This paper examines the current status of the Israel-Palestine conflict with particular focus on the Gaza war that began on October 7, 2023, and its ongoing humanitarian, political, and military dimensions as of February 2026. The analysis draws on documented evidence regarding conflict milestones, territorial control, humanitarian conditions, settlement history, and stated military objectives to assess the present state of this protracted conflict.
The Israel-Palestine conflict represents over a century of competing territorial claims. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, the Partition Plan, which sought to divide British-controlled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with Jerusalem under international control, but the Arab League and Palestinian leaders rejected it while the Jewish Agency accepted it. Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, followed by an invasion by neighboring Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Over the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, at least seven hundred thousand Palestinian refugees fled their homes in an exodus known to Palestinians as the nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”).
The territorial dimensions of the conflict fundamentally shifted in 1967. On 5 June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and the Israeli Defense Force captured the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights from Syria. The war brought about a second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million. This territorial expansion established the framework for Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank that continues to shape the conflict.
The Middle East Conflicts documentation identifies two Palestinian uprisings as pivotal moments. An Israeli driver killed four Palestinians in a car accident that sparked the first intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, and over the next six years, roughly 200 Israelis and 1,300 Palestinians were killed. A Palestinian cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin established the militant group Hamas as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would later become the governing authority in Gaza and the primary antagonist in the current war.
The 1993 Oslo I Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA), setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and also enabled mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government. However, the peace process ultimately collapsed. Israeli politicians, including Ariel Sharon, visited the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, which Palestinians viewed as an effort to change the status quo at the holy site, and the ensuing demonstrations turned violent, marking the beginning of a second intifada that lasted until 2005. Four thousand Palestinians and one thousand Israelis died in this second uprising, which proved markedly more violent than the first.
Explore deeper: Gaza: How Did We Get Here? on Quarex — the full history from the 1947 partition through Oslo, the intifadas, and the 2005 disengagement.
The war began on 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed and 251 were taken hostage. This attack triggered the most extensive Israeli military campaign in Gaza’s history.
Israel’s stated war aims evolved throughout the conflict. As documented in Gaza: How Did We Get Here?, on October 9, 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined five strategic goals: completing the retaking of Israeli border communities overrun by terrorists; shifting to an unprecedented offensive against Hamas; securing Israel’s other hostile fronts including the Lebanese border and West Bank; preserving and expanding international support; and bolstering internal Israeli solidarity. By late October 2023, Netanyahu clarified that the war’s objectives were “to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and bring the hostages home”.
Following the October 7 attacks, Israel launched a bombing campaign and later invaded Gaza on 27 October after clearing militants from its territory. When Israel entered Gaza on October 27, 2023, it had three immediate aims: to uproot the military and governing power of Hamas; to secure the Gaza border and the people of Israel; and to rescue the 240 hostages taken by Hamas.
Israel cited military successes, including the June 2024 rescue of four living hostages in central Gaza and the elimination of Hamas’s top leadership, including the group’s leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, military chief Mohammed Deif, and Deif’s deputy Marwan Issa. Despite these tactical achievements, the broader strategic objectives remained elusive.
In January 2025, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar announced that they had mediated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. However, this diplomatic achievement proved short-lived. Israel later broke the ceasefire, citing Hamas’s refusal to release more hostages, and renewed its offensive in March 2025, launching a major military campaign across the territory, including in Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah.
The objectives of this renewed offensive expanded Israel’s territorial ambitions. In May 2025, when Israel launched “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” the stated objectives were twofold: to completely destroy Hamas’s military and administrative infrastructure so the organization can no longer exert any influence in Gaza, and to rescue the Israeli hostages held since October 7, 2023. On May 19, 2025, Netanyahu said that Israel plans to “take control of the entire Gaza Strip”.
As of August 2025, Netanyahu stated his objectives include defeating Hamas, releasing all 50 remaining hostages, and ensuring Gaza never again threatens Israel. This represented a significant reduction in the number of living hostages from the original 251 taken in October 2023.
A subsequent ceasefire was negotiated in October 2025. Following mediation by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye, representatives from some 30 countries gathered on October 13, 2025 for a ceremony to sign the Gaza ceasefire agreement, led by US President Donald Trump. However, Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 1,620 times from October 10, 2025 to February 10, 2026, through continuation of attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings, according to monitoring documented in the Middle East Conflicts analysis.
Explore deeper: Middle East Conflicts on Quarex — ceasefire timelines, violations, and the diplomacy behind each agreement. External sources: UNRWA situation reports | OCHA humanitarian snapshots
Gaza has endured prolonged restrictions on movement and goods. Gaza has experienced over 16 years of Israeli blockade alongside more than 56 years of military occupation. On 9 October 2023, Israel intensified its blockade when it announced a “total blockade” blocking food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity after the October 7 attacks. A few weeks later, Israel eased the complete blockade after receiving pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden, but continued to severely restrict aid entering Gaza.
The blockade reached unprecedented severity in 2025. On 2 March 2025, Israel completely blocked all supplies from entering the territory, making it the longest complete closure in the blockade’s history. This complete closure had catastrophic consequences for Gaza’s population.
Israel has also moved to restrict the operational capacity of humanitarian organizations. In December 2024, Government Resolution No. 2542 mandated all international organizations providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians to register by December 31, 2025, or cease operations by March 1, 2026, with Israeli authorities planning to bar 37 international NGOs from operating in Gaza and the West Bank. Since March 2025, Israeli authorities have been blocking UNRWA from directly bringing humanitarian personnel and aid into the Gaza Strip, while pre-positioned outside Gaza, UNRWA has enough food parcels, flour, and shelter supplies for hundreds of thousands of people.
The restriction of aid delivery has been systematic. Between October 10, 2025 to February 10, 2026, only 31,178 trucks entered Gaza out of 72,000, averaging 260 trucks per day, which is only 43 percent of the trucks allocated.
The blockade’s intensification produced a documented famine. The population underwent famine between 22 August 2025 and 19 December 2025, with the IPC declaring on 22 August 2025 that famine was occurring in the Gaza Governorate which includes Gaza City. On 19 December, the IPC published a report declaring there is no longer famine in Gaza after improvements in food delivery following the ceasefire, but warned the situation remains “highly fragile”.
During the period from 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025, “intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza”, with at least 463 Palestinians, including 157 children, dying from starvation.
By early 2026, food security showed marginal improvement but remained precarious. Although food consumption patterns improved in January 2026, with households averaging two meals per day compared to just one in July 2025, one in five households still consumes only one meal daily. Extremely high unemployment in Gaza exceeding 80 per cent continues to limit household purchasing power and access to food. In January 2026, for the first time since October 2023, stocks were sufficient to provide monthly food rations covering 100 per cent of minimum caloric needs of a household.
Humanitarian organizations scaled up emergency feeding programs. As of 10 January, Food Security Sector partners prepared and delivered 1,622,000 hot meals daily through 190 kitchens across the Strip, and approximately 170,000 two-kilogram bread bundles were produced and distributed daily. World Central Kitchen scaled up from 90,000 to more than 750,000 meals daily by early 2026, with the goal of reaching 1 million meals daily.
Sources: IPC — Famine confirmed in Gaza Governorate (August 2025) | IPC Famine Review Committee (December 2025) | OCHA Gaza Humanitarian Response
The scale of physical destruction in Gaza is unprecedented. As of mid-October 2025, approximately 81 percent of all structures in Gaza had been damaged, with all 36 hospitals and the majority of primary health care centers damaged or destroyed, and more than 97 percent of schools damaged or destroyed. By November 2025, more than 70,000 Gazans had been killed, and more than two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip were damaged or destroyed.
The population has experienced near-total displacement. Nearly all of Gaza’s current population of 2.1 million people has been displaced, lacking access to sufficient shelter, food, life-saving medical services, clean water, education and livelihoods. As of 11 February, at least two thirds of the population — 1.4 million people out of 2.1 million — are estimated to be living in about 1,000 displacement sites, often in overcrowded settings and in tents that offer limited privacy and protection from the elements.
Environmental conditions in displacement sites have deteriorated severely. Severe storm conditions resulted in reported deaths, flooding incidents affecting nearly 55,000 households, with 17 buildings estimated to have collapsed and more than 42,000 tents or makeshift shelters sustaining full or partial damage, affecting at least 235,000 people.
The destruction of health infrastructure and overcrowded displacement conditions have created a public health emergency. UNRWA teams reported a sharp increase in ectoparasitic skin infections including scabies and head lice, and waterborne diseases, with overcrowding, deteriorated shelter materials, and inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities creating a high-transmission environment. Between 26 January and 1 February 2026, UNRWA recorded 9,613 cases of acute respiratory infections, and since 1 November 2025, over 480 cases of acute jaundice syndrome (hepatitis A) connected to contaminated water have been reported.
As of February 25, 2026, at least 72,082 people have been confirmed killed, including 20,179 children. This represents the documented death toll, though the actual number may be higher due to bodies buried under rubble or unreported deaths.
The conflict has proven exceptionally deadly for humanitarian workers. Between 7 October 2023 and 3 December 2025, at least 578 aid workers had been killed, including 387 UN personnel. UNRWA has recorded 391 colleagues killed in Gaza since the start of the war, as of 18 February 2026. These figures represent the highest number of UN personnel killed in any single conflict in the organization’s history.
The conduct of the war has triggered international legal action. In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza from October 7, 2023, to May 20, 2024. This marks the first time the ICC has issued arrest warrants for the sitting leader of a Western-aligned democracy.
Sources: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I — arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant | UN News on ICC warrants
The current conflict cannot be understood without examining Israel’s historical relationship with Gaza. Following the 1967 war, Israel established direct military control. As documented in Gaza: How Did We Get Here?, following Israel’s capture of Gaza on June 6, 1967 during the Six-Day War, General Chaim Herzog announced on June 7, 1967 that the Israeli Military Governorate would govern the territory, maintaining pre-existing laws unless they conflicted with Israeli security needs. A 1967 Israeli census recorded approximately 394,000 people in Gaza, over 60% of whom were Palestinian refugees from 1948.
Israel’s governance strategy integrated Gaza economically while maintaining security control. In 1970, the military commander issued a “general permit” allowing Palestinian workers from Gaza to enter Israel for employment, and by the mid-1980s about 40 percent of the Palestinian workforce was working inside Israel. Until the late 1980s, Palestinian daily commuters to Israel, predominantly male unskilled workers, represented a third of the employed population and generated more than a quarter of Gaza and West Bank gross national product. Real per capita GDP increased at an average annual rate of 7% from 1968 to 1980, with GDP growth reaching 11% annually in Gaza in the immediate post-war years, driven by Palestinian employment in Israel which peaked at over 100,000 workers by the mid-1970s.
Settlement activity in Gaza, while more limited than in the West Bank, established Israeli civilian presence in the occupied territory. Israeli settlements began appearing in Gaza following Israel’s capture of the territory in the June 1967 Six-Day War. As early as September 1967, Israeli settlement policy was progressively encouraged by the Labor government of Levi Eshkol. In late 1967, the Israeli government began encouraging Jewish return to the Gaza Strip — especially to the areas where Jewish communities existed prior to 1948 — to create a buffer zone on Israel’s border against Egyptian aggression, as then Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol envisioned.
Following Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, and its subsequent occupation of the Gaza Strip, a Nahal military outpost was established at the site in 1970. This first settlement was Kfar Darom, which had historical significance as a Jewish-owned citrus grove purchased in 1930 and established as a kibbutz in 1946 before being evacuated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Settlement expansion accelerated under right-wing governments. The settlement expansion accelerated after Menachem Begin’s Likud government came to power in 1977. By 1978, 13 settlements had been built as part of a buffer zone along Gaza’s southern border in Rafah. During the 1970s, Ariel Sharon argued that Jewish colonial settlements in Gaza would strengthen Israeli control and domination. In the seven years between 1978 and 1985, 11,500 acres of land were confiscated by the Israeli government for the establishment of settlements.
Despite limited settler population, settlements controlled disproportionate land resources. By 1991, the settler population in Gaza would reach 3,500 and 4,000 by 1993, or less than 1% of Gaza’s population. The land available for use by the Jewish settler community exceeded 25% of the total land in Gaza. Israel ultimately withdrew all settlements from Gaza in 2005, though it maintained control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, and territorial waters.
Explore deeper: Gaza: How Did We Get Here? on Quarex — the settlement era, economic integration, and the political decisions that shaped today’s conflict. External sources: UN OCHA — Occupied Palestinian Territory
As of February 2026, the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly in Gaza, remains in an active state of warfare despite multiple ceasefire attempts. The documented evidence reveals several key findings:
First, Israel’s military campaign has achieved tactical successes in eliminating Hamas leadership but has not accomplished its stated strategic objective of destroying Hamas’s governing and military capabilities. The organization continues to function despite severe degradation.
Second, the humanitarian situation in Gaza represents one of the most severe crises in recent history, with 72,082 confirmed deaths, 81 percent of structures damaged, near-total displacement of 2.1 million people, and a documented famine lasting from August to December 2025. While food security improved marginally in early 2026, the situation remains fragile with systematic restrictions on humanitarian access continuing.
Third, the pattern of ceasefire violations — documented at 1,620 incidents between October 2025 and February 2026 — indicates the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms or political will to maintain negotiated agreements.
Fourth, the international legal response, including ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leadership, represents an unprecedented development in the conflict’s trajectory, though the practical enforcement of such warrants remains uncertain.
Fifth, the historical context of Israeli settlement and governance in Gaza from 1967–2005 provides important precedent for understanding current territorial ambitions, particularly Netanyahu’s May 2025 statement about taking control of the entire Gaza Strip.
This assessment faces several methodological limitations. Casualty figures represent confirmed deaths and likely undercount actual mortality due to bodies under rubble, indirect deaths from disease and malnutrition, and reporting gaps in active conflict zones. Infrastructure damage assessments rely on satellite imagery and ground reports from limited access areas. The political objectives of parties to the conflict are assessed based on public statements, which may not fully reflect internal decision-making or negotiating positions.
Several areas warrant further investigation. The long-term viability of Gaza’s health infrastructure requires detailed assessment, given that all 36 hospitals have sustained damage and medical supply chains remain disrupted. The economic recovery trajectory for a territory with over 80 percent unemployment and 81 percent structural damage presents questions that current data cannot fully answer. The enforceability of international legal proceedings, including the ICC arrest warrants, and their practical impact on the conduct of hostilities remains an open question. Finally, the political future of Gaza governance — whether Hamas retains operational capacity, what role the Palestinian Authority might play, and how international reconstruction efforts will be organized — represents a critical area where current evidence is insufficient for definitive conclusions.
Go deeper: Explore the full research in Gaza: How Did We Get Here? and Middle East Conflicts on Quarex — multiple perspectives, primary sources, no paywall.