Israel killed almost 17,000 children in Gaza in one year: Rights group

Israeli forces have killed nearly 17,000 children in the besieged coastal enclave since October 7 of last year, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.

“Israeli policies, nonstop bombardment, and ever-expanding ground invasion forcibly displaced children and their families from their homes, forced schools to close, starved children to death, detained and tortured children in Israeli military camps, and disabled thousands of children, many of whom suffer from life-long injuries,” the rights group said in a statement.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-close-up/2024/10/7/my-name-is-najwa-and-i-survived-a-year-of-israels-genocide-in-gaza-2

‘I never expected to go through this’: Emmy-winning Palestinian journalist Owda

As Gaza-based Bisan Owda has posted images and videos on social media of what she has seen during the past year of the war, she explains that no image can truly capture what people in Gaza have been through.

“It’s unimaginable. I never expected that I would be [going] through this and survive this. But I posted these pictures in particular because they are about my first time [being] displaced, the last time I saw my grandmother and a lot of other shocking things, including leaving Gaza, leaving my home and being homeless for the first time ever,” Owda told Al Jazeera.

“I am very close to my home, but I cannot go because of the bombings in the north of the Gaza Strip,” she added.

Last month, Owda and Al Jazeera’s AJ+ won an Emmy in the outstanding hard news feature story category for their documentary, It’s Bisan From Gaza – and I’m Still Alive. Owda has been at the forefront of reporting from Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the territory a year ago, bringing the stories of Palestinians to a global audience.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DA0j1zhgR2K/

Cost to US taxpayers of war in Gaza and beyond is $22.8bn

US spending on Israel’s war on Gaza totals at least $17.9bn and counting since October 7, 2023, according to research from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.

Research found American military operations elsewhere in the region – particularly in Yemen, which the Houthis say is related to Israel’s war on Gaza – have so far cost the US government $4.9bn.

“The US Navy has significantly scaled up its defensive and offensive operations against Houthi militants in Yemen. … Hostilities have escalated to become the most sustained military campaign by US forces since the 2016-2019 air war against ISIS [ISIL] in Iraq and Syria,” the report said.

“Additionally, the analysis concludes that this Houthi-related conflict has also cost the maritime trade an additional $2.1bn, because shippers have been forced to divert vessels or pay exorbitant insurance fees. US consumers may experience paying higher prices for goods as a result.”

US issues new Hamas-related sanctions

The US Treasury Department has designated sanctions for three individuals and one charity it said are prominent international financial supporters of Hamas, as well as one Hamas-controlled financial institution in Gaza.

It also designated a longstanding Hamas supporter and nine of his businesses.

“These actors play critical roles in external fundraising for Hamas, often under the guise of charitable work, that finance the group’s terrorist activities,” the department said in a statement.

“As we mark one year since Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, Treasury will continue relentlessly degrading the ability of Hamas and other destabilizing Iranian proxies to finance their operations and carry out additional violent acts,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.

The sanctions freeze any US assets held by the designated individuals or entities and generally bar people in the United States from doing business with them.

US says it does not want to see UN peacekeepers in Lebanon put in danger

The US does not want UN peacekeepers in Lebanon to be put in danger in any way, including being attacked by Israel, the State Department says, adding that the mission plays an important role in establishing security in the country.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also said the US made clear to Israel that it wants to see roads to Beirut’s airport continue to be operated.

“We don’t want to see UNIFIL forces put in danger in any way. UNIFIL forces play an important role in establishing security in Lebanon,” Miller told reporters.

The mission is mandated by the UN Security Council to help the Lebanese army keep the area free of weapons and armed personnel other than those of the state. The Israeli military asked UN peacekeepers last week to prepare to relocate more than 5km (3 miles) from the border between Israel and Lebanon “as soon as possible in order to maintain your safety”.

_{A UN peacekeeper (UNIFIL) vehicle drives in Naqoura in southern Lebanon near the Lebanese-Israeli border}

Three people killed in Israeli strike on Bureij refugee camp

Three Palestinians have been killed and six wounded by an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports. The report added that a child was killed and a woman seriously wounded when Israeli forces shelled a house east of Khan Younis.

At least 72 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn.

_{Smoke rises after an Israeli strike as displaced Palestinians flee eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7}

Israeli forces shoot three Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Two young Palestinian men have been wounded, one seriously, by Israeli live fire during confrontations that broke out in the al-Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron, Wafa reports.

During a raid into the camp, Israeli forces fired live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas at residents, shooting and wounding two men, one of whom was critically injured in the back.

Dozens of others were treated at the scene for tear gas exposure.

In Qalqiliya, another young man was shot and injured by Israeli forces. Wafa reported that the man was shot in the back during a military raid into the city. He was taken to hospital where his condition was described as stable.


_{A Palestinian boy throws a tire on a fire during an Israeli raid in Qalandya, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Monday}

‘The world has forgotten’ about the captives

Udi Goren, who lost his cousin in the October 7 attack, told Al Jazeera that it feels like “the world has forgotten” there is a “critical and timely matter” of securing the release of the captives.

Goren said the “war could end tomorrow” and stop the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians if the Israeli government and other nations focused on this objective.

“We keep hearing from the world, ‘Let’s end the war’, ‘Let’s have a ceasefire’, he said, adding that countries keep arming Israel and sending humanitarian aid to Gaza, simply adding “fuel to the fires”.

“I want to see the end of Gazan’s suffering. We don’t enjoy seeing 2 million people internally displaced, some of them being refugees for the second time in their lives,” Goren said. “I want to see everyone calling out for the release of the hostages and that would be the day when the war would end.”

Israel will "continue to fight," Netanyahu vows in speech marking October7

Israel will “continue to fight,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday in a speech marking a year since Hamas’ October 7 attacks.

“As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight,” Netanyahu said during a ceremony in the Israeli city of Ofakim. “As long as our hostages are still in Gaza, we will continue to fight.”

The prime minister reiterated Israel’s war goals, including toppling Hamas, returning the hostages in Gaza to Israel, returning to their homes Israelis who have fled from the south and north along with “eliminating any future threat from Gaza to Israel.”

“October 7 will symbolize for generations the cost of our revival, and for generations it will demonstrate how determined we are and how strong our spirit is,” Netanyahu said.

“Together we will continue to fight. And together, with God’s help, we will win,” he added.

Israel will "reap with joy" what it has "sown in tears," Israel's president says

Israel will “reap with joy” what it has “sown in tears,” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said on Monday — in a speech marking one year since Hamas’ October 7 attacks.

“It has already been a year — a full year of heartbreak and pain,” Herzog said, adding that the hearts of Israelis are bound to the hostages still held in Gaza with “love and worry.” “We know we will not be whole until they return to us,” he said.

The president said that he bowed his head in “gratitude and reverence” to the families of those murdered and kidnapped by Hamas and wished them “healing and comfort.”

“From here, I promise us, all of us, that we will continue to build, and we will reap with joy what we have sown in tears,” he continued. “Elderly men and women will once again sit in the gardens of homes in the western Negev, and the streets of the Galilee settlements will once again be filled with children playing.”

“We will rise together, only together, and this love, sanctified in blood, will once again bloom among us,” Herzog said.

Families of those killed or kidnapped by Hamas in October 7 attacks hold memorial service in Tel Aviv


_{Hundreds of families of those who were killed or kidnapped during the October 7 terror attack by Hamas have gathered for a memorial service in Tel Aviv, on Monday.}

Hundreds of people have gathered in Tel Aviv for the main memorial ceremony commemorating the victims of the October 7 terror attacks.

The gathering in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park is taking place under strict security measures, with entry restricted only to the families and friends of those who were killed or kidnapped by Hamas and other militant groups during the attack last year.

The original plans to open the gathering to the public were scrapped after Israeli security authorities restricted attendance at events to 2,000 people following the Iranian missile attack last week.

The families began the gathering by holding a minute’s silence which will be followed by speeches from some of the family members and survivors of the attack.

The family of Yair Yaakov is among those attending the ceremony, and his son Yigal is among the speakers.

Yaakov, 59, a resident of kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel was murdered on October 7, when terrorists stormed his home. His family, however, didn’t know about his death, believing he was taken hostage into Gaza, his brother Yaniv told CNN at the event in Tel Aviv.

It wasn’t until February that they found out that he was killed and his body kidnapped into Gaza. Yaniv told CNN that bringing his brother’s body back home for burial is now “the most important thing” for the family, especially for his mother.

“She is alive, but she’s not living. This is all she can think about,” he said.

Biden commemorates October 7 anniversary with candle lighting ceremony at White House

_{President Joe Biden, center, with first lady Jill Biden and Rabbi Aaron Alexander, lights a memorial candle in the Blue Room of the White House on Monday}

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden commemorated the anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attack at the White House Monday, lighting a yahrzeit candle and holding a moment of silence.

The Bidens were joined by Rabbi Aaron Alexander of the Adas Israel Congregation. Rabbi Alexander, who is a friend of the Goldberg-Polin family, recited the “El Malei Rachamim” prayer as part of the commemoration.

The Goldberg-Polin’s son, Hersh, was abducted by Hamas last year before ultimately being murdered by the terrorist group in August.

Biden did not make any remarks and left the room following the moment of silence.

Biden also gave his “deepest condolences” to the people of Israel and the families whose loved ones were killed during the October 7th terrorist attack in a call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog this morning.

Both leaders, according to a White House readout of the call, also “reaffirmed” their commitment to achieving a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.

Mother of Israeli hostage Romi Gonen describes what the year has been like without her daughter


_{In this screengrab from video, Meirav Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, speaks with Christiane Amanpour.}

It’s been a year since Meirav Gonen’s daughter, Romi, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.

It’s been one year since Gonen heard her daughter’s voice, she told CNN, adding that she doesn’t know how her daughter looks like today, if she’s holding up, if she lost her hand after being shot on the day of the attack, or if she’s smiling like she always smiled.

“I cannot even explain how you feel when you wake up in the morning, and for the first moments you hope this is only a nightmare, a dream, a bad dream. But then you are waking up to a reality,” she said. “This is so agonizing, it’s so difficult.”

Gonen said some Israeli hostages who returned home were with her daughter and they told her stories about her in captivity.

“They came back with stories — funny stories, and some disturbing also stories. She’s holding up. She was saying she’s holding up for me. And I want her to see me and I want her to see that I’m strong. I’m strong for her. I’m strong for her brothers and sisters,” she told CNN on Monday.

The freed hostages also said that her daughter lost color in her fingers, Gonen said. “The color in her fingers was changing, that her hand is not functioning,” Gonen said. “That time I thought, wow, she’s she’s going to lose her hand. We have to bring her back. But today I’m saying, it doesn’t matter if she lost her hand. We just have to bring her back alive.”

In August, the Gonen family marked Romi’s 24th birthday. “At first, we wanted to hide the fact” that it was her birthday, Gonen said. “But at a certain point, we thought that maybe she will see us.” So they marked the day to bring light and strength for people, she said.

The war, she said, is not about Israel and Palestine, but rather against Hamas. “We will not break because we are the good and the Hamas is evil,” she said.

Family member of kidnapped hostages says life will never be same after October 7 attack


_{In this screengrab from video, Eylon Keshet speaks with CNN}

One year after several of his family members were kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, Eylon Keshet said he knows life will never be the same again. “I’m really afraid that the next time I see them will be a very big funeral for all of them. This is what I dread the most,” he told CNN.

His cousin Yarden Bibas, Yarden’s wife Shiri, and their two young children were all kidnapped from Nir Oz, an Israeli kibbutz that was devastated when it came under attack by Hamas militants on October 7.

Keshet said even if his family members are still alive, nothing will be the same. He said every day since that attack has felt like October 7, 2023, repeated over and over.  “Even if they’re coming back, and I so wish they do, they lost so much,” Keshet said. He said Shiri’s parents and their friends were killed and their house has been destroyed.

“I know that even them coming back is only the beginning for them to heal and for them to maybe someday be able to move on from everything that’s happened. Shiri probably doesn’t even know that her parents were murdered,” he said.

“It will never be the same before and after” the October 7 attack, Keshet added.

As for the global response, he said empathy is not enough to bring back his family. Keshet said there needs to be “real action from real people that have the authority to make such action.”

"We don’t have the luxury of grief": Humanitarian worker in Gaza reflects on a year of war 

_{A Palestinian woman holds pita bread in a makeshift tent next to rubble of a house destroyed, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday}

One humanitarian worker in Gaza said they “don’t have the luxury of grief” as she reflects on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

Lena, a worker for the non-profit organization Mercy Corps, said she has been displaced more than a dozen times since last year. She is currently living in a shelter in central Gaza. CNN is not using her real name due to concerns for her safety.

“We don’t have the luxury to cry over the ruins of our destroyed homes. I haven’t been able to see my home since October 8, and I wasn’t able to retrieve a single memory from its rubble and shattered remains,” Lena said.

“We haven’t put our clothes in wardrobes, bathed comfortably, had a meal with any sense of peace, slept on a proper bed, or had clean drinking water in over a year,” she added.

Lena described the humanitarian situation in the enclave as “unbelievable.” She said that as a humanitarian worker, she has “seen firsthand the overwhelming needs in terms of shelter, food, and basic supplies.”

“Every day brings new challenges, but we do our best to support vulnerable populations through emergency response programs, even when resources are stretched thin,” she said.

The Israel-Hamas war has been the deadliest year for journalists

The year since the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza has been the deadliest for media workers since most journalism and press freedom organizations have started tracking journalist deaths in conflict.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, at least 128 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war, nearly all of them Palestinian media workers in Gaza killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes. Some of the journalists died while wearing protective gear identifying them as members of the press. Multiple news organizations and free press groups have accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting journalists.

The Israeli military has repeatedly said it does not intentionally target journalists, but that it cannot guarantee the safety of reporters in an “active military zone” and has accused Hamas of deliberately placing military operations “in the vicinity of journalists and civilians.” It has also accused a handful of Palestinian journalists as having participated in the October 7 attack or being members of Hamas, something the media organizations have largely and vehemently denied.

Many media organizations, including CNN, evacuated their full-time staff in the enclave with their families as soon as possible. Gaza was never an easy place to report from, between restrictions on entry and exit and pressure from Hamas against any inkling of dissent.

Reporters in Israel have also noted a marked increase in physical attacks, with the Union of Journalists in Israel noting at least 40 such attacks since October 7, from security forces as well as civilians. Four Israeli journalists were killed in the October 7 attacks, and others barely survived.

This Palestinian reporter fled Gaza for her children's safety. Now, she says she lives with survivor's guilt


_{Al Jazeera English correspondent Youmna ElSayed appears on CNN on Monday, October 7, CNN}

It’s been 10 months since Al Jazeera English correspondent Youmna ElSayed fled Gaza, and she said it was “one of the most difficult decisions” even as it was the “only choice” she had to save her children.

“My greatest fears were always that my children at home are not safe, and I could lose them in any air strike,” she told CNN.

“I was forced to leave because I was left with no other choice to protect their lives. I was threatened more than once I was displaced over six times. Life was getting incredibly more and more challenging every single day,” she explained.

She now lives in Egypt, where she said life hasn’t been easy as she struggles with survivor’s guilt. “It has impacted me a lot physically and emotionally, mentally,” she said.

ElSayed criticized the underreporting of the devastation in Gaza, and pointed that the public has started seeing the situation because they follow Palestinian journalists and Gaza residents who are “documenting these war crimes that they are subjected to.”

She described meeting a child at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis who was carrying a backpack close to his chest. “He asked me, ‘do you know what’s in my backpack?’ And before I can answer, I see blood under the backpack. Just like that, scenes of blood. And I just know inside what I’m expecting to see. I know what he’s trying to tell me.”

It was his 5-year-old brother, she told CNN. “I didn’t have the courage to document that,” she said.

“I felt for quite some time guilty that I was not brave enough to document it,” she said. “I let him down because I did not react quickly and document that. I blamed myself for days. And this has been 10 months ago, and I can’t get over it, and I will never get over it.”

As she reflected on a year of war in Gaza, she said life in Gaza before October 7 “wasn’t normal anyway.”

“We had no opportunities to travel, to plan a simple vacation like any family in the world, even if we had the financial means. If someone got sick, we weren’t sure if we could be able to take this person to lifesaving treatment somewhere else, or he would die in Gaza,” she said, placing responsibility on western governments and lawmakers — not the people — for “double standards” on the Israel-Gaza issue.

Palestinian teen who became a journalist to document Israel’s offensive killed in northern Gaza

_{Hassan Hammad, left, and Ismail Al Ghoul, an Al Jazeera correspondent who was killed in an Israeli strike in July}

When he was younger, 18-year-old Hassan Hamad dreamed of being a doctor when he grew up, according to his brother Mohammad. But the October 7 attacks last year and the ensuing war in Gaza made him want to become a journalist instead.

After months of documenting Israel’s offensive in his home territory, the 18-year-old reporter was killed when his family’s apartment was hit in an Israeli missile attack in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday, according to witness testimony and footage shared with CNN.

“I couldn’t imagine that Hassan had been torn apart and that his body had been reduced to remains. I saw part of his hair with his curls, and I knew he was gone,” said 25-year-old Mohammad Hamad, who was also injured in the strike.

In the aftermath of the assault, Mohammad recalled trying to recover Hassan’s scattered body parts. “My father, our neighbor, and I collected four kilograms (nine pounds) of his flesh… My father buried Hassan’s remains in the garden until we could collect the rest,” he said.

“I feel so much guilt because I opened the door (to my apartment) for him. I shouldn’t have opened it,” Mohammad said, adding that they were just two meters (about six and a half feet) from each other when the strike happened.

“Hassan was very brave. He wanted the world to see what was happening in northern Gaza, and he insisted on doing the job even though many of his colleagues were killed,” Mohammad added.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed a record number of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which reported on Friday that at least 128 journalists and media workers — mostly Palestinian — have been killed.

One year on, Gazans say the war has made them “bodies without souls”

_{Palestinian women mourn near the bodies of relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike, outside the morgue in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza, in June}

A mood of desperation consumes many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who are living in dire humanitarian conditions, having endured 12 months of Israel’s bombardment of the enclave.

“We have spent a year in war,” Abdallah Hmeida, a cancer patient displaced from Beit Lahia, told CNN in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah. Hmeida has lost his parents, his brother and his sisters in the conflict, he said.

“It is torment. We do not know where to go, and we live in tents.”

Nabila Shunnar, a displaced woman from Sheikh Radwan, said she has spent the last year “in fear, terror, hunger and tragedy.”

Residents of Gaza told CNN they did not expect the fighting to drag on for a year and some now worry it may be endless, as they see no concrete efforts to cement a ceasefire.

Some residents say they have been waiting months for the war to end only so they can bury their dead or retrieve their remains.

Um Fadi, a displaced woman from northern Gaza who now shelters in Deir al-Balah, said she lost hope in the world’s ability to act in the face of the bloodshed. Living in tents with her husband and five children, Fadi fears for the coming winter, saying her family have no clothes that can shelter them from the cold.

For Gazans, it has been 365 days “of suffering, poverty, hunger, disease, instability, and lack of security,” she told CNN.

“We are bodies without souls,” she added.

"Resurrection War:" Netanyahu proposes renaming conflit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has submitted a proprosal to rename the war launched following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks to “Resurrection War.”

The conflict is currently named “Swords of Iron.”

“This is the ‘resurrection war’ to ensure that October 7 never happens again,” Netanyahu said Monday at a government meeting marking the one-year anniversary of the attacks, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.

“This is a war for our existence,” the prime minister said, adding the war will not end until all of its goals are completed, which include destroying Hamas, retrieving the hostages, “thwarting any future threat from Gaza” and returning evacuated citizens of the north back to their homes.

Hamas’ attack a year ago was the worst atrocity on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Netanyahu said that “unlike during the Holocaust — we rose up against our enemies to fight a fierce war.”

Opposition head Yair Lapid shot back at the prime minister’s suggested name. “You can change as many names as you’d like, (but) you won’t change the fact that under your watch, the worst catastrophe in Israel’s history has occurred,” Lapid wrote on Telegram. This government isn’t the government of resurrection, it is the government of blame.”

The Hostage Families Forum in a statement said: “There is no and there won’t be a resurrection without returning all the hostages.”

Former Israeli security chief: No complete victory possible in Gaza, Lebanon

The former head of Israel’s National Security Council, Giora Eiland, says Israel will not be able to achieve “complete victory” in Gaza or Lebanon.

In an interview with the Israeli Channel 12, Eiland reiterated Hamas and Hezbollah “will not surrender and there will always be those who continue to fire”. He added that continuing the war on two fronts won’t serve Israel’s interest and it would be “wise” to open the door to political settlements.

“It is unfortunate to continue believing that military pressure in Gaza and Lebanon alone can achieve salvation,” Eiland said.

Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, earlier launched a barrage of missiles from southern Gaza towards Tel Aviv on the anniversary of the deadly October 7 attack.