Palestinians in Gaza began running, again, on October 8, 2023. “We Palestinians are always running,” Suheir Hammad writes in the poem Silence from her collection, "Born Palestinian, Born Black." “Where do we go?” One day after the deadly Hamas attack in Israel, the Israeli government warned and directed Palestinians in Gaza to leave targeted areas. Nowhere in Gaza was safe. One year after Hamas’ massacre, much of Gaza is reduced to rubble.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, over 41,000 Palestinian civilians (16,500 children) were killed in Israeli attacks with thousands buried under the rubble. Others estimate the death toll to be higher. American medical professional volunteers, in a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, conservatively estimate the death toll — from attacks, famine, disease, etc. — at over 118,000 people or 5.4% of Gaza’s population. Other estimates are even higher. Additionally, over 96,000 people were injured from Israeli attacks and 10,000 people are missing. According to the UN, the WHO and the Palestinian government, 80% of commercial facilities, 85% of school buildings, and more than half of all homes are either heavily damaged or destroyed and less than half of all healthcare facilities are functional.
