23 – Following a convoy visit to Al-Shifa hospital, the WHO released a statement describing the situation as a “bloodbath” with hundreds of injured patients inside laying on the floor and new patients arriving every minute.

20/12/23 – The last hospital that could perform surgery in northern Gaza stopped functioning, WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reported. “That has left north Gaza with no functional hospital. Only four hospitals operate at a minimum level, providing very limited care,” he said on Twitter/X.

23/12/23 – Gaza’s government media office reported the 100th journalist – Palestinian Muhammed Abu Hweidy – to be killed by Israeli bombardments since the start of the war.

25/12/23 – Israel killed more than 100 people at the Maghazi refugee camp, with Palestinian authorities reporting that 250 people were killed in a wave of strikes over 24 hours.

27/12/23 – A video on social media appeared to show Palestinian men and at least two children detained and stripped by Israeli forces in a stadium in northern Gaza. A CNN geolocation of the video showed it was filmed in Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City, where Human Rights Monitor said it received reports of detentions.

29/12/23 – South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of crimes of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza after nearly three months of relentless Israeli bombardment that killed more than 21,500 people and caused widespread destruction in the besieged enclave. South Africa described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”.

JANUARY 2024

1/1/24 – A 23-year-old Palestinian prisoner from Nablus died in an Israeli jail, raising concerns about the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees.

3/1/24 – OCHA condemned an Israeli attack which killed five people, including a newborn baby, who were sheltering at the Al-Amal City Hospital. “No child in the world should be killed, let alone one sheltering under the emblem of a humanitarian organisation,” OCHA said.

7/1/24 – Al Jazeera condemned the Israeli assassination of two of its journalists and the serious injuries inflicted on a third while at work in Gaza. The two killed were Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya with Hazem Rejab suffering serious injuries. Hamza is the latest family member and colleague of Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, to be targeted by the Israelis.

7/1/24 – In central Gaza, the UN WHO warned that medics at the only functioning hospital in Deir al-Balah governorate “had been forced to cease lifesaving and other critical activities … and leave” after an evacuation order issued amid “increasing” Israeli military activity. Only five doctors reportedly remained at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the middle area of Gaza, where a WHO team delivered medical supplies to support 4500 dialysis patients for three months and 500 patients requiring trauma care.

10/1/24 – The Palestinian Red Crescent reported an Israeli airstrike killed four paramedics and two patients in an ambulance, leading WHO chief Ghebreyesus to state he was “appalled” by the attack.

11/1/24 – Gaza daily deaths exceed all other major conflicts in the 21st century, Oxfam reported, with up to 250 deaths per day. Human Rights Watch also said Israel’s war on Gaza has included “acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes”.

12/1/24 – The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, reported a complete power outage after the hospital’s generators ran out of fuel, putting dozens of wounded and sick in danger.

14/1/24 – Israel’s relentless war on Gaza hit 100 days. In that time, the death toll among Palestinians living in Gaza rose to nearly 24,000 as Israel unleashed more than 65,000 tonnes of bombs on the besieged enclave and its population of 2.3 million people trapped in less than 400 square kilometres.

17/1/24 – Gaza’s youngest university, Al-Israa University, established in 2014, was destroyed. It was scheduled to mark its 10th anniversary this year with the opening of a public museum, highlighting Palestinian history and culture. It was Gaza’s last standing university before its main building was occupied for 70 days by Israeli soldiers and then destroyed by explosives.

18/1/24 – Israel committed 15 “massacres”, killing 172 people in 24 hours under the cover of a communications blackout in the Gaza strip.

19/1/24 – A 17-year-old Palestinian-American boy was fatally shot in the head by Israeli troops during clashes in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials. The victim’s uncle told Reuters that he was shot during clashes with the Israeli occupation forces that included stone-throwing by Palestinians.

20/1/24 – As of this day, more than three-quarters of the Gazan population (around 1.7 million people) had been displaced across Gaza multiple times. Families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety. Following intense Israeli bombardments and fighting in and around Khan Yunis, a significant number of displaced people moved further south.

22/1/24 – The University College of Applied Sciences and Al-Aqsa University were both destroyed by Israeli forces. At the time, the universities were sheltering displaced Palestinian families.

23/1/24 – Renowned professor of psychology at Al-Aqsa University, Fadel Abu Hein, an expert on the treatment of trauma and mental health issues arising from prolonged wars, was murdered by an Israeli sniper in Khan Yunis where Al-Aqsa University has its campus. At least 94 other Palestinian academics were known to have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza.

24/1/24 – More than 250 humanitarian and human rights organisations called to stop arms transfers to Israel. Israel’s military activity destroyed a substantial portion of Gaza’s homes, schools, hospitals, water infrastructure, shelters, and refugee camps; the indiscriminate nature of these bombings and a pattern of apparent disproportionate harm to civilians is unacceptable.

25/1/24 – Gaza’s health ministry and witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as a crowd of Palestinians gathered for humanitarian aid in Gaza City killing at least 20 and wounding dozens. 

26/1/24 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered provisional measures in South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention, Human Rights Watch said. The court adopted “provisional measures”, or binding orders, that include requiring Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance, and prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide.

27/1/24 – Top Palestinian officials criticised the decision by nearly a dozen Western countries – including the UK – to suspend funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and called for an immediate reversal of the move, which entailed “great” risk.

29/1/24 – Gaza: Killing of Hind Rajab and her family – a war crime too many, warn experts | OHCHR

30/1/24 – The bodies of 50 Palestinians thought to have been executed by Israel two months previously were discovered in the grounds of Khalifa bin Zayed elementary school in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. The bodies were in zip-tied body bags with Hebrew labels. The bodies were reported to be handcuffed and blindfolded.

FEBRUARY 2024

4/2/24 – Health officials said at least 92 people were killed overnight by Israeli attacks, including on a kindergarten in Rafah. At least two children were killed in the attack.

9/2/24 – At least 85 journalists and media workers, such as interpreters and support staff, were killed over four months of war in the Middle East, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The rate – about five a week – is the highest since the CPJ began keeping global records more than 30 years ago. All but seven of them were Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza. Many were freelancers or worked for local outlets, with little of the protection usually afforded to international reporters.

12/2/24 – A 14-year-old Palestinian was fatally shot during an Israeli raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to medical officials. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Qusai Radwan Waked was hit by Israeli gunfire during the raid. He was shot in the belly and taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

15/2/24 – Israel raided the last major hospital in southern Gaza, with doctors saying gunshots were ringing out around the Nasser Medical Complex. Doctor Khaled al-Serr, a surgeon inside the hospital, said Israeli military bulldozers were now inside the hospital complex after the vast majority of the patients and displaced families seeking shelter in the hospital were forced to evacuate at gunpoint. Doctors Without Borders said people ordered by Israel to evacuate the hospital faced an impossible choice to stay “and become a potential target” or leave “into an apocalyptic landscape” of bombings.

18/2/24 – The WHO issued a statement condemning Israel after conducting a rescue mission for 32 critical patients from the wreck of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis following Israel’s raid on the hospital.

20/2/24 – The US again vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution on Israel’s war on Gaza, prompting widespread criticism from rivals and allies alike. Russia pledged not to give up as China said that the US veto gave a green light for Israel’s continued slaughter in Gaza.

21/2/24 – Israel continued its effort to wipe out Gaza’s academics as part of the process of genocide. Professor Nasser Abu Al-Nour, the dean of the faculty of nursing at the Islamic University of Gaza was murdered in an airstrike on his home along with seven members of his family.

21/2/24 – “Catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity are intensifying. In northern Gaza, one in six children under the age of two were found to be acutely malnourished, a decline in a population’s nutritional status that is unprecedented globally in three months,” said the UN.

25/2/24 – Aaron Bushnell, a serving member of the US Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC in a protest against the US involvement in the assault on Gaza. He stated he no longer wanted to be complicit in genocide and shouted “Free Palestine” before collapsing and later dying in hospital.

29/2/24 – Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians trying to get aid supplies including food from an aid convoy south of Gaza City. A total of 116 people were confirmed dead, mainly from gunshot wounds or being run over by Israeli vehicles. More than 750 were reported wounded. This became known as the Flour Massacre. 

MARCH 2024

3/3/24 – At least nine people were killed and many others wounded in an Israeli strike on an aid distribution truck in Deir el-Balah, the Wafa news agency reported. A witness who did not give his name told Al Jazeera that he was on his way to a water well when the area was “showered with missiles, shrapnel flying around, body parts in the air”.

4/3/24 – At least five people were killed in an Israeli bombing of a mosque in Jabalia al-Balad, northern Gaza.

8/3/24 – Five people were killed and several injured in Rafah after they were crushed by airdropped aid packages because parachutes failed to open.

12/3/24 – Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (above) saluted an officer who shot and killed a Palestinian child. In a Telegram post, the minister applauded the soldier and expressed his support for his actions. “I support the soldier who killed the terrorist who tried to shoot fireworks at him and the troops – this is exactly how you should act against terrorists – with determination and precision,” he added.

15/3/24 – The Israeli military carried out five separate attacks on aid distribution centres in the past 48 hours in the Gaza Strip, killing 56 people and injuring more than 300 others.

15/3/24 – One in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition, doubling in less than one month.

18/3/24 – Israeli forces stormed Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City – the fourth attack on the hospital alone since October 7. Firing from tanks and small arms was reported in and around the hospital complex with people inside including hospital staff unable to move due to incoming rounds. An Al Jazeera correspondent, Ismail al-Ghoul, was arrested inside the hospital and severely beaten before being detained. On July 31, he was assassinated by Israeli forces while working.

19/3/24 – Israeli air strikes targeted aid distribution workers in Gaza City’s Kuwait Roundabout, killing at least 23 people.

20/3/24 – The healthcare system in Gaza has essentially collapsed, Western doctors who visited the Palestinian enclave in recent months told an event at the United Nations, speaking of “appalling atrocities” from Israel’s offensive.

21/3/24 – Israel continued its assault on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for a fourth day. At least 140 Palestinians were reported to have been killed in and around the hospital complex (though some sources reported up to 200) with medical personnel prevented from treating patients and some of them detained. Israeli forces also demolished the hospital’s surgery building. Summary executions of Palestinians were reported.

24/3/24 – Israel told the UN that it will not allow UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza anymore, despite spreading famine. The UN agency said the US decision to cut its funds until March 2025 would only make things worse.

29/3/24 – The International Court of Justice issued a new set of provisional measures, which ordered Israel to ensure the unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, showing that aid will be a key issue in South Africa’s genocide case, according to legal expert Alonso Gurmendi.

APRIL 2024

1/4/24 – Seven staff of the US charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) and a Palestinian interpreter were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their convoy of marked vehicles in Deir el-Balah as they returned from delivering 100 tonnes of food to the organisation’s warehouse in central Gaza. The victims were from Palestine, the US and Canada, UK, Poland and Australia.

4/4/24 – About 1000 children in Gaza had lost one or both of their legs, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said. More than 50,000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished in Gaza, the United Nations added.

4/4/24 – Eight out of every 10 schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, Unicef said, news agency AFP reported. As many as 625,000 students have no access to education.

10/4/24 – Three sons and four grandchildren of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli air attack on a Gaza refugee camp.

10/4/24 – USAID chief Samantha Power became the first United States official to say publicly that there is a famine in northern Gaza, after she said she agreed with a United Nations-backed assessment of hunger in the enclave.

15/4/24 – Two mass graves were discovered by Gaza’s health ministry and the Civil Defence Forces in the north of the Gaza Strip. The first mass grave was discovered at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and the second was found in Beit Lahiya.

18/4/24 – The US exercised its veto power in the UN Security Council to block Palestine’s widely supported bid for full UN membership.

20/4/24 – Palestinian civil defence crews uncovered a mass grave inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza’s Khan Yunis, with 180 bodies recovered so far, as Israel continued its bombardment of the devastated coastal enclave for more than six months.

22/4/24 – United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said a child in Gaza is killed or wounded “every 10 minutes”.

23/4/24 – After 200 days of war, the death toll reached 34,000, Almost three-quarters (72%) of the dead were women and children. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 34,183 people had been killed and 77,084 wounded in Israeli attacks.

24/4/24 – More than 300 bodies were uncovered from the Nasser Medical Complex after Israeli forces withdrew on April 7. The UN Human Rights Council said more bodies were found at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest health facility, which the rights body said was “an empty shell” after a two-week Israeli siege ended there.

MAY 2024

2/5/24 – A prominent Palestinian doctor from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital died in an Israeli jail after more than four months of detention, according to Gaza’s health ministry and groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners. Groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners said Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopaedics, died as a result of torture.

6/5/24 – UN experts reported that women, girls and children overall are among those most exposed to danger in the conflict, and that as of 29 April 2024, of 34,488 Palestinians killed in Gaza, 14,500 were children and 9500 women. Another 77,643 have reportedly been injured, of which three-quarters are estimated to be female.

7/5/24 – Israel launched its ground assault into Rafah despite concerns over the fate of the more than 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in the southern Gaza city.

9/5/24 – Israel allowed nothing in or out of Gaza for three days, exacerbating an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.

11/5/24 – Hundreds of Gaza’s water and sanitation facilities have been damaged or destroyed since October 7, satellite analysis by BBC Verify has found. The lack of clean water and untreated sewage pose a serious threat to health, say aid agencies.

12/5/24 – As Israeli forces intensified their onslaught in Rafah, Doctors Without Borders were forced to stop providing healthcare at Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital. 

14/5/24 – Israeli forces had carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch said. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organizations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 aid workers and those with them. More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the UN.

15/5/24 – The UN said at least 600,000 people, or a quarter of Gaza’s population, have been displaced from Rafah since May 6, when Israeli forces began a ground invasion in the southern city.

24/5/24 – The director of Al-Awda Hospital said they have run out of clean water, with fuel and medicine supplies running low amid a six-day Israeli siege. Twenty-seven staff and patients, some requiring orthopaedic surgery, were trapped in the hospital in Jabalia. Al-Awda Hospital, one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza, was the only facility in the area offering maternity and orthopaedic surgery care. The hospital’s director, Mohammad Salha, and 15 other medical staff refused to leave without ambulances to transport their 11 patients.

27/5/24 – Senior UN officials condemned Israeli air strikes that hit a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza, reportedly claiming over 35 Palestinian lives, including women and children. Volker Türk voiced his horror at further loss of civilian lives. “The images from the camp are horrific and point to no apparent change in the methods and means of warfare used by Israel that have already led to so many civilian deaths,” he said.

27/5/24 – The Kuwaiti Hospital, one of Rafah’s two remaining hospitals was shut down due to Israeli attacks, its director said in a statement. This came as two hospital medical staff were killed earlier by Israeli shelling.

29/5/24 – Israel announced it had taken control of the Philadephi Corridor, a narrow (100m-wide) strip along the Gaza–Egypt border as well as the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Both acts are in breach of the Camp David Accords and the subsequent peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

JUNE 2024

3/6/24 – The city of Rafah on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt was home to much more than a million forcibly displaced by nearly eight months of daily bombardment by Israel.

4/6/24 – Famine was likely already under way in northern Gaza, an independent group of experts warned in a report.

8/6/24 – Several countries and international organisations condemned the Israeli killing of at least 274 Palestinians during an operation to free four Israeli captives in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

11/6/24 – Almost 3000 children were cut off from treatment for moderate and severe acute malnutrition in southern Gaza, putting them at risk of death.

12/6/24 – The Gaza government’s media office said 15,694 Palestinian children have been killed since the attacks began 250 days ago.

15/6/24 – James Elder, the UN’s child relief agency spokesperson, posted a video on Twitter/X in which he toured a displaced persons’ camp in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, that houses children who have been orphaned by Israel’s war on Gaza. Visibly sweating inside one of the tents, he said the rising heat exacerbated the crises of poor hygiene and disease in displacement camps across Gaza and posed a new danger to children left homeless by the war.

17/6/24 – “As we have reiterated, humanitarian operations in Gaza must be fully facilitated, and all impediments must be lifted,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said. “We need to be able to deliver aid safely throughout Gaza.” Haq said displaced Palestinians in the territory urgently need food, water, sanitation, shelter and healthcare, “with many living near piles of solid waste, heightening health risks”.

24/6/24 – Save the Children said that more than 20,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza as a result of Israel’s assault on the enclave, either lost, disappeared, detained, buried under rubble or in mass graves. A further number are suspected to be buried in mass graves scattered across the Gaza Strip.

24/6/24 – Palestinian medics and rights advocates denounced the killing of a top medical official in Gaza by Israel, accusing of it systematically targeting the health system in the besieged enclave. Israel had bombed a clinic in Gaza City killing Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s director of ambulances and emergency, and four other people.

25/6/24 – A UN report said 96% of Gaza’s population was food insecure and one in five Palestinians – or about 495,000 people – were facing starvation.

26/6/24 – Children were dying of starvation in their parents’ arms as famine spread through Gaza. A nine-year-old Palestinian boy lay in his mother’s arms, clearly wasted from severe malnutrition and suffering from dehydration. “I call on people with conscience to help me find health care for my son, so that he can go back to normal,” his mother, Ghanima Juma’a, told CNN at a hospital in Khan Yunis. “I am losing my son in front of my eyes.”

JULY 2024

8/7/24 – Gaza’s death toll could exceed 186,000, a Lancet study said. Conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence, the study said, and even if the war ended immediately, it would continue to cause many indirect deaths in the coming months and years through things like diseases.

10/7/24 – Israel ordered all Palestinians to leave Gaza City and head south, as it pressed ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and central area of the Gaza that killed dozens of people over the past 48 hours.

11/7/24 – Palestinians who fled Gaza City after Israeli evacuation orders said snipers shot civilians dead near Yarmouk stadium. The attacks reportedly took place as civilians evacuated a number of neighbourhoods in Gaza City, having been ordered to leave.

15/7/24 – The UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City lay in ruins following an Israeli air raid.

16/7/24 – Israeli forces admitted that a Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome who was attacked by an army dog in Gaza was left to die alone after his family had been ordered to leave.

18/7/24 – Oxfam issued a report, Water War Crimes, showing how Israel was using water as a weapon of war in Gaza in disregard of human life and international law.

19/7/24 – The International Court of Justice issued an Advisory Opinion on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The case was brought by the General Assembly in 2022 and numerous countries, three multi-national organisations plus submissions made by Palestine. The Advisory Opinion described the Israeli occupation as “unlawful” and called for an end to settlement building and the exploitation of the territories’ resources by Israel and that the occupation should end plus all other countries should not provide any assistance to the occupation. It said Israel is in breach of the Geneva Conventions and guilty of running an apartheid regime. Netanyahu immediately denounced the Advisory Opinion and the ICJ.

20/7/24 – Palestinian officials said they saved a baby boy from his mother’s womb after she died from wounds sustained in an Israeli strike. Ola Adnan Harb al-Kurd, who was nine months pregnant, barely survived a punishing night of missile strikes that rescue services said killed more than 24 people, including six members of the same family.

24/7/24 – “The damage to the agricultural sector due to the hostilities is extensive, bringing crucial local production of fresh and nutritious food to a near total halt, decreasing the population’s access to essential food items required for a healthy diet,” a United Nations spokesperson said.

25/7/24 – The Israeli state released eight Palestinian prisoners from the infamous Ofer Prison on the West Bank – two women and six men. The prisoners had evidence of torture and one woman was unable to walk.

29/7/24 – Ultra-right-wing Israeli nationalists stormed two military facilities in the night, protesting the detention and questioning of nine Israeli army reservists suspected of raping and abusing a Palestinian prisoner whose injuries were so bad he had to be hospitalised. A member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, speaking at a meeting of lawmakers, justified the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, shouting angrily at colleagues questioning the alleged behaviour that anything was legitimate to do to “terrorists” in custody, CBS News revealed.

30/7/24 – Israeli forces blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza in this month, a municipality official and residents said.

31/7/24 – The UN Human Rights Office published a report detailing the use of arbitrary detention, deplorable conditions, torture and killings against Palestinians detained since October 7, 2023. This particularly related to the notorious Sde Teiman Israeli detention facility in the Negev Desert.

AUGUST 2024

1/8/24 – At least 15 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike on a school sheltering dozens of displaced families in Gaza.

3/8/24 – Israeli airstrikes on two school buildings left at least 30 people dead, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense, told CNN that the majority of the bodies recovered were women and children. Rescue operations continued in hopes that some people remained alive under the destroyed buildings, which had been serving as shelters for displaced families, he said.

7/8/24 – Israel issued new evacuation orders as “safe areas” of Gaza were under attack. The army spokesperson posted the evacuation orders for several districts in Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya, areas that were among the most affected by Israel’s ground invasion. In previous evacuation orders, Israeli soldiers shot, killed and detained Palestinians who used the so-called “safe corridor” to evacuate.

9/8/24 – The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said as many as 70,000 people had been forced to flee Khan Yunis towards al-Mawasi since Israel ordered another evacuation of parts of the southern Gaza city.

10/8/24 – At least 93 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a school and mosque in Gaza sheltering displaced people, according to local officials, sparking international outrage. Gaza’s civil defence said people were performing dawn prayers at the Al-Tabi’in compound in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood in the eastern part of Gaza City when it was hit.

13/8/24 – Amid more deadly attacks across the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

15/8/24 – More than 40,000 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, with many more buried under the rubble, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

17/8/24 – An Israel airstrike in Gaza killed at least 18 people, all from the same family, hours after mediators expressed optimism for an imminent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

20/8/24 – Young children were among those killed in an Israeli air strike on a Gaza market. Videos from the immediate aftermath showed young children on the ground covered in blood and not moving. The strike killed at least nine people and injured 10 others.

22/8/24 – Children were drinking from puddles and wading through sewage pools as Israel pummelled water systems in Gaza. Many water facilities had been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s assault in Gaza, according to the UN and various other international bodies, compounding the civilian population’s suffering, risking the spread of disease and leading human rights experts to accuse Israel of using water supply as a weapon.

23/8/24 – A 10-month-old boy paralysed by polio in Gaza became the first confirmed case of the deadly disease to be detected in the war-ravaged enclave in 25 years. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the UN’s WHO, expressed deep concern at the development.

26/8/24 – Human Rights Watch reported testimony from Gaza medics held in Israeli prisons. Palestinian healthcare workers were rounded up from medical facilities in Gaza, sent to detention centres in Israel and then severely mistreated and some tortured, according to Human Rights Watch. An HRW report detailed the alleged torture, threats of rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care and poor detention conditions that doctors, nurses and paramedics had faced.

28/8/24 – Israel said it carried out its largest military operation (involving air raids and the use of military bulldozers to destroy civilian infrastructure) in the occupied West Bank in more than 20 years, killing at least nine Palestinians.

31/8/24 – More than 700 arrests of children had been documented by the Palestinian Prisoners Society since October 7, with 250 of them in Israeli detention. Palestinian children in Israeli jails suffer from beatings, illness and hunger. Freed Palestinian minors said abuse was rampant in Israeli jails after October 7. Medical negligence is just one of the many forms of abuse, torture, humiliation and mistreatment Palestinian prisoners face in Israeli detention facilities, according to several rights groups.

SEPTEMBER 2024

1/9/24 – The Israeli siege of the West Bank city of Jenin left Palestinians with no food, water or electricity, with medical charity Doctors Without Borders accusing Israeli forces of obstructing access to health facilities and targeting ambulances.

3/9/24 – More than 85% (477 out of 564) of Gaza’s school buildings were destroyed by Israel’s bombardment.

3/9/24 – An Israeli military assault in the occupied West Bank entered its seventh day destroying the vast majority of the Jenin refugee camp’s road infrastructure. The attack had killed at least 33 Palestinians, including seven children, and injured nearly 130 since August 28, the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry reported.

5/9/24 – Israel carried out another air attack on tents sheltering forcibly displaced Palestinians outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah. At least four people were killed.

6/9/24 – A 26-year-old US-Turkish woman was shot dead by Israel in the West Bank while she was protesting against illegal Jewish settler expansion.

9/9/24 – A video was released showing a rabbi blessing and praising an Israeli soldier accused in the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility.

10/9/24 – More than 40 Palestinians were killed after Israel attacked Gaza’s “safe zone”. Most people were asleep when Israel’s bombs made a three-storey-deep crater and started a large fire.

11/9/24 – An Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza that killed 18 people drew fierce global condemnation. The attack flattened part of the Al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat and killed six workers from UNRWA, which operated the school. The agency said it was the highest death toll among its team in a single incident in its history.

12/9/24 – The WHO said it had evacuated about 100 people in need of medical treatment from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates and called for regular evacuations to resume after Israel’s assault decimated Gaza’s health system. The WHO said a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza wounded by Israel’s ongoing assault had “life-changing” injuries.

16/9/24 – Illegal Jewish settlers attacked students and staff at Arab al-Ka’abneh Elementary School in the Ma’arjat area, northwest of Jericho, assaulting an elderly man before storming the primary school, a Palestine Chronicle correspondent reported. Al-Baidar Organisation for Defending Bedouin Rights said in a statement that a group of settlers attacked the school, beat the students and teachers and tied up the school principal.

20/09/24 – Israeli soldiers pushed three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops during a raid in the occupied West Bank, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. The identities of the dead and the cause of their deaths were not immediately known. Under international law, soldiers are supposed to ensure dead bodies, including those of enemy combatants, are treated decently.

22/09/24 – Armed foot soldiers of Israel’s far-right regime stormed the entrance to the Al Jazeera bureau in Gaza, confiscated equipment and disrupted live broadcasts, waving a signed directive ordering the network’s Palestinian operations to be shut down. They boarded the entrance with metal sheets.

23/09/24 – Leading UN officials demanded “an end to the appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip nearly one year on. “Humanitarians must have safe and unimpeded access to those in need,” they said. “We cannot do our jobs in the face of overwhelming need and ongoing violence.”

25/09/24 – A truck carrying 88 unidentified bodies of Palestinians arrived in Khan Yunis but the Palestinian Ministry of Health paused the process of accepting the bodies because Israel had not provided any information on their identities or how they were killed. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it wasn’t involved in the transfer: “We reiterate the right of all families to obtain information about their loved ones and to bury them with dignity and in accordance with custom and tradition.”

27/09/24 – An Israeli air attack on a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza killed at least 15 people.

30/09/24 – Findings from Oxfam’s report show that more women and children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year. They also found that Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza – including schools, hospitals and aid distribution points – once every three hours.

OCTOBER 2024

2/10/24 – Israeli strikes on Gaza schools and an orphanage killed scores of Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency said the Israeli military operation had included an incursion by ground troops and airstrikes.

3/10/24 – Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip had killed at least 41,788 Palestinians and wounded 96,794 since October 7, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said, including 99 Palestinians killed and 169 wounded in 24 hours.

6/10/24 – Israeli forces killed a Palestinian journalist weeks after he received threatening messages instructing him to stop filming Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, Middle East Eye reported. Hassan Hamad, 19, died when his home in Jabalia refugee camp was hit.

7/10/24 – Israel intensified its bombardment of Gaza and southern Lebanon ahead of the anniversary of October 7. Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque killed at least 19 people.