The high price Gaza paid for Hamas’ October 7 attack

To be alive in Gaza, is enough to consider oneself fortunate. A Gazan who was injured and lost his home told The Jewish Independent he considered himself relatively lucky.

“Praise to God, no one in my close family was killed,” he said by WhatsApp from his tent camp in Mawasi in southern Gaza. Hours later an Israeli air strike killed five people in Mawasi, medics told Reuters.

Both sides have paid a very high price for Hamas October 7 attack and the IDF’s onslaught, but the indicators of loss on the Palestinian side are staggering.

As of October 7 2025 68,234 Palestinians have died, according to the UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which bases its figures on data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. The IDF does not accept the numbers, writing in a response to The Jewish Independent that the ministry “falsifies” the figures. But it declined to offer any numbers of its own.

The IDF says that it adheres to international law and does its utmost to avoid harming civilians. It accuses Hamas of using the civilian population as human shields and of hiding munitions in civilian sites such as hospitals and schools.

My Gaza acquaintance, whom I will call Abdul, served as my driver when I visited the Strip frequently for reporting during the second intifada from 2000 to 2005. He and his son, who was wounded in the face ten months ago during an aerial attack in Khan Yunis, are two of the and 170,373 injured, according to OCHA figures. His family is also among the 1.9 million Palestinians internally displaced: 90 percent of the Strip’s population.