Three years after Israel launched its genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip, massacres and mass destruction continue to take place on a daily basis, despite the US-brokered ceasefire deal that was reached in October 2025.

The nominal truce was preceded by two other short ceasefire agreements. The first was reached in November 2023 and lasted for only one week, while the second was sealed in mid-January 2025 and collapsed two months later.

For three entire years, the world has borne witness to one of the most heinous genocides in modern history, which has resulted in the killing of at least 75,000 Palestinians, according to the latest official health reports, with women, children, and the elderly comprising 56.2% of the death toll. Meanwhile, 82% of Gaza’s structures have been destroyed.

Starvation and the total blockade of aid have also been used as weapons of war against the Palestinian population in the war-ravaged territory.

Read more: Being bombed, starved to death, or killed while seeking food: Israel’s options for Palestinians in Gaza

As soon as it was launched, the US-backed fierce Israeli military campaign expanded beyond Gaza to include other parts of West Asia, including the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.

About 9,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, more than 1,136 in the West Bank, dozens in Yemen and scores of others in Syria.

The systematic targeting of journalists

The genocide in Gaza has been characterized by the systematic targeting of journalists and media workers, with the death toll reaching more than 260, according to Naser Abu Baker, President of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS).

Abu Baker told BreakThrough News that over the same period, 550 journalists were wounded, and over 200 were arrested.

“All of this underscores a systematic policy implemented by the Israeli occupation, which primarily aims to prevent the truth about the crimes committed in the Palestinian territories by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people from being documented and transmitted, especially in the Gaza Strip,” he emphasized.

The chief of PJS noted that the targeting of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli forces began over one decade before the October 7 attacks. 

“PJS documented more than 9000 assaults on journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories between 2012 and 2023. More than 56 journalists were killed during that period, including three foreign journalists,” Abu Baker clarified.

Another silent genocide has been committed against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons

Simultaneously with the events in Gaza, the Israel Prison Service escalated a brutal crackdown against the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement, intensifying a campaign that began in early 2023.

Read more: The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement: the struggle behind bars

While around 5,200 Palestinian political prisoners were held in Israeli detention prior to October 7, 2023, the number jumped to 9,600 after the outbreak of the Israeli genocidal aggression on Gaza. Many of those prisoners have been placed under administrative detention without charge.

These latest figures only represent the prisoners whose whereabouts inside Israeli detention centers were documented by Palestinian prisoners groups. Thousands of additional Palestinians remain unaccounted for and are believed to have faced enforced disappearance amid the ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza.

During the past three years, Palestinian prisoners have endured miserable detention conditions, including medical neglect, deprivation of adequate food and hygiene supplies, as well as physical and psychological torture.

Read more: “We are here to kill you”: Released Palestinian prisoner exposes torture and medical neglect in Israeli prisons

This horrific situation culminated with the endorsement of an Israeli law mandating the execution of Palestinian prisoners by hanging. 

On the third anniversary of October 7, Raed Abu al-Hummus, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, delivered a message to international human rights organizations via BreakThrough News.

“I call on international human rights organizations to practice their stated objectives, to truthfully convey our message, and to form a parallel front to our heroic prisoners’ front inside the prisons, in an attempt to protect them from these violations, from this far-right monster seeking to slowly kill them,” Abu al-Hummus stated, referring to Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir.

It’s not about the Israeli far-right; it’s about the entire Zionist movement, says Omar Assaf

While some media outlets and political analysts suggest that Israel’s intensified atrocities in recent years represent the policy of the far-right wing solely, the Palestinian grassroots believe that they constitute the very core of the Zionist movement. 

Palestinian political activist, freedom fighter and former prisoner in Israeli jails Omar Assaf argued that “the genocide does not reflect a policy of an individual or a current within the Israeli government. It rather reflects a general policy, because the Zionist movement as a whole was founded on the exclusion of the Palestinian people, expelling them, and looting their land.”

“Therefore, if this far-right government is practicing genocide, this does not mean that the next government will be a government of peace,” Assaf asserted. 

Despite three years of unspeakable atrocities and over 78 years of military occupation amid the total silence and inaction of the international community, the Palestinian people remain steadfast and resilient in their homeland, refusing to leave or surrender.

People in Russian-occupied Oleshky, a town in southern Ukraine, are running out of food and medicine and have no way out, a local resident told RBC-Ukraine. Ukraine's human rights ombudsman told the outlet that civilians there are dying of hunger every day.

The part of Kherson Oblast across the Dnipro River has been under Russian occupation since 2022, with civilians facing food and medicine shortages and restrictions on leaving. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented deteriorating conditions in Oleshky and neighboring Hola Prystan. There has been no practical breakthrough toward an organized evacuation, though 358 people who need help to leave Oleshky and nearby settlements have been verified. About 2,000 people remain in Oleshky, Kherson Oblast head Oleksandr Prokudin estimated.

The resident, who spoke anonymously, said food is extremely scarce, and residents are waiting for a humanitarian corridor to leave. The local market offers mostly vegetables and fruit, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pears, and apples. Russia made its ruble the only legal currency in occupied Kherson Oblast from 1 January 2023, pushing out the Ukrainian hryvnia. Prices at the market start at 500 rubles (about $6), and "if you're lucky, 10 eggs can be bought for 3,000 rubles" (about $36), the resident said. That is about $3.60 an egg, nearly 20 times the US average of about $0.19, or $2.27 a dozen in August, US government data show.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, told RBC-Ukraine that civilians in the occupied area were dying every day.

"There is a humanitarian catastrophe there. Ukrainian civilians die there every day because they lack even basic food and water. There have been no medicines there for a long time. According to our information, there is simply hunger there," he said.

Practically no medicines

The resident said there were practically no medicines available. Expired drugs were being sold at about 100 rubles (about $1.20) a pill. His father has Parkinson's syndrome and has been concussed twice. The resident said he was forced to reduce his father's dose by 25% so the supply would last at least until the new year.

The resident's apartment had burned down, and his house remained damaged. His family had made the house livable and was living there, he said. His wife had lost more than 40 kilograms while the family relied on vegetables and fruit.

Beyond Oleshky: villages with no transport or aid

Four villages in the Hola Prystan community—Kokhany, Kardashynka, Velyka Kardashynka, and Mala Kardashynka—are effectively blocked, according to the Skhid-SOS fund. The fund told RBC-Ukraine that no transport reaches the villages and no humanitarian aid has been delivered for a prolonged period, although it is difficult to get more information from the villages. Residents are forced to walk or cycle to other settlements to find food, despite the risks of mines and drone strikes.

Civilians used as a buffer

Lubinets also said Russian troops were using civilians as a buffer and as protection against the Ukrainian military, RBC-Ukraine reported. Because Ukrainian citizens remain in Oleshky, Ukraine cannot conduct active combat operations there, he said—which, in his view, allows Russia to hold civilians effectively as hostages on the front line.

Food arrives by drone, but how much reaches residents is unclear

Ukraine has delivered food to Oleshky by drone since March, Prokudin said. Nearly 400 parcels weighing almost 4 tons reached their drop-off points on the night of 4 October, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said. How much of the food stays with residents is unclear. Prokudin has said Russian forces shoot down supply drones, confiscate or resell the packages, and detain and beat residents who receive them.

After a previous delivery, Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Oleshky City Military Administration, said that Russian troops take drone-dropped food and accuse those who receive it of cooperating with Ukraine, and that some residents got several packages while others got none.