October 11, 2023:*GROUP* After the establishment of Israel in 1948 through expulsion of much of the population and appropriation of their land, followed by decades of Israeli occupation and human rights abuses, and after a 20-month-long mass nonviolent effort, Palestinians in Gaza broke out of what was widely called an open air prison and launched a surprise operation against Israel in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 7, 2023.
Its scale was unprecedented, involving rockets and approximately 1,200 armed resistance fighters using hang gliders, motor boats, pickups trucks, and motorcycles. Many claims were made about this attack which were proven false. Israel immediately began bombing Gaza and subsequently turned off electricity to the enclave, leaving most of its two million inhabitants in the dark and hospitals dangerously impacted.
Due to the extremely large number of deaths, it is nearly impossible to account for each life individually. These figures have been collected from the most reliable and respected sources available to us, including OCHA, The Palestinian Health Ministry, Ha’aretz, Shireen.ps, and others.
Some Israelis listed by Ha’aretz were killed by Israeli forces, Hezbollah, or other causes, and are not included in our figures.
At this point in the conflict, we were not yet writing daily updates. For more specific information, visit this article of Haaretz.
August 31, 2023: Sgt. Maxim Molchanov, age unknown, was killed in a vehicular collision when a Palestinian man driving a small truck west of Ramallah drove into a group of Israeli soldiers walking on the road. One of the soldiers was killed, five were wounded, and a Palestinian worker who was at the bus stop was also injured. In addition, two people in another vehicle were slightly injured when the truck hit their car, before the soldiers fatally shot him.
August 21, 2023: Betsheva Nigri, 40, was shot and killed while driving near the Palestinian city of al-Khalil, in the southern part of the West Bank. Another passenger in the vehicle, an adult male, was wounded, while a six-year-old child in the car was not harmed.
August 19, 2023: Shay Silas Nigreker, 60, was shot and killed, along with his son, Aviad Nir, 28, by an unknown perpetrator at a car wash in the West Bank.
August 05, 2023: Chen Amir, 42, an Israeli security guard in Tel Aviv, was shot in the head and transported to hospital with critical injuries, which he succumbed to shortly thereafter.