Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip

The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip is a major part of the Gaza war. Starting on 7 October 2023, immediately after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel began bombing the Gaza Strip. On 13 October, Israel began ground operations in Gaza, and on 27 October, a full-scale invasion was launched. Israel's campaign has four stated goals: to destroy Hamas, to free the hostages, to ensure Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, and to return displaced residents of Northern Israel. More than a year after the invasion, fighting in the Gaza Strip halted with the implementation of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on 19 January 2025.

By April 2025, the Gaza Ministry of Health had reported that at least 50,500 people in the Gaza Strip had died—1 out of every 44 people—averaging 93 deaths per day. Most of the victims are civilians, of whom at least 50% are women and children. Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest. Thousands of more dead bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings. A study in the Lancet estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. As of January 2025, a comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000. The number of injured is greater than 100,000; Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world.

A severe humanitarian crisis has developed, with healthcare on the brink of collapse, shortages of food, clean water, medicine and fuel due to the blockade, electricity and communications blackouts, and the UN warning of potential famine. It was widely reported that there is "no safe place in Gaza", as Israel struck areas it had previously told Palestinians to evacuate to. Nearly all 2.3 million Gazans have been internally displaced and 250,000 to 500,000 Israelis were internally displaced, while Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians and said it lost 353 additional soldiers in its invasion as of 13 October 2024. By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 munitions on Gaza, destroying or damaging 70 percent of homes, destroying hundreds of cultural landmarks, and damaging dozens of cemeteries. Experts say that the scale and pace of destruction in Gaza is among the most severe in recent history.

The widespread civilian deaths have led to accusations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas. As a result of the invasion, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), charging that Israel was committing genocide and requesting that the ICJ render provisional measures of protection. Various experts and human rights organizations have also characterized the events in Gaza as genocide. Other accusations include the deliberate targeting of civilians and starving the population of Gaza by Israel, and the use of human shields and holding of Israeli hostages by Hamas.