At least 644 Palestinians were killed in the occupied Gaza Strip between 1 and 29 October, according to health ministry data, as Israel’s genocide stretched into its third year.

A ceasefire went into effect in Gaza at noon on 10 October, but Israeli troops continued to control around 50 percent of Gaza’s territory and use lethal force against its surviving population.

As of 30 October, more than 68,643 people had been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to health ministry data. The ministry said that the total number includes more than 250 people who were added retroactively after their identification details were confirmed.

At least 211 people in Gaza were killed after the ceasefire went into effect, according to the health ministry, and around 600 people were injured. Nearly 500 bodies had been retrieved from under the rubble as of 30 October.

An estimated 10,000 bodies remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings, according to authorities in Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense says its teams lack heavy and specialized equipment and face grave risk from unexploded ordnance and decomposed bodies, all of which undermine recovery efforts.

As of 11 October, the health ministry in Gaza had recorded 463 malnutrition-related deaths, including 157 children, since October 2023.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces and settlers killed 12 Palestinians, including two boys, during October. The incidents that led to the deaths of the two boys are elaborated on later on in this article.

On 2 October, Israeli forces shot two Palestinian men after they allegedly attempted to ram soldiers with their vehicle at a checkpoint near Ramallah. One of the shot men died of his injuries and the other was arrested.

“The body of the deceased remains withheld by Israeli authorities,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), bringing the total number of Palestinian bodies from the West Bank withheld by Israel since 7 October 2023 to 201. Seven of those bodies “have been handed over and 194 remain withheld,” OCHA added.

On 8 October, a 26-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed and others were injured by live fire from Israeli forces and settlers during a daytime attack in Deir Jarir village near Ramallah in the central West Bank. “This is the second Palestinian fatality reported in the same area during settler attacks in less than two months,” according to OCHA.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man and injured a 15-year-old during a raid in Jenin in the northern West Bank on 10 October. The Israeli military claimed that the slain man threw an explosive device at troops.

On 15 October, a Palestinian man from al-Zababdeh town near Jenin died after being detained by Israeli forces while he was attempting to cross Israel’s wall in the West Bank near Jerusalem. “The circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear,” OCHA said.

On 16 October, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man during a raid in Qabatiya, a town near Jenin. The Israeli military claimed that the man had thrown an explosive device towards troops.

On 19 October, undercover Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in Nablus, “surrounded a residential building and opened fire,” according to OCHA.

“According to community sources, a Palestinian man, a father of four, was fatally shot by Israeli forces inside his home in another building,” OCHA added. Israeli forces reportedly delayed medics from reaching the injured man and assaulted a paramedic, as well as a female relative of the shot man.

On 24 October, a Palestinian man died from wounds sustained the previous day when Israeli troops opened fire during a raid in Askar Camp in Nablus in the northern West Bank. Soldiers stopped the ambulance that was transporting the man, reportedly a bystander, for around 12 minutes, according to OCHA.

On 26 October, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man who was attempting to cross the West Bank wall near al-Ramadin village south of Hebron.

According to OCHA’s data, as of late October, 14 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 200 injured while attempting to cross the barrier to access work in East Jerusalem and Israel since October 2023. Such incidents “have occurred against the backdrop of a severe economic downturn in the West Bank,” OCHA said.

Israeli forces killed three Palestinians reportedly hiding in a cave near Jenin on 28 October.

“An exchange of fire reportedly took place between Israeli forces and the Palestinian men, and an Israeli airstrike hit the area,” OCHA stated. Hamas said that “two of the men were its members and that all three had died in a clash with Israeli forces,” Reuters reported.

The UN human rights office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said that “the use of airstrikes in the occupied West Bank is unlawful.” The office added that “extrajudicial executions, regardless of the target, are unlawful at all times.”

Also during October, two Palestinians from the West Bank died in Israeli detention centers and prisons. At least 77 Palestinians died in Israeli detention between 7 October 2023 and 17 October 2025, including a 17-year-old child, 49 detainees from Gaza, 26 from the West Bank and two Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

October witnessed a sharp uptick in settler violence – already frequent and severe – against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank with the beginning of the annual olive harvest.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that it had documented 126 settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in the context of the olive harvest between 1 and 27 October.

“Incidents entailed attacks on farmers inside or on their way to olive groves, theft of crops and harvesting equipment, and vandalism of olive and other trees and saplings,” OCHA said.

The number and geographic scope of attacks has increased from previous years, according to OCHA. Some 70 towns and villages were subjected to attacks in October this year, “nearly double the number of affected communities in 2023.”

More than 4,000 trees and saplings have been vandalized in October, which is more than double the number recorded during the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Israeli restrictions and settler outposts have further hindered Palestinian farmers’ ability to access their lands and harvest their crops.

The number of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes and other structures in the West Bank during 2025 was outpacing last year’s rate of demolitions, the Norwegian Refugee Council said​​ on 1 October.

“​​By 30 September, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,288 structures over building permits, nearly five a day, including 138 funded by international aid,” the Norwegian group said.

“More than 1,400 Palestinians were displaced and nearly 38,000 affected through the loss of livelihood, agricultural and water and sanitation infrastructure,” the group added.

Nearly 1,290 structures were destroyed due to a lack of Israeli-issued building permits during all of 2024. Israel rarely approves building permits for Palestinians in the more than 60 percent of the West Bank under its full military control.

Meanwhile, Israel has carried out 37 punitive demolitions, whereby the homes of Palestinians accused of attacks are sealed are destroyed, so far this year. Such demolitions are a form of collective punishment prohibited under international law.

The above figures do not include the buildings destroyed in Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps, which have been under siege by the Israeli military for most of the year and largely inaccessible.

At least 245 buildings in those camps have been destroyed, according to a UN satellite assessment published in July, and nearly 32,000 people have been displaced from those communities.

“Families are being stripped of homes, water and livelihoods in a calculated effort to drive them from their land and make way for settlements,” Angelita Caredda, a regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.

“​​It is a deliberate policy of dispossession.”

On 1 October, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council said that it condemned a US ultimatum “which conditions the suspension of Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza upon unilateral terms dictated by the Trump administration.”

The council said that while it welcomed genuine efforts to end the genocide, “the US plan does not aim to end Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation but rather to entrench and normalize it.”

“By rewarding Israel’s systematic crimes of apartheid, persecution and genocide, the plan denies Palestinians their most fundamental rights,” the council added.

The council noted that in contrast to “consistent international calls for the release of Israeli hostages, there has been near silence regarding Palestinian hostages.”

“Israel continues to withhold 732 bodies of Palestinians in morgues and military cemeteries,” the council added. These include 67 children, 85 people who died in Israeli detention and 10 women.

The council added that the US ultimatum conditions humanitarian aid on acceptance of its terms, thereby weaponizing relief and shielding Israel from accountability.

“Israel’s refusal to facilitate relief operations, despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, constitutes an act of genocide under international law,” the council said.

On 2 October, Doctors Without Borders said that Omar Hayek, an occupational therapist, was killed in an Israeli attack on a street where people were waiting to take a bus to the charity’s field hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Four other people were seriously injured. Doctors Without Borders said that its staff were wearing vests “clearly identifying themselves as medical humanitarian workers.”

The charity said that 42-year-old Hayek, “the sole provider for his family,” had remained in Gaza City until 13 September before relentless attacks forced him to move south, where he was killed.

Abed El Hameed Qaradaya, who was injured in the attack, died from his shrapnel injuries on 5 October.

Qaradaya, 43, was married and had two children and was a “unique and invaluable specialist in both physiotherapy and occupational therapy,” Doctors Without Borders said.

“​​He was the driving force behind opening up the 3D physiotherapy department, insisting on bringing in new technologies for patient care into Gaza,” the charity added.

Fifteen of the French group’s staff members have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. Qaradaya was the third killed “in less than 20 days,” the medical charity said.

The UK-based group Medical Aid for Palestinians said on 6 October that at least 1,722 health care workers had been killed in Gaza over the past two years – “an average of more than two killed every day.”

“Since Israel broke the temporary ceasefire in March 2025, that toll has risen to an average of three per day,” the British charity added.

Additionally, Israel has detained hundreds of health care workers, some of whom have been tortured. Medical workers have died in Israeli custody while the Israeli military has attacked nearly every single hospital in Gaza.

Surviving healthcare workers “are struggling to cope with the influx of patients and mass casualties” while Israel’s blockade “means medical supplies, food and fuel are running dangerously low,” Medical Aid for Palestinians added.

On 2 October, the Palestinian human rights group Al Mezan warned that a draft bill approved for a first reading by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, “would authorize the execution of Palestinian prisoners.”

The draft bill mandates the death penalty for people convicted of murder “where the act was committed with the intent to harm the state of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in their homeland.”

Al Mezan said that the draft bill would allow judges to impose death sentences by a simple majority.

“This bill marks a dangerous shift in Israeli policy by enshrining into law the systematic state-sanctioned killing of Palestinian detainees,” Al Mezan added, describing it as “another arm of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

On 22 October, a bill that would apply Israeli law to the West Bank passed a first reading in the Knesset.

If enacted, the proposed legislation, which is supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition allies, would amount to formal annexation of occupied territory. Three more votes are needed to pass the bill into law.

JD Vance, the US vice president, said that the vote was “a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it.”

“The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel,” he added. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

Israel’s interception of Global Sumud Flotilla ships headed towards Gaza in early October “is not just about blocking aid,” Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, said​​. “It is a deliberate policy of dispossession.”

Israel’s threats against the flotilla sparked a general strike called for by Italian trade unions and the interception of the Gaza-bound ships fomented protests around the globe.

More than 450 volunteers, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, were detained after Israeli forces intercepted around 40 boats participating in the flotilla, the largest yet naval humanitarian mission to Gaza, according to Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group.

One of the boats in the flotilla, the Mikeno, entered Palestine’s territorial waters, which Al-Haq said was “unprecedented since Israel unilaterally imposed its illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007.”

Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza constitutes a prohibited act of collective punishment, according to Al-Haq.

The detained human rights defenders were “subject[ed] to inhumane, degrading treatment and punishment by the Israeli authorities,” the rights group stated.

They reported being “deprived of water for more than 32 hours, deprived of sleep with forced interruptions from soldiers every two hours, forced to kneel for prolonged periods of up to five hours with their hands bound in zip-ties, while being filmed and exploited in a degrading manner.”

Thunberg said that she and other volunteers were “kidnapped and tortured” by the Israeli military but she sought to direct international attention to Israel’s abuses against Palestinians.

Two flotilla participants told reporters that “they had witnessed Thunberg being mistreated, saying she was shoved and forced to wear an Israeli flag,” according to​​ Reuters.

One of the activists said that Thunberg was pushed into a room with Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s extremist national security minister, for propaganda purposes.

In addition to 40 tons of aid loaded onto the intercepted ships, Music for Peace, an Italian nongovernmental organization, said that Israel was blocking 250 tons of aid destined for Gaza via Jordan that was collected as part of the flotilla initiative.

On 5 October, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Tasneem Marwan al-Hams, a 23-year-old nurse, was abducted outside a medical point where she worked in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, on 2 October.

The nurse was abducted around 70 days after her father, Marwan al-Hams, the director of field hospitals for the health ministry in Gaza, was forcibly disappeared in a similar manner.

Photojournalist Tamer al-Zaanin was killed and another journalist and a health ministry employee were injured during the elder al-Hams’ abduction, according to Euro-Med Monitor. The health ministry official was later found to be held in an Israeli interrogation center.

Euro-Med Monitor said that four armed men and a driver in civilian clothing blocked the younger al-Hams’ path before assaulting and gagging her and dragging her into their truck. The men fired their guns to prevent bystanders who attempted to intervene before fleeing south to Rafah, which is under Israeli military control.

The nurse’s brother told Euro-Med that his sister “had been receiving blackmail messages from anonymous foreign and Palestinian numbers.”

Euro-Med Monitor said that both Marwan and Tasneem al-Hams “are likely being subjected to physical and psychological torture and blackmail to extract information or coerced confessions.”

In September, the human rights group said that it had documented a systematic policy of extortion by which the Israeli military forces families into collaborating “or face mass killing, starvation and forcible displacement.”

Euro-Med Monitor added that nine members of the Bakr family in Beach refugee camp near Gaza City were killed one day after the family refused an Israeli condition that they “form and serve in a local militia aligned with the army.”

The group said that it received similar reports regarding two other families who refused Israel’s conditions, including the Doghmush family that was massacred in the Sabra area of Gaza City in September. Euro-Med called on the UN General Assembly to approve the establishment of a protection force to halt crimes against civilians in Gaza.

On 7 October, the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Commission of Detainees Affairs and the human rights group Addameer published figures related to arrest and detention in the context of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The last two years have witnessed “a record number of Palestinian political prisoners killed,” according to the groups. “There have been 77 identified murdered Palestinian political prisoners since the genocide began.”

“Dozens of other detainees abducted from Gaza were martyred and their bodies remain withheld by occupation authorities and subject to enforced disappearances,” according to the groups. Crimes committed against prisoners by Israeli authorities during the past two years “constitute large-scale war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Testimonies from detainees from Gaza have “revealed an unprecedented pattern of systematic torture, beginning from the moment of arrest, through the stages of interrogation, and continuing into prolonged periods of detention,” the groups said.

Israeli forces have carried out field executions during arrest. Detainees from Gaza have been held at the notorious Sde Teiman military camp and the Rakevet section beneath Ramla Prison, “which stands as a stark example of enforced disappearance and systematic torture,” according to the prisoner advocacy groups. The classification of detainees from Gaza as “unlawful combatants” allows for their indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Meanwhile, around 20,000 people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been arrested during the past two years, including “around 1,600 arrests among children and about 595 among women,” the groups said.

Excluding the unknown number of detainees from Gaza held in Israeli army-run military camps, which is estimated to be in the thousands, more than 11,100 Palestinians were being held by Israel as of October 2025 – the majority held without charge or trial under administrative detention orders, or awaiting trial.

That figure is more than double the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers before 7 October 2023. Israel has banned the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting prisoners in detention since October 2023, as well as visits by family members.

Human rights groups have petitioned the Israeli high court for the resumption of Red Cross visits but the government has submitted 20 requests to postpone the court’s response to the petition, according to the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz.

In late October, Israel’s defense minister signed an order banning Red Cross visits to the thousands of Palestinians held as “unlawful combatants.”

More than 200 journalists have been arrested since October 2023, with two journalists from Gaza – Nidal al-Wahidi and Haitham Abdel Wahid – remaining under enforced disappearance, according to the groups. Around 360 medical workers have been arrested, “including three who died in detention due to torture: Iyad al-Rantisi, Adnan al-Bursh and Ziad al-Dalu.”

Instead of releasing Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Israel renewed his detention for an additional six months in mid-October.

“Dr. Abu Safiya is a hostage, a bargaining chip in ongoing negotiations,” the human rights group Al Mezan stated.

On 8 October, the UN human rights office and the Protection Cluster – a network of nongovernmental and international organizations and UN agencies engaged in protection work – called for protection of the West Bank olive harvest.

A vital part of the Palestinian economy and culture, the harvest season is threatened by unprecedented levels of settler violence “often perpetrated with the acquiescence, support or active participation of Israeli forces,” the groups stated.

The groups called for diplomatic pressure on Israel and “diplomatic and international presence in communities at risk of violence.”

The UN human rights office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said that it verified a video showing an Israeli settler and Israeli forces “severely assaulting a 58-year-old olive farmer in Nahalin,” a village near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, on 24 October.

The following day, masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians harvesting olives in Mikhmas before setting fire to six homes in Khallet al-Sidra, a Bedouin Palestinian community near East Jerusalem, and injuring five Palestinians and two Israeli solidarity activists, the UN office added.

“The Israeli military said the incident is being investigated,” the UN office said. “However, settlers and Israeli security forces have so far enjoyed complete impunity for attacks against Palestinians, even deadly ones.”

The UN office said that women and children had recently relocated from Khallet al-Sidra, leaving only the men, who stayed “to prevent seizure of their homes by settlers.”

“As Israel escalates its campaign of forced transfer to clear large swaths of the occupied West Bank [of] Palestinian residents, entire Bedouin communities have been displaced over the past two years,” the UN office added.

On 12 October, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that international media and human rights investigators, as well as expert technical teams, “must be granted unfettered access to Gaza to document the genocide committed by Israel and ensure accountability for those responsible.”

The group said that Israel had sought to erase the truth by killing more than 250 journalists and destroying media infrastructure in Gaza. International journalists have been barred from Gaza with the exception of reporters embedded with the Israeli military since October 2023.

Forensic and criminal investigation teams must be given access to Gaza to assist in recovering and identifying bodies buried beneath the rubble, Euro-Med added.

“Initial field visits following the ceasefire revealed large numbers of bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment,” Euro-Med said.

“Volunteer rescue and civil defense teams retrieved 135 bodies,” mostly in the Gaza City area, “while many others remain buried due to the vast destruction and lack of necessary equipment,” according to the rights group.

“Rigorous monitoring of Israeli practices in Gaza is vital to prevent the recurrence of genocide,” Euro-Med added.

“Preventing genocide is not a political choice or negotiable matter but an absolute legal and moral duty requiring decisive international action.”

Later in October, Israel’s high court granted the government an additional delay regarding the free and unfettered entry of international journalists into Gaza.

The Foreign Press Association said it was disappointed in the court’s decision, saying that “the state today once again relied on stalling tactics to prevent the entry of journalists.”

The Euro-Med Rights Monitor saidthat the court had provided “a legal cover for government policies designed to suppress transparency and erase field evidence of crimes committed in Gaza.”

US President Donald Trump declared an end to the war in Gaza on 13 October, three days after a ceasefire began. Trump’s announcement came after Hamas freed the last living Israeli captives in Gaza and Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees – a fraction of the thousands being held in its prisons and detention centers.

Hamas also began transferring the remains of dead captives while Israel began releasing the confiscated bodies of Palestinians killed in Gaza.

Israel’s full-scale offensive – during which most structures in Gaza were destroyed – was brought to a halt by the first stage of an envisioned multi-phase agreement mediated by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey and signed in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh.

The first phase of the agreement stipulates that Israel will “release 250 Palestinians convicted of murder and other serious crimes as well as 1,700 Palestinians detained in Gaza since the war began, 22 Palestinian minors, and the bodies of 360 militants,” according to Reuters. More than 150 prisoners were meanwhile deported to Egypt.

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said that human rights are central to recovery and peace-building “in order that the ceasefire in Gaza transforms into an enduring peace for the peoples of Palestine and Israel.”

He said that the right of Palestinians to self-determination must be ensured and “that there are inclusive and meaningful political processes that will lead to a two-state solution.”

“This needs to occur in line with UN Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions, the General Assembly-endorsed New York Declaration, as well as the advisory opinions and interim measures issued by the International Court of Justice,” the UN official added.

The New York Declaration refers to an initiative led by France and Saudi Arabia to resurrect the process towards a two-state solution.

Türk said that long-term reconciliation and healing would require truth, justice and accountability.

On 15 October, the UN human rights office said that it was concerned by reports of extrajudicial executions by Hamas and affiliated armed groups and the killing of civilians by the Israeli military.

The UN office said that on 13 October, “the Sahm Unit, allegedly affiliated with the Gaza Ministry of Interior, published video footage apparently showing the public summary execution of eight blindfolded and handcuffed men from the same family in Gaza City.”

“This incident was reportedly in retaliation for an exchange of fire between members of the family and persons affiliated with Hamas the day before,” the UN office added.

The same unit has announced operations targeting “criminals” from another family in the city and claimed to kill two alleged collaborators, according to the UN office.

While stating that restoring public order is an “urgent priority,” the UN office said that execution without judicial process and guarantees “amounts to a war crime.”

Reuters, citing an unnamed security official in Gaza, reported that six of Hamas’ personnel had also been killed.

Trump indicated that Hamas had been allowed to resume policing in Gaza temporarily, telling a reporter that “they do want to stop the problems, and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time.”

The UN office also said that people were moving back to the areas from which they were displaced, including areas in close proximity to the some 50 percent of Gaza’s territory where Israeli ground troops are still present.

Three people attempting to return to their homes were killed by the Israeli military in Shujaiya near Gaza City on 14 October. That same day, four people in northern Gaza were shot and killed.

The UN office said that it had recorded the killings of 15 people in the areas where the Israeli military remained present.

“The targeting of civilians not directly participating in hostilities constitutes a war crime regardless of the location of the incident and its proximity to agreed deployment lines,” the UN office added.

Also on 15 October, Tom Fletcher, the UN emergency relief chief, told Reuters that the 600 aid trucks that Israel approved to enter Gaza were not nearly enough and thousands of trucks were needed.

Fletcher said that the UN had 190,000 metric tons of aid waiting, including “life-saving food and nutrition.”

The UN official called for dozens of international nongovernmental organizations to be allowed to bring in aid, saying that the UN could not “deliver the scale necessary without their presence and their engagement.”

Those organizations, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE and Oxfam, have not been approved by the Israeli authorities under new restrictions.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund – the US-Israeli militarized aid scheme that saw hundreds of people killed in the vicinity of their distribution sites – suspended operations in Gaza after the ceasefire.

On 14 October, Israel said that it would allow only half of the aid it previously agreed to enter Gaza and limit the number of trucks to 300 daily. COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that administers the siege on Gaza, accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement “regarding the release of the bodies of the hostages.”

COGAT also “notified the UN that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure,” Reuters reported.

On 26 October, the Israeli government said that Red Cross and Egyptian teams had been granted access to areas beyond the so-called yellow line demarcating the Israeli military’s withdrawal line in order to search for the bodies of deceased captives.

The bodies of five Israelis and a Thai national remain in Gaza after the body of a Tanzanian man killed on 7 October 2023 was recovered in Shujaiya, near Gaza City, and transferred to Israel via the Red Cross on 6 November 2025.

The UN estimated in October that rebuilding Gaza would require $70 billion and take decades.

Jaco Cilliers, a UN Development Program official, said that at least 55 million tons of rubble had been generated over the past two years, Reuters reported on 14 October.

The UN agency said that it had already cleared around 81,000 tons of rubble.

The aid group Humanity & Inclusion said that clearing Gaza of unexploded ordnance could take 20 to 30 years. More than 50 people in Gaza have been killed and hundreds injured by lethal remnants of war, according to a UN database.

Nick Orr, an expert with Humanity & Inclusion, said full clearance was impossible, since much of the unexploded ordnance is under the ground. “We will find it for generations to come,” he said.

A UN Development Program official told reporters in October that it had begun “clearing roads and recycling materials to pave new access routes and temporary facilities” in Gaza City.

“This is a very arduous process and will take many years to complete,” according to Cilliers, the UNDP representative.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s relief chief, told the Irish Examiner in an interview published on 22 October that cooking gas had been allowed into Gaza “for the first time in months.”

Displaced people “have started to go back in the last few days, and many of them had to use GPS to try and find their homes because there were no landmarks,” Fletcher said.

During a 23 October interview with The Electronic Intifada, Asem Alnabih, the spokesperson for the Gaza City municipality, said that international promises to send equipment, fuel and supplies had yet to materialize.

“We got a lot of promises that after the ceasefire, you will get what you need to serve your people,” Alnabih said. “But we are already two weeks after this ceasefire, and I can tell you we got nothing. Zero.”

The question of how Gaza will be governed, and by whom, and the fate of Hamas as an armed force remained an open question following the ceasefire declaration.

During a White House meeting with the president of Argentina on 14 October, Trump said that “if [Hamas] don’t disarm, we will disarm them. And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently.”

In an interview with Reuters published on 17 October, senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal said from Doha that the group could not commit to disarming but said it was ready for a five-year truce to allow Gaza to rebuild.

The US said it would provide up to 200 troops for coordination and oversight, but that they would not be deployed in Gaza. The force will be led by Steven Fagin, a career US diplomat, the State Department announced on 24 October.

The Palestinian Authority has pushed for a significant role in post-war Gaza, including the operation of Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt. The key crossing has been closed since Israel seized it during its incursion into Rafah, southern Gaza, in May 2024.

The European Union’s diplomatic arm recommended that it join Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” to “influence strategic choices” in the governance and rebuilding of Gaza.

Netanyahu said during October that Israel would decide which states would be allowed to join an international force in Gaza and hinted at opposition to Turkish involvement.

On 16 October, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said it was “deeply shocked by the horrific condition of Palestinian bodies handed over by the Israeli army after being detained during the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.”

Many of the bodies had clearly been “subjected to deliberate and brutal torture and abuse … while several appear to have been executed,” Euro-Med added.

The bodies of 120 Palestinians had been transferred to Gaza through the International Committee of the Red Cross following the ceasefire agreement. Dozens of the bodies were unidentified, according to Euro-Med’s mid-October statement.

The bodies presented “marks of hanging, rope imprints around their necks, injuries from close-range gunfire, bound hands and feet with plastic restraints and blindfolds,” the rights group said.

“Some bodies were crushed under tank tracks, while others showed severe signs of physical torture, fractures, burns and deep wounds.”

The lack of capacity in Gaza to identify the bodies or “investigate the circumstances of their detention, torture and killing” prolongs the suffering and deepens the uncertainty and grief of families with missing relatives, Euro-Med added.

The group said that the “excessive suffering and deliberate liquidation of detainees form part of an organized process to destroy the Palestinian national group both physically and psychologically.”

By 25 October, Israel had transferred nearly 200 bodies without any identifying information or clarification regarding the circumstances of their deaths. Many of them belonged to people who were apparently held at Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman military camp, where detainees have been subjected to systematic torture and their limbs amputated due to handcuffing wounds.

On 16 October, Israeli forces shot and killed Muhammad Bahjat al-Hallaq, 9, while he was playing football with other boys in al-Rihiya, a village near the West Bank city of Hebron.

“Two Israeli military jeeps entered the village, after which four Israeli soldiers exited the vehicles, spread out along the street, and began firing tear gas canisters and live bullets randomly and directly at the children,” according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.

While Muhammad and the other children fled, “one soldier took a kneeling position and fired a single live bullet that struck” the boy, DCIP said.

An older boy managed to evacuate Muhammad to his uncle’s house nearby. From there, he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“Eyewitnesses told us that after the soldier fired he raised his arms in a gesture of apparent joy; his buddies joined in the gaiety,” Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy stated.

“Other eyewitnesses confirmed this to Manal al-Jabari, the Hebron-area field researcher for B’Tselem,” an Israeli human rights group, Levy added.

“They also told her that the security camera installed on a street that overlooks the site of the shooting had been removed sometime later by soldiers.”

Another Palestinian boy, 15-year-old Yamen Hamed, was shot and killed by Israeli forces at an entrance to Silwad, a town near Ramallah in the central West Bank, on 30 October.

“Yamen and his friends were walking near the southern entrance, which has been closed for nearly two years by order of the Israeli forces after they erected earth mounds there,” according to DCIP.

“Yamen and his friends were surprised to find a group of Israeli soldiers hiding behind the earth mounds, after which they fired directly at the children with about ten bullets from a distance of 50 meters.”

Yamen was shot in the chest and fell to the ground and bled for half an hour while surrounded by Israeli forces who “opened fire and prevented residents and an ambulance from approaching him,” DCIP said.

“Yamen’s father reported that he tried to reach the scene to check on his son, but soldiers prevented him from advancing and fired warning shots at him and the medical team to force them to retreat.”

The father said that when the boy’s body was transferred to hospital, his fingers and toes were fractured, “indicating he may have been subjected to torture, violence or dragging while in the soldiers’ custody,” DCIP stated.

Yamen was the 42nd Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank so far this year, the children’s rights group said.

The UN human rights office said on 17 October that 1,001 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 7 October 2023.

“One in five of the victims is a child, including 206 boys and seven girls,” the UN office added, the youngest being 2-year-old Laila Khatib, who was killed in her bedroom in Jenin in January.

“The number also includes 20 women and at least seven persons with disabilities,” the UN office said.

The figure, which does not include people who died in Israeli detention, “represents 43 percent of all Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank in the past 20 years.”

Nearly half of the 968 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were unarmed “and not involved in any violence or confrontation at the time of their killing,” the UN office added.

Nearly 175 of the fatalities, including 71 children, “were killed while throwing stones or Molotov cocktails, often at well-equipped and protected” Israeli military vehicles, according to UN data.

Nearly 80 Palestinians were killed in attacks and alleged attacks and nearly 250 during exchanges of fire with Israeli forces during raids into Palestinian communities.

More than 330 of the killings “raise serious concerns of extrajudicial executions,” the UN added.

Among the 640 Palestinians killed with live ammunition, more than half were shot in the head or upper part of the body, according to the UN. Israeli forces delayed or obstructed medical aid in at least 244 cases.

The Israeli military launched more than 100 airstrikes “and used other weapons designated for warfare to mainly target refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas and Nablus,” the UN said. Nearly 450 Palestinians were killed in these operations, more than 250 of them in airstrikes and 46 “by shoulder-fired projectiles.”

Those operations have “destroyed large parts of the camps, and forcibly displaced between 30,000 and 40,000 Palestinians.”

Meanwhile, “settler attacks against Palestinians also reached a new peak in scale and severity, enabled by Israeli policy to draft thousands of settlers into the army and to provide further weapons to settlers,” the UN said.

“​​This has led to the killing of 33 Palestinians, including three children, 19 of whom were killed by settlers, while 14 were killed by settlers and the army shooting side by side.”

Nearly 60 Israelis were killed in the West Bank during the same period, 22 of them “members of the Israeli security forces,” according to the UN.

On 20 October, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, published a report titled “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime.”

Albanese’s report finds that influential third states that have enabled Israel’s “longstanding violations of international law” are collectively responsible for the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians,” according to the summary of the report, “this livestreamed atrocity has been facilitated through third states’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation.”

The genocide has been sustained thanks to the involvement of third states, according to Albanese, who said that those states have sought to justify their complicity by reproducing “Israeli distortions of international law and colonial tropes,” including by “portraying Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields.’”

Albanese’s report examines the aid and assistance third states have provided to Israel in four sectors: diplomatic, military, economic and “humanitarian” support, each “indispensable to the ongoing Israeli violations of international law.”

“Diplomatic initiatives have normalized the Israeli occupation and failed to achieve a permanent ceasefire,” Albanese states. “Large-scale military aid, cooperation and arms transfers, primarily to and from the United States and European states, have enabled Israeli domination over the Palestinian people.”

This has allowed Israel to “dismantle humanitarian aid and impose conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians as a group,” Albanese states.

“Economic cooperation has fuelled the Israeli economy, which has profited from the illegal occupation and genocide.”

Albanese observes that “the ongoing genocide has enabled Israel to expand the range of weaponry and surveillance systems tested on the Gaza population.”

“As a result, the value of arms exports increased by 18 percent during the genocide, with exports to the EU more than doubling and accounting for 54 percent of Israeli military exports in 2024,” she adds.

“No state can credibly claim adherence to international law while arming, supporting or shielding a genocidal regime,” Albanese states. “All military and political support must be suspended; diplomacy should serve to prevent crimes rather than to justify them.”

Welcoming Albanese’s report, the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq said that decades of impunity for the settler-colonial and apartheid regime have dehumanized the indigenous population of Palestine “to such an extent that they are unworthy of life itself.”

“This is the system states are so determined to protect that they have forsaken the fundamental human rights of not just Palestinians, but their own citizens” as they criminalize and crush opposition to Israel’s genocide, Al-Haq added.

On 22 October, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that more than 270,000 people – around 12 percent of Gaza’s population – had been killed, injured or detained since 7 October 2023.

The “staggering figures,” according to the Geneva-based group, are “evidence of a catastrophe that has spared no one. No resident of Gaza has been left untouched.”

At least 70,250 civilians were among the more than 75,190 people killed, “accounting for 30 percent of the fatalities.” Nearly 14,000 women were killed, representing 20 percent of all fatalities.

Around 173,200 people were injured, with some 40,000 left with permanent or long-term disabilities, “including nearly 21,000 children, with 76 percent affecting the upper limbs and 24 percent the lower limbs.”

Some 45,600 children lost one or both parents in Israeli attacks and 12,000 people were detained in Gaza, including some 2,700 “who remain in custody or are victims of enforced disappearance,” Euro-Med added.

The group said that it had documented 42 forms of torture and inhumane treatment to which detainees were subjected in Israeli custody, “including rape, sexual assault, bone breaking, electrocution, spitting and urinating on detainees, threats to kill family members, as well as premeditated murder and torture leading to death.”

At least 482 people died due to malnutrition, among them 160 children. The entire population of Gaza remains in a state of severe food insecurity due to Israeli restrictions.

Miscarriage rates have risen by nearly 300 percent, according to Euro-Med Monitor, and “the entire population of the Gaza Strip has experienced varying degrees of psychological trauma,” creating a “state of collective psychological stress.”

Nearly everyone in Gaza was forcibly displaced at least once over the past two years, with Israel’s scorched-earth policy leaving 80 percent of all buildings damaged or destroyed.

More than 70 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on 11 October.

“The ceasefire and the reduction in Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip do not signify an end to the genocide,” Euro-Med Monitor stated, adding that the agreement must not hinder or delay accountability efforts.

On 22 October, the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, issued a unanimous decision finding that Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged to ensure Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies and services.”

In its advisory opinion requested by the UN General Assembly, court judges ruled that Israel is obliged to “agree to and facilitate by all means at its disposal relief schemes on behalf of the population.” The court said that this includes relief provided by UN agencies, and particularly UNRWA – the UN agency for Palestine refugees – whose capacity cannot be replicated.

The advisory opinion also states that Israel is obliged to “respect and protect all relief and medical personnel and facilities,” respect the prohibition on forcible transfer and deportation and to respect the right of Palestinians detained by Israel to receive visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ruling also calls on Israel to “respect the prohibition on the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

In August, a global food security monitor officially declared a famine in Gaza, with catastrophic conditions particularly in Gaza City and the North Gaza governorate. Those areas had been largely cut off from aid in the weeks leading up to the ceasefire.

All eight provisions of the advisory opinion received a unanimous vote, barring the dissension of Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda on multiple provisions.

UNRWA said that the advisory opinion emphasizes its “indispensable role as provider of humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip” as well as its “unique mandate and connection to the people of Gaza which have allowed it to deliver assistance in a safe and dignified way.”

Earlier this year, Israel enacted legislation effectively shutting down UNRWA operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UNRWA noted that the court found that Israel’s accusation that Hamas had infiltrated the agency “was not substantiated, nor were allegations that UNRWA is not a neutral agency.”

Hundreds of people in Gaza have lost their lives while attempting to seek aid over the past several months and more than 300 UNRWA employees and 72 people supporting the agency’s activities were killed in Israeli strikes since October 2023, including 14 people on duty at the time.

An unnamed senior Israeli official told Israel’s state broadcaster Kan that “as far as we’re concerned, UNRWA will no longer operate in Gaza.”

On 23 October, Reuters reported that the US is “considering a proposal for humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza that would replace the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to a copy of the plan” seen by the news agency.

“Two US officials and a humanitarian official familiar with the plan” told the agency that it was “one of several concepts being explored.”

This scheme would involve “12-16 humanitarian hubs positioned along the line to which Israeli forces have withdrawn within Gaza” operated by the new US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center that “would serve people on both sides of the line.”

The hubs, Reuters reported, would also involve “ ‘voluntary reconciliation facilities’ for militants to give up their weapons and receive amnesty.”

UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations operating in Gaza “will be mandated to use the platform run by the CMCC and will provide the goods distributed to the hubs,” the proposal states, according to Reuters.

An unnamed “senior international aid official” told Reuters that “the ‘aid hubs’ they describe are very concerning as they resemble GHF sites in areas controlled by” the Israeli military.

Reuters added that the proposal says that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would be “ ‘absorbed/replaced’ by the UAE/Morocco Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian aid organization.”

Samaritan’s Purse confirmed to Reuters that it was approached about being involved in the US government scheme.

On 24 October, more than 40 organizations working on the ground in Gaza called on Israel to allow urgently needed aid into the territory.

The groups said that between 10 and 21 October, Israel denied entry to shipments of aid, including water, food, tents and medical supplies, from 17 international nongovernmental organizations.

Most of the denials were issued on the pretext that the organizations were not authorized to deliver aid to Gaza, though agencies with longstanding registration with Palestinian and Israeli authorities were among them.

“These humanitarian organizations are not new or untested actors,” the groups stated. “They are trusted agencies, operating in Gaza for decades.”

“Such targeted exclusions are a clear indication that Israeli authorities are continuing to restrict and politicize aid in breach of both the terms and spirit of the ceasefire agreement,” the groups added.

Abeer Etefa, a World Food Program spokesperson, told reporters on 21 October that the UN agency was delivering a daily average of 750 tons of food to Gaza since the ceasefire took hold – less than half the target of 2,000 tons per day.

Only Karem Abu Salem and Kissufim crossings in the south were open, Etefa said, and the “severe amount of destruction” impedes access between southern and northern Gaza.

“We need Erez, we need Zikim, we need these border crossing points to open,” she said, in order to reach northern Gaza with large aid convoys.

“The agency has started restoring its food distribution system, with a goal of scaling assistance through 145 distribution points across the Strip,” UN News reported.

People receiving food aid ration the assistance they receive “because they are not very confident how long the ceasefire will last and what will happen next,” Etefa added.

The World Food Program was also “supporting the most food insecure people with digital payments which have so far allowed some 140,000 people to buy food on local markets,” according to UN News.

Food prices remain prohibitive in Gaza and supplies are still not sufficiently affordable, Etefa said.

OCHA said that 150 metric tons of concentrated animal fodder was brought into Gaza between 15 and 20 October for distribution to animal herders to protect surviving livestock, resume local production of milk and dairy products, secure animal transport and improve food diversity.

“This is especially critical given widespread destruction of agricultural lands, severe soil contamination with war remnants, and hindered access to arable land,” according to OCHA.

Also on 24 October, UN News reported that an estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s population remain displaced and at least 1.5 million people urgently require emergency shelter assistance.

The International Organization for Migration had “dispatched more than 47,000 relief items, including 2,500 tents,” since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October.

“Despite the ceasefire, customs delays, insecurity and limited crossings continue to hinder aid delivery,” according to UN News.

“IOM has pre-positioned millions of relief items in nearby Jordan, including 28,000 additional tents and more than four million winter supply items ready for rapid deployment once access improves.”

Only 10 percent of displaced people in Gaza were residing in collective shelters such as schools, “while the majority remain in overcrowded, makeshift sites, many of which were set up spontaneously in open or unsafe areas,” particularly in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, “where severe overcrowding persists,” according to OCHA.

A UN spokesperson in New York told UN News that more than one million hot meals were being distributed daily across Gaza and that six bakeries supported by the UN had resumed baking bread.

The provision of care for malnutrition had also increased since the ceasefire and “water and sanitation support is also expanding,” according to UN News.

The UN said that nearly one million people in Gaza received food parcels between 13 and 31 October.

In late October, Israeli authorities announced that all humanitarian and commercial truck movements through Karem Abu Salem crossing would be rerouted via a route “considered unsuitable for high-volume transport because the road is narrow and heavily congested with traffic as it passes through densely populated areas,” the UN said.

This directive has led to delays and “further adds to the challenges already facing humanitarian aid delivery,” the UN added.

Humanitarian coordination with the Israeli military is no longer required in the areas of Gaza from which ground forces have withdrawn, according to the UN. Coordination is still required at Gaza’s crossings “as well as in or near other areas where the Israeli military remains deployed,” the UN said.

The World Health Organization said on 23 October that while aid deliveries were increasing, it was only “a fraction of what’s needed” and rebuilding Gaza’s medical infrastructure was estimated to cost at least $7 billion.

Some 600,000 people were still facing famine, the UN health organization said.

“The health agency said it saw a ‘dire’ global funding outlook for next year and projected more than 14 million avoidable deaths worldwide as a result of the cuts,” Reuters reported.

The US quit the organization earlier this year, creating a massive funding gap that forced the agency to slash its proposed spending by more than 20 percent, Reuters added.

Between 10 and 30 October, more than 600,000 movements of people within Gaza were recorded, according to the UN, “including nearly 500,000 movements crossing from southern to northern Gaza.”

“Reverse movements to southern Gaza continue to be recorded, reportedly due to the lack of essential services in the north,” the UN added.

At the end of October, the UN said that “shelter needs remain largely unmet, especially in northern Gaza, where many people are staying in severely damaged buildings at risk of collapse.”

The UN also reported that the interception of aid supplies within Gaza had fallen from 80 percent of cargo collected at Gaza’s crossings before the ceasefire to 5 percent after the ceasefire.

World Food Program spokesperson Abeer Etefa said that the organization hadn’t seen the interception of their convoys by desperate people in Gaza as was occurring before the ceasefire.

She explained that “people are reassured now” that aid convoys are coming regularly and bakeries are back open, “and that’s an important element psychologically so people are patient and wait for food supplies to come.” Etefa said the UN food agency was no longer seeing armed gangs looting supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to detonate residential buildings in the areas where its military remained deployed, “especially in eastern Khan Younis and eastern Gaza City,” the UN stated.

The World Health Organization said that the number of people needing mental health care in Gaza had doubled from around 480,000 people before October 2023 to more than one million people.

“As people in Gaza start piecing their lives back together, mental health is at an all-time low,” according to the UN health organization.

On 27 October, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that while the world marked Pink October to raise awareness of breast cancer and promote early detection, “women in Gaza are deprived of this vital opportunity after Israel destroyed the entire health system.”

PCHR said that there are more than 12,500 cancer patients in Gaza, with women representing just over half of all cases.

“Breast cancer ranks first among cancers detected in women,” PCHR added. Some 260 cases of breast cancer have been recorded so far in 2025, the human rights group said, citing a medical director at Nasser Medical Complex.

“Preventive and early detection services for breast cancer have almost completely ceased due to the Israeli destruction of primary healthcare centers and the breakdown of medical imaging equipment” in Gaza, PCHR said.

“Currently, there is only one remaining device for breast cancer diagnosis in the entire Gaza Strip … making early detection almost impossible amid the overwhelming number of women in need of screening.”

Cases of breast cancer are now being detected at advanced stages, reducing a patient’s chances of successful treatment and survival.

Meanwhile, patients are often unable to access the care they need “due to the severe shortage of chemotherapy and the interruption of successive treatment sessions.”

Radiotherapy is completely unavailable in Gaza, according to PCHR, citing medical officials.

The only dedicated cancer hospital in Gaza, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, was destroyed by the Israeli military, forcing hundreds of female patients “to postpone or entirely discontinue their treatment,” PCHR added.

On 31 October, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that 219 people in Gaza, including 85 children, had been killed by the Israeli military since the ceasefire was declared earlier in the month. Another 600 people had been injured.

The Israeli military carried out attacks on 19 October after two soldiers were killed in Rafah and again on 28-29 October. The latter was in “retaliation for the death of an Israeli soldier” in Gaza, according to Reuters, which said that Hamas denied responsibility.

Forty-seven people, including 20 children, were killed in the first attack and 110 people, including 46 children, in the second.

OCHA reported that 11 people, including seven children, were killed in a strike on a bus carrying displaced people in Gaza City on 17 October. At least four children were killed when an UNRWA school being used as a shelter was shelled by Israeli forces in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, on 19 October.

A journalist was among two people killed in a strike on a building serving as an office for the Palestinian Media Production company on 19 October. Israel claimed that the slain journalist, who was an engineer for a production company that worked with Germany’s ZDF public broadcaster, was a member of Hamas’ armed wing.

“Artillery fire, shootings and building demolitions continued over the past two days, particularly in the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Younis and Gaza City,” Euro-Med Monitor stated.

“These actions suggest Israel is consolidating a new reality, allowing itself to conduct continuous military operations” in the approximately half of Gaza’s territory that it controls, “removing these areas from the ceasefire framework.”

Israel’s attacks “reflect a deliberate pattern demonstrating the political and military intention to undermine the ceasefire through intermittent killing,” Euro-Med stated.

“Currently, there is evidence of a plan to redraw Gaza’s geographic map, effectively dividing east from west and cutting off large areas in the south … and north … creating red and yellow zones where Israel assumes full authority over targeting and destruction” the Geneva-based group added.

“This division effectively dismantles Gaza’s geographic unity, makes large areas uninhabitable, and forces the population toward forced displacement as the only means of survival.”

Al Mezan, a human rights group based in Gaza, said on 30 October that “Israel has failed to comply with most of the provisions in the recent ceasefire agreement.”

“Israel’s ongoing attacks and continued obstruction of humanitarian aid are egregious violations of its international obligations and demonstrate a clear intention of continuing the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” Al Mezan added.

Text and production by Maureen Clare Murphy.

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