Six months of the Israel-Gaza war: A timeline of key moments

Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, chooses the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah to launch the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

First, the group fires a barrage of rockets toward Israeli cities. Then, fighters break through the border fence and use paragliders and speedboats to attack Israel by land, air and sea. Gunmen storm military posts, kibbutzim and a music festival.

Israeli officials say around 1,200 people are killed and more than 250 people — including the bodies of some of those killed — are kidnapped and taken into Gaza. A U.N. team later says it has found “reasonable grounds to believe” that some victims were sexually assaulted.

The next day, Israel declares war.

Israel declares a “complete siege” of Gaza. The enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has already been under a blockade for 16 years. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says “no electricity, no food, no fuel” will be allowed to enter.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — unpopular before Oct. 7, and now accused of failing to protect the country — reaches a power-sharing deal with political rival Benny Gantz to form an emergency unity government to direct the war. Israel calls up 360,000 reservists.

Israel gives the more than 1 million people who live in northern Gaza 24 hours to evacuate southward. Hundreds of thousands heed the warning. Others refuse to leave.

At least 100 people are killed when an explosion hits al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

Hamas blames an Israeli airstrike. Israel blames a stray rocket launched by Palestinian militants. A Washington Post analysis of video from the scene reveals that rockets were launched from Gaza toward the hospital 44 seconds before the blast.

Egypt reopens the Rafah crossing, the only way in or out of Gaza that Israel does not control, enabling a trickle of aid to resume — but at a fraction of prewar levels.

Some foreign nationals and dual citizens are later allowed to leave the enclave.

The Israeli military expands its ground operations despite warnings from the Biden administration that a full-scale assault could cause heavy civilian casualties.

Israeli strikes on the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza kill more than 110 people and wound hundreds more.

Israel’s military says it killed a senior Hamas commander and other militants. The U.N. human rights office expresses “serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes.”

More than 10,000 in Gaza are killed in the first month of war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Most of the casualties are women and children, U.N. agencies say.

The Israel Defense Forces raid al-Shifa Hospital, which houses hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people. Intense fighting in the area means the hospital has been effectively sealed off that month. Patients including premature babies die when the hospital loses electricity, medics there say.

U.S. and Israeli officials say Hamas has used the hospital as a command center. Doctors deny the accusation.

Israel surrounds and raids other hospitals in the months that follow. In February, the U.N. human rights office accuses Israel of “a pattern of attacks” against hospitals. The IDF accuses Hamas of “cynically using hospitals for terror.”

Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen hijack the Galaxy Leader and take crew members hostage in the first of many attacks on shipping in the Red Sea to protest Israel’s campaign.

Israel and Hamas agree to pause fighting and exchange some of the hostages for prisoners, and allow more aid into Gaza.

Hamas releases more than 100 Israeli hostages. Israel releases 240 Palestinians held as prisoners.

Freed hostages begin sharing accounts of their time in captivity. Some say they witnessed the sexual assault of hostages.

The pause ends after seven days; each side says the other breached the deal.

Israeli forces push south toward Khan Younis, where Israel had previously encouraged civilians to go for safety. Israel says Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the Oct. 7 attack, is hiding in tunnels below Khan Younis.

Israel tells civilians to head farther south to Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

How Israel pushed over a million Palestinians into a tiny corner of Gaza

The IDF announces that its forces have mistakenly shot dead three Israeli hostages in Gaza City, outraging Israelis.

The three men were shirtless and brandishing a makeshift white flag as they approached an IDF position, a senior military official says.

More than 20,000 people — or nearly 1 in 100 of Gaza’s population — have been killed since the war began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The United Nations describes a “rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” since Oct. 7.

By Dec. 31, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank increase. At least 11 Palestinian communities are completely abandoned in 2023.

Later, the United Nations expresses “alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” against girls and women in Gaza and the West Bank.

Saleh Arouri, the second-in-command of Hamas’s political office, is killed in an explosion in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut. A U.S. defense official says the IDF was responsible for the strike.

The high-stakes diplomatic scramble to avert an Israel-Lebanon war

South Africa argues before the International Court of Justice that Israel has committed genocidal acts in Gaza — a claim Israel and the United States deny. A ruling on genocide could take years.

On Jan. 11, a U.S.-led military coalition launches strikes against the Houthis.

On Jan. 15, Iran fires ballistic missiles at what it claims is an Israeli spy site in Iraq. On Jan. 20, Tehran says five of its military advisers have been killed in what it describes as an Israeli strike in Syria.

On Jan. 28, a drone attack on a base in Jordan kills three U.S. troops and injures more than 40 others. President Biden blames the attack on Iran-backed groups. The United States retaliates with strikes on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran and its proxies.

Two-dozen troops are killed in the bloodiest day for the Israeli military since the start of the war. Twenty-one are killed while trying to demolish two buildings, leading Israel to confirm it is building a buffer zone in Gaza to further separate the enclave from Israel.

The International Court of Justice orders Israel to do more to prevent harm to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees announces it has fired members of staff and launched an investigation after receiving information from Israel alleging that the staff members were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

The United States and other donor countries announce they will suspend funding.

Why countries are pulling funding from the U.N. agency for Palestinians

After months of pressure, Netanyahu’s office releases his postwar plans for Gaza. He says Israel will maintain indefinite military control of Gaza and assume greater control of its southern border, but leaves open the possibility of Palestinian Authority officials playing a role.

Casualties reach over 30,000 killed and 70,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. That means around 1 in 20 in Gaza are dead or wounded.

Humanitarian groups warn famine is imminent, and aid routes become deadly flash points. In one incident more than 100 people are killed, Palestinian officials say, when thousands converge on an aid convoy and Israeli troops open fire.

The United States begins dropping food into Gaza by airplane. Biden, in his State of the Union address on March 7, announces plans to build a floating pier on Gaza’s coast to enable deliveries by sea.

A humanitarian ship run by chef José Andrés’s Washington-based World Central Kitchen and the search-and-rescue group Open Arms makes the first delivery to Gaza by sea.

Israeli airstrikes kill seven World Central Kitchen workers delivering aid in Gaza. The team had clearance from the Israeli military.

Biden tells Netanyahu he will reassess U.S. policy if Israel does not immediately address humanitarian conditions and protect aid workers. Israel says it will open more aid routes into Gaza.

Following a military investigation, Israel says the strikes on the aid convoy violated military procedures and were a “grave mistake.” World Central Kitchen calls for an independent investigation.