October 7 attack and war reshape Palestinian lives

Three years after Hamas attacked Israel, the violence and ensuing war have profoundly changed Palestinian lives in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond, BR reports.

Sherif Zaki, a father of three from Munich who is training to become a child psychotherapist, remembers reading the first reports of Hamas fighters crossing the border fence, killing and abducting civilians. He immediately feared that people in Gaza would face a very difficult period, including those who had not taken part in the attack and might even oppose Hamas. The reality, he said, has been worse than he imagined, and the violence has not stopped.

Zaki, who is involved in the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue group Yallah, Let’s Talk, said Israeli airstrikes had repeatedly caused deaths and destruction in Gaza even before 2023, but never on the same scale.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 74,000 people, including about 21,000 children and teenagers, have been killed in Israeli military attacks since October 7, 2023. The ministry is largely run by Hamas, but international observers and US intelligence agencies consider its figures credible, BR reports.

For Zaki, the toll became especially tangible at a memorial event in August 2025, where the names of children killed in Israel on October 7 and children killed in Gaza were read aloud. The reading of the names of children under 12 in Gaza began late in the morning. By about 9 p.m., as dusk fell, it was still not finished.

Israel’s war in Gaza has faced growing international criticism. Human rights organisations have accused Israel of war crimes, while some, including Amnesty International and B’Tselem, have also described the war as genocide.

Farid, a Gaza native who has worked in Israel for six years as a day labourer on construction sites and as a gardener in Arab towns, had planned to return to his family in autumn 2023. After Hamas’s attack and Israel’s launch of Operation Iron Swords, he was unable to leave. His family fled their home in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, after it was destroyed in an airstrike. They are now staying with relatives, like many others living in makeshift shelters.

Nine in 10 people in Gaza have been unable to return to their homes, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Their shelters face the risk of flooding during the autumn and winter months. More than 60 percent of Gaza remains under Israeli military control, and attacks targeting militants have also killed civilians, BR reports. Since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began about a year ago, the Israeli military has killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza, according to the article.

People with relatives or friends in Gaza try to support them financially.