WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published Thursday that he was “sorry” that Hamas was able to carry out its October 7 attack, without explicitly taking responsibility.
Netanyahu, who has resisted making an apology for security failures over Israel’s worst-ever attack and focused on destroying Hamas, was asked if he would apologize during an interview with Time magazine.
“Apologize?” he was quoted as replying.
“Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened. And you always look back and you say, ‘Could we have done things that would have prevented it?’” he said.
The right-wing leader is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and has long billed himself as a staunch protector of Israel’s security.
Shortly after the October 7 attack, Netanyahu posted on social media that intelligence services had failed to anticipate the Hamas operation and warn him.
He deleted and apologized for that post after numerous Israelis accused him of deflecting blame and jeopardizing national unity.
In the interview, Time asked Netanyahu what his message would be to a political rival who presided over the country’s worst security failure.
Netanyahu replied that it depended on whether the leader could lead Israel “to victory.”
“Can they assure that the postwar situation will be one of peace and security? If the answer is yes, they should stay in power.”
Hamas on October 7 carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. A total of 1,198 people died, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Netanyahu ‘sorry’ October 7 attack occurred
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Netanyahu ‘sorry’ October 7 attack occurred
- “Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened” he said
- The right-wing leader is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and has long billed himself as a staunch protector of Israel’s security
Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine
- Arrests and looting hinder Sudan’s community kitchens
- Some have stopped serving meals for weeks in areas at risk of famine
- Donors have ramped up support, but volunteers say this is making them a target for troops
Local volunteers who have helped to feed Sudan’s most destitute during 17 months of war say attacks against them by the opposing sides are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid the world’s biggest hunger crisis.
Many volunteers have fled under threat of arrest or violence, and communal kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds are estimated to be dying of starvation and hunger-related diseases each day have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.
Reuters spoke with 24 volunteers who manage kitchens in Sudan’s central state of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and parts of the east where millions of people have been driven from their homes since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International humanitarian agencies, which have been unable to get food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have ramped up support for such groups. But that has made them more of a target for RSF looters, 10 of the volunteers told Reuters by phone.
“We were safe when the RSF didn’t know about the funding,” said Gihad Salaheldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum city last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food.”
Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, a dozen volunteers said.
Most of the volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One volunteer in Bahri, a city that together with Khartoum and Omdurman makes up Sudan’s greater capital, said troops in RSF uniforms stole the phone he used to receive donations via a mobile banking app along with 3 million Sudanese pounds ($1,200) in cash intended for food in June.
It was one of five incidents this year in which he says he was attacked or harassed by paramilitary troops who control neighborhoods where he oversees 21 kitchens serving around 10,000 people.
Later that month, troops burst into a home housing one of the kitchens in the middle of the night and stole sacks of sorghum and beans. The volunteer, who had been sleeping there, said he was bound, gagged and whipped for hours by troops who wanted to know who was funding the group.
Reuters could not independently verify his account, but three other volunteers said that he reported the events to the rest of the group at the time.
The frequency of such incidents increased as international funding for communal kitchens picked up heading into the summer, according to eight volunteers from Khartoum state, which is mostly controlled by the RSF.
Many kitchens do not keep data on attacks, while others declined to provide details for fear of drawing more unwanted attention. However, volunteers described to Reuters 25 incidents targeting their kitchens or volunteers in the state since July alone, including more thefts and beatings and the detention of at least 52 people.
Groups that run kitchens there have announced the deaths of at least three volunteers in armed attacks, including one they said was shot and killed by RSF troops in Khartoum’s SHajjarah neighborhood in September. The identities of the other assailants were not immediately clear, and Reuters could not verify the accounts.
“Community kitchens in Sudan are a lifeline for people who are trapped in areas with ongoing conflict,” said Eddie Rowe, the UN World Food Programme’s country director in Sudan.
“By supporting them, WFP is able to get food into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, even in the face of severe access constraints,” he told Reuters, saying the safety of aid workers must be guaranteed.
The RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces did not respond to questions for this article. However, the RSF has previously denied targeting aid workers and said any rogue elements who did so would be brought to justice.
The military has also said it does not target aid workers, but anyone who collaborates with the “rebellious” RSF is subject to arrest.
MARAUDING TROOPS
UN officials say more than half of Sudan’s population – 25.6 million people – are experiencing acute hunger and need urgent assistance. In the worst-hit areas, residents displaced by fighting or under siege in their homes have resorted to eating dirt and leaves.
Local volunteers founded hundreds of kitchens early in the war that served hot meals — typically a meagre porridge of sorghum, lentils or beans — once or twice a day. But as food prices soared and private donations dwindled, some had to close or reduce services to as little as five times a month.
In North Darfur state, a group that runs kitchens in a camp housing half a million people displaced by ethnically driven violence has repeatedly had to stop serving meals due to insufficient funds, a volunteer there said. A global authority on hunger crises said in August that the conflict and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in the Zamzam camp.
Many communal kitchens are operated by a loose network of community groups known as emergency response rooms, which have tried to sustain basic services, such as water and power, and distribute food and medical supplies.
Both the army and RSF distrust these groups, in part because they include people who were members of grassroots “resistance committees” that led pro-democracy protests during the uprising that toppled former autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. The volunteers who spoke to Reuters said the objectives of the emergency response rooms are purely humanitarian.
The army joined forces with the RSF to derail the political transition that followed Bashir’s ouster by staging a military coup two years later, but rivalries between them erupted into open warfare in April 2023.
In the worst-hit areas, local volunteers said they were now being targeted weekly or every few days by marauding troops, compared to roughly once a month earlier in the year. Some have started hiding food supplies at different locations to avoid being cleaned out by a single raid.
Reuters spoke to nine volunteers who fled various parts of the country after being targeted by the warring sides.
“These attacks are having a huge negative impact on our work,” Salaheldin said from Cairo. “We are losing our volunteers who are serving their communities.”
In areas where the army retains control, six volunteers described arrests and surveillance that they said drove away people who had helped run kitchens, reducing their capacity to operate.
A UN fact-finding mission discovered that, of 65 cases tried by army-convened courts against alleged “commanders and employees” of the RSF as of June, 63 targeted activists and humanitarian workers. They included members of emergency response rooms, the mission said in its report.
Both sides have deployed siege-like tactics to prevent food and other supplies reaching their opponents, according to relief workers. The RSF and allied militias have also looted aid hubs and plundered harvests, they say.
The warring parties have traded blame for delays in the delivery of food relief, while the RSF has denied looting aid.
Military chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo both said in September that they were committed to facilitating the flow of aid.
DONOR RETICENCE
As hunger spreads, emergency response rooms have set up 419 kitchens that aim to serve over 1 million people daily in Khartoum state alone, said Abdallah Gamar, a state organizer. But volunteers have struggled to secure the $1,175,000 needed every month. In September, they received around $614,000, Gamar told Reuters.
In the beginning, most of their support came from the Sudanese diaspora, but the resources of these donors have been depleted, Gamar said.
Aid workers said many foreign donors hesitated to fund kitchens because the groups running them are not registered with the government and often use personal bank accounts.
“There’s a lot of risk aversion when it comes to supporting unregistered platforms,” said Mathilde Vu, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy manager for Sudan.
Her organization began supporting local responders in Sudan last year, she said. “Now we have seen that a lot of NGOs, UN agencies and donors are starting to realize that we cannot do any humanitarian response — we can’t save lives — without them.”
Some donors are now working through registered intermediaries to get funding to communal kitchens. The WFP, for example, began partnering with local aid groups in July to help some 200 kitchens provide hot meals to up to 175,000 people daily in greater Khartoum, spending more than $2 million to date, said spokesperson Leni Kinzli.
Volunteers welcomed the support but said it can take weeks for money to filter down to kitchens through intermediaries. Cumbersome reporting requirements add to the delays, they said.
“The kitchens work in a sporadic way — there’s no consistent funding,” said Mohamed Abdallah, spokesperson for an emergency response room south of Khartoum. He said his group sometimes has only enough money to provide meals once a week, including in neighborhoods at risk of famine.
Justin Brady, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said donors need safeguards to ensure funds are used for their intended purpose but have taken steps to simplify the process.
Meanwhile, needs continue to grow.
The arrival of the rainy season over the summer brought flash floods and a heightened risk of deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria, stretching resources even thinner, volunteers said.
Sudan’s currency has fallen around 300 percent against the dollar on the parallel market during the war, and food prices have risen by almost as much, according to WFP surveys.
“In neighborhoods where we had one kitchen, we now need three more,” said Hind Altayif, spokesperson for volunteers in Sharq Al-Nil, a district adjacent to Bahri where she said several people were dying of hunger each month. “As the war goes on, we’ll see more people reaching rock bottom.”
In one Bahri neighborhood, people line up twice a day with bowls and buckets to collect ladles of gruel prepared over a fire in the courtyard of a volunteer’s home. Standing among them are teachers, traders and others cut off from livelihoods.
“We don’t have any food at home because we don’t have the money,” said a 50-year-old housewife, who like others interviewed requested anonymity for safety. “We rely on the community kitchen ... We don’t have an alternative.”
Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary
- Iran-backed Hezbollah says it targeted Israeli military base south of Haifa, launched another strike on Tiberias
- Isael says air force is carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon as conflict rages on
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.
ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.
CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.
Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary
- Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks
- Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday
- The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.
ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.
CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.
Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN
- When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response”
- Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave
UNITED NATIONS: Israel hosted an event at the United Nations on Monday to mark one year since a deadly Hamas attack, vowing to fight until all hostages held in Gaza by the Palestinian militants are freed and assailing the world body for failing to condemn the massacre.
“The UN has failed in its most basic mandate to protect the innocent and condemn evil. The resolutions that the UN did pass were about the situation in Gaza,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, referring to action taken by the 15-member Security Council and the 193-member General Assembly.
During the shock Hamas rampage a year ago some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israel’s ally the United States vetoed a draft Security Council resolution on Oct. 18, 2023, that would have condemned Hamas and urged Gaza aid access. The US had argued it needed more time to broker humanitarian access and was disappointed the text did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are those in the Security Council, and outside, who fail to condemn Hamas’ atrocities or even say the word Hamas,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Oct. 7 commemorative event on Monday.
“There are those in the region who have sought to build on Hamas’ actions and are now pushing the Middle East to the precipice of a broader war — terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah,” she said, also accusing Iran of seeking to take advantage of the situation to advance a “destructive agenda.”
The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave where authorities say more than 41,000 people have been killed. The conflict has raised fears of all-out regional war, pitting Israel against Iran and the militant groups that it backs.
In recent weeks Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group. Iran then attacked Israel in a missile strike.
When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response.”
Amid animosity between Israel’s government and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who was barred last week by Israel’s foreign minister from entering the country — UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said he did not believe any UN officials had been invited to Israel’s event at UN headquarters.
In a video released over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, Guterres said: “This is a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages.”
’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary
- A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023
- Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: One year after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel unleashed war in Gaza, the Palestinian territory is unrecognizable and its residents are exhausted by displacement and shortages, with no end in sight.
“It felt like the first day of the war all over again,” said Khaled Al-Hawajri, 46, as the Israeli forces bombarded his Gaza neighborhood on Monday, even as Israel marked the anniversary of Hamas attack.
“Last night we were terrorized by the bombardments from quadcopters and tank shells,” said Hawajri, who has been displaced 10 times with his family of seven in the past year.
“We have endured a whole year in the north under bombardment, terror, and fear in the hearts of my children,” he said, adding he had staying in Gaza’s devastated north because “there is no safe place in the entire Strip.”
On Monday, Gaza City was barely recognizable, ravaged by relentless air strikes and fighting.
Residents walked along sand-covered streets stripped of pavements, with buildings either destroyed or left without facades, while piles of rubble littered the roads.
With fuel in short supply and expensive, car traffic was almost nonexistent. Most people walked, cycled or used donkey carts.
“There is no electricity or petroleum products. Even firewood is not available. Food is almost non-existent,” said 64-year-old Hussam Mansour, speaking from a street in Gaza City, surrounded by piles of rubble and sand.
The United Nations says 92 percent of Gaza’s roads and more than 84 percent of its health facilities have been damaged or destroyed in the war.
Mansour and his sons have all been displaced, and his apartment building was destroyed in an air strike.
“Now when I walk the streets, I do not recognize them anymore,” he said.
Like Hawajri and Mansour, Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
About 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, the United Nations says.
“Last night was one of the hardest nights of the war, as if the war had just begun!” said 46-year-old Muhammad Al-Muqayyid, displaced from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
“I never imagined the war would last this long,” he said.
“A year has gone and we have seen every kind of suffering — disease, hunger, danger and loss.”
The Israeli military has been fighting Hamas in Gaza since the unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The UN acknowledges the figures to be reliable.
A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023.
Of the 251 captured that day, 97 are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli military is still carrying out operations in Gaza to free the hostages and crush Hamas, in power since 2007.
“There was a sudden ground invasion by tanks, and people were rushing out of their homes without taking anything with them, just carrying their children and running through the streets with fire and shells raining down on them,” Muqayyid said, referring to an Israeli military operation in northern Gaza on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Hamas keeps fighting. Its armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv on Monday.
Samah Ali, a 32-year-old woman displaced in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, said rocket launches were predictable on this day.
“Suddenly, we heard the sound of rockets launching, and everyone in the camp came out to see where they had been fired from,” she said, adding some people fled fearing retaliatory Israeli strikes.
“It’s certain that the occupation army will return and strike.”