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Fact Sheet: Three Years of Israel’s Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza

By IMEU
October 05, 2026

Fact Sheet: Three Years of Israel’s Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
Destruction in Gaza following the announcement of the ceasefire agreement. Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

For further reference, including the legal definition of genocide, a more detailed summary of crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, statements demonstrating genocidal intent from Israeli leaders, and the conclusions of human rights groups, genocide scholars, and other experts, see our Two Years of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza fact sheet.

Contents

  • Key takeaways
  • Palestinians killed & injured
  • Palestinians imprisoned & tortured
  • Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes
  • Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian communities & civilian infrastructure
  • Israel’s systematic targeting of Gaza’s healthcare system & medical workers
  • Impact of Israel’s ongoing siege & blockade

Key takeaways

  • For the past three years, Israel has been waging a devastating war against some two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, about half of them children, in what rights groups, genocide scholars, and other experts have concluded is a genocide.
  • The genocide slowed but did not end with the ceasefire that President Donald Trump pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept that was supposed to take effect in October 2025.
  • The Israeli military has forcibly displaced almost the entire population of Gaza from their homes, concentrating most of them in a small area along the coast where people are struggling to survive in appalling conditions under ongoing attack from Israeli soldiers.
  • Thousands of Palestinian civilians taken from Gaza by Israeli soldiers, including children, women, doctors, and journalists, are being held in Israeli prisons in cruel and inhumane conditions, without charge or trial, subject to systemic torture and abuse.
  • Gaza’s healthcare system has been decimated by three years of being systematically targeted by the Israeli military and the effects of Israel’s siege and blockade.
  • In violation of the ceasefire, the Israeli military has continued to kill Palestinians almost every day since it supposedly began, to prevent the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid, depriving people of many of the basic necessities of life, and to systematically destroy Palestinian communities.
  • The Israeli military continues to kill Palestinian journalists and prevent foreign journalists from entering Gaza to bear witness to what Israel is doing.

Palestinians killed & injured (between October 2023 and October 4, 2026)

  • Number of Palestinians confirmed to have been killed violently by the Israeli military: More than 74,200. (Note: This only includes people who hospitals have identified and officially confirmed to have been killed violently by Israel. More than 8,000 others are estimated to be missing under the rubble and presumed dead. In September 2026, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres observed the “scale of killing and destruction” in Gaza is “unlike anything I have witnessed in my time as secretary-general,” adding “so-called ceasefires have amounted to little more than lesser fires, with civilians continuing to pay the price.”
  • Number of Palestinian children confirmed to have been killed violently by the Israeli military: At least 21,638. The proportion of children and women violently killed is more than double that of almost all other recent wars and conflicts, including Syria, Iraq, and Sudan. According to a June 2026 report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory:
    “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes in the Gaza Strip.”
  • Number of Palestinian journalists and other media workers killed by the Israeli military: At least 262, which is more than the total number of journalists killed in the U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan combined. A December 2023 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern “about an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military.”
  • Total number of Palestinians killed in the genocide: A study by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research released in November 2025 estimated that the total number of Palestinians killed violently by the Israeli military since October 2023 was between 100,000 and 126,000, of which 27% were children under the age of 15. The Lancet medical journal published a study in July 2024 that found the total number of Palestinians killed in the genocide at that point may have already exceeded 186,000, including unnecessary deaths caused by malnutrition, inability to access medical treatment, and reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases.
  • Number of Palestinian children with one or more limbs amputated due to injuries caused by the Israeli military: Estimated at up to 4,000. As noted by the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in December 2025:
    ”Gaza now hosts the largest group of child amputees in modern history.”

Palestinians killed & injured since the ceasefire was supposed to begin (as of October 4, 2026)

  • Number of Palestinian children killed violently by the Israeli military since October 2025: More than 300. As noted by the chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory:
    “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”

Palestinians imprisoned & tortured

  • According to the Israel Prison Service, as of September 2026, Israel held 9,329 Palestinians, including people taken from Gaza and the West Bank. Israel has not allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Palestinians in its custody to monitor their treatment since October 2023, in violation of international law.

Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes

  • The Israeli military has forced about 90% of Gaza’s population from their homes, amounting to about two million people, about half of whom are children. Many have been forcibly displaced multiple times, often having to flee for their lives in terror under bombardment again and again.
  • Israel has concentrated most of the population in a small area along the coast of Gaza where they’re struggling to survive in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, lacking sufficient food, shelter, and other basic necessities of life (see section below on the impact of Israel’s ongoing siege for more), while under ongoing attack from Israeli soldiers.

Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian communities & civilian infrastructure

  • A central component of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is the systematic destruction of Palestinian cities, towns, and civilian infrastructure. As senior Israeli officials have repeatedly said, Israel is systematically destroying Gaza so Palestinians have no choice but to leave. As Netanyahu reportedly told a parliamentary committee in May 2025:
    ”[We are] destroying more and more houses [in Gaza and Palestinians accordingly] have nowhere to return... The only obvious result will be Gazans choosing to emigrate outside of the Strip.”
  • The Israeli military has destroyed or damaged at least 92% of the homes in Gaza. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing:
    “the level and scale of destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure in Gaza is unprecedented even by the terrible standards of modern warfare since the 20th century.”
  • The Israeli military has destroyed or damaged almost 90% of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, including desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines, and sewage systems. As noted by Doctors Without Borders in April 2026:
    ”[The] deprivation of [water, sanitation and hygiene] services is not incidental but the result of policies and actions by Israeli authorities. These measures are causing destructive and inhumane living conditions for Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, with grave consequences for their health, dignity and safety.”
  • Shortly after the ceasefire was announced in October 2025, the Israeli military began a mass arson spree in Gaza City to destroy Palestinian homes, businesses, and civilian infrastructure that it had not already targeted, including the Sheikh Ajlin Sewage Treatment Station, a major part of the sanitation system of Gaza City and the only facility capable of providing it with sewage services after Israel attacked the Central Gaza Wastewater Treatment Plant previously.
  • Since October 2025, Israel has been removing rubble from Gaza, erasing the Palestinian communities it has destroyed and evidence of the crimes it has committed, and desecrating the bodies of thousands of people still missing underneath the ruins. As noted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2026:
    “Today, many areas in Gaza where the Israeli military is deployed continue to be leveled by bulldozers with no respect for the dead under the rubble... every feasible effort must be taken to document and identify these victims, preserve forensic information and biological samples, record their burial locations and inform their families.”
    “The discovery of extensive remains under the rubble in Gaza City resurfaces concerns of war crimes and other atrocity crimes.”

Israel’s systematic targeting of Gaza’s healthcare system & medical workers

  • Another central part of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been the systematic targeting of the healthcare system, including repeated attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities and medical workers, including doctors, nurses, and medics. UN and other rights experts have described Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system as “medicide.”
  • As a result of Israel’s military attacks and siege, there are no hospitals at all that are fully functional in Gaza and only half are partially functional, and there are severe shortages of essential medicines and equipment (see section below for more).
    “a deliberate, cumulative, and ongoing dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system - and of the population’s ability to survive... It is a strategy to eliminate the conditions needed for life… This is not collateral damage. This is not a side effect of war. It is the systematic creation of unlivable conditions. It is the denial of survivability. It is a genocide.”

Impact of Israel’s ongoing siege & blockade

In October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza, blocking the entry of all food, water, medicine, fuel, and other humanitarian supplies. After a few weeks, Israel loosened the siege slightly under international pressure, allowing in a trickle of aid, and has fluctuated even since between total siege causing widespread starvation and allowing limited amounts of aid to enter.

Under the ceasefire deal announced by President Trump in October 2025, Israel was supposed to allow the unfettered entry and distribution of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Instead, Israel has continued to block shipments of food, medicine, and other desperately needed supplies. As noted by Doctors Without Borders in September 2026:

    “Despite the ceasefire agreement in October 2025… Israel maintains its blockade, preventing sufficient aid from entering the Strip, depriving people of the essentials they need to live, and prolonging this genocide.”

As a result of Israel’s ongoing siege:

  • There is a lack of nutritious food and clean water. While Israel has allowed more food to enter Gaza since October 2025, it continues to limit the entry of healthy food like fresh meat while allowing the entry of large amounts of candy, soda, and other highly processed foods. According to a June 2026 UNICEF survey, more than half of children aged 6 to 23 months consumed zero fresh vegetables or fruit in their diets, while more than 73% of them relied on “unhealthy food” to survive. An August 2026 UNICEF survey found that more than 12% of children in Gaza were chronically malnourished, warning of “concerning rates of [child] chronic malnutrition (stunting), maternal malnutrition, very poor dietary quality, suboptimal infant and young child feeding practices. According to the UN: “An estimated 82 per cent of families [in Gaza] are water insecure, and up to 70 per cent cannot access 6 litres per person per day – far below minimum emergency standards – placing children at direct risk of dehydration and waterborne disease.”
  • There is a severe shortage of housing and proper shelter, forcing hundreds of thousands of displaced people to live in tents vulnerable to the elements and damaged, unstable buildings that are at risk of collapse. According to the UN: “nearly two-thirds of families live in tents or makeshift shelters that rapidly deteriorate in harsh weather, as they are designed only for short-term use.” According to UNICEF, at least 11 children died from hypothermia last winter, including a two-month-old baby and a one-year-old child, because of exposure due to lack of proper shelter. In September 2026, 21 people were killed, including 12 children, and dozens of others injured, when the damaged building they were living in collapsed.
  • There is a severe lack of fuel, engine oil, and spare parts. According to the UN: “Severe restrictions on the entry of fuel, spare parts, and essential materials – including engine oil required to operate generators – are driving system failures across health and [water, sanitation, and hygiene] services.” According to the Association of International Development Agencies in August 2026, the price of engine oil increased to 45 times the normal cost, bringing aid distribution operations to “an absolute breaking point.”

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