October 7, 2026
Coinciding with the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, the Israeli military sector continued its field escalation in the Gaza Strip, including air strikes and artillery shelling targeting various areas, in a scene that underscores the fragility of the ongoing truce despite a year since the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement under Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish sponsorship.
In this context, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced, today, Wednesday, the death of two Palestinians, one of whom was a volunteer in the ranks of its service, as a result of an air strike that targeted the northern Strip. Civil Defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, explained to Agence France-Presse that volunteer Muhammad Tammos died of his injuries after being transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital, following a raid launched at dawn near the destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which also resulted in a number of injuries.
At the field level, a security source in Gaza reported that Israeli artillery shelling and gunfire had affected large areas since midnight. It included the eastern neighborhoods of the city of Khan Yunis in the south, and the Deir al-Balah, Bureij, and al-Maghazi camps in the center of the Gaza Strip, as well as the neighborhoods of al-Zaytoun, al-Tuffah, and al-Shujaiya, east of Gaza City. The source added that the Israeli forces blew up and destroyed a number of homes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, coinciding with the sound of strong explosions on the Israeli side of the border.
In conjunction with these developments, we commemorate the third anniversary of the attacks of October 7, 2023. At dawn, a number of victims’ families gathered at the site of the “Nova” music festival, where more than 300 people were killed during the attacks that represented the first spark of the outbreak of war. Although a year has passed since the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli army continues to launch semi-regular air, sea and land strikes inside the Strip.
Field data indicate that Israeli forces control more than 60% of the area of the Gaza Strip, which amounts to about 365 square kilometers. Meanwhile, more than two million Palestinians live in extremely complex humanitarian conditions, a large segment of whom reside in tents that lack the most basic necessities of life.
According to data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the number of martyrs has risen to more than 1,460 Palestinians since the announcement of a ceasefire in October 2025, while the total death toll since the outbreak of war three years ago has exceeded 74,200 Palestinian martyrs. On the other hand, the Hamas movement’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, according to official Israeli data.
These military developments come in light of the continuing political, security and humanitarian repercussions of the war, and the absence of any horizon for a final settlement that would guarantee the establishment of a ceasefire and a complete end to military operations.
