Two years of unprecedented bloodshed in Gaza: ‘Our greatest hope is that this nightmare will end’
For two years, the people of Gaza have endured one of the most devastating bombardments and humanitarian catastrophes of our time.
Israel’s offensive and siege of the enclave, launched in the bloody aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, has killed more than 67,000 people, including at least 19,000 children, according to local officials.
A United Nations-backed global hunger monitor has concluded that the bombing and blockade have led to famine spreading across the strip.
Nearly the entire population of 2.3 million have been forced to flee – often multiple times – and more than 90 per cent of Gaza’s homes have been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
The situation is so dire that a UN commission of inquiry concluded last month that Israel has committed, and continues to commit, genocide in Gaza – a charge the Israeli government vehemently denies.
On the two-year anniversary of the start of this unprecedented bloodshed, families in Gaza describe a “glimmer of hope” as negotiators from Hamas and Israel meet in Egypt to try and reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal, off the back of US president Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
As Basel al-Saqa, 32 a father of two, tells The Independent from his tent in southern Gaza: “A ceasefire means that the land that has burned for so long can breathe again.”
As the world hopes for a breakthrough, families describe their struggle over the last two years and their desperation for an end to the nightmare.
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza.
Dr Abu Salmiya not only manages one of the most important hospitals in Gaza, which Israeli forces have repeatedly bombed, besieged and raided, but he says he has been arrested, detained and abused by Israel for months. His staff members and colleagues, like Dr Adnan al-Bursh, the celebrated head of orthopaedics, died in Israeli detention in 2024, reportedly from torture.
But despite this, after being released back into Gaza last year, Dr Abu Salmiya has remained at the helm of al-Shifa, rebuilding it from the ashes in Gaza City, which has become the epicentre of Benjamin Netanyahu’s widely condemned new offensive.
Israel has repeatedly denied targeting Gaza’s medical facilities. But Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medics are so acute that a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded at the end of 2024 that Israel has committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination as it pursued “a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system”.
Al-Shifa first became the focus of ferocious assault early on in the war, after Israel accused Hamas of using it as a main military command and control centre despite providing little credible evidence.
It was raided, besieged and then emptied by the end of 2023. Dr Abu Salmiya was arrested alongside other doctors and detained for seven months. When released, he spoke of torture and abuse behind bars.
