Thursday marked 1,000 days since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and there’s no end in sight to the destruction campaign as senior Israeli ministers are vowing to take over the entire Palestinian territory and establish Jewish settlements despite the US-backed ceasefire deal, which the IDF has constantly violated.
In recent weeks, the IDF has ramped up its ground incursions as it has been taking more territory in Gaza, an explicit violation of the October 2025 ceasefire agreement. Israeli officials have said the IDF now controls about 70% of Gaza, while Gaza officials said on Thursday that the number was closer to 80%.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 73,074 Palestinians in Gaza, including 1,059 who have been killed since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed. The ministry said that 21,730 children have been killed, including 1,078 who didn’t make it to their first birthday.
The ministry said another 173,537 Palestinians have been injured, putting the total number of Palestinian casualties close to 250,000. While the Health Ministry’s numbers show a massive number of casualties, several studies have found they are likely a significant undercount and that the real violent death toll could be as high as 100,000.
The US has kept quiet about Israel’s constant violations of the ceasefire deal, and according to a report from Israel Hayom, the President Trump-led “Board of Peace” is preparing to create “Hamas-free humanitarian zones” in southern Gaza for Palestinian civilians as Israel continues to take territory and launch attacks while “staying below the threshold of international criticism.”
The plan sounds very similar to what Israeli officials were calling for last year when they said they wanted to create concentration camps, dubbed “humanitarian cities,” for Gaza’s entire civilian population in a tiny part of southern Gaza, as the IDF destroyed the rest of the Strip, and the ultimate goal was then to push the Palestinian civilians out of Gaza altogether.
According to Israeli media, the Israeli government has recently revived its push for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and has rebranded it as a “free movement plan” in an effort to gain some international support.
