Tracing history: since October 7, 2023.
a timeline of recent events
This week marks one month of crisis in Gaza. I recently published a historical timeline to walk us through key events that led to what we’re witnessing in Palestine/Israel, the first installment in creating a resource hub here at Wandering Home.
Read it here, if you missed it:
The earlier timeline starts in the 1880s and ends on October 6, 2023, acknowledging the long, long history of Palestinian oppression, the colonization of Palestinian land by Zionist settlers, and the genocide of Palestinians during the ongoing Nakba, when over a million Palestinians were uprooted from their homes and land since 1948.
Today’s timeline is part two of the “Tracing History” series, starting on October 7, 2023. We’ll look at the last month to try to get a grasp on just a sampling (it is impossible for me to capture it all) of the events of the incomprehensible genocide in Gaza.
At a time when every effort is being made in Israel and the U.S. to prevent us from hearing the truth straight from Palestinians, we have to be more proactive than ever to stay informed, seek out Palestinian voices, verify news, share important events, and keep educating ourselves on the situation.
There has never been a genocide more available and accessible to watch live in real time. And yet, so much of what should have been coverage of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been deflected and centered on Zionist propaganda. For example, the debate of the day is whether the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is anti-Semitic or a call for freedom for Palestinians. The phrase itself is getting more attention than the genocide of Palestinians. Do you see how upside down this is?
This week, the only Palestinian-American woman in Congress, Representative Rashida Tlaib, was punished by being formally censured by the House for defending the rights of Palestinians and striving to stop the loss of more lives in Gaza. “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable,” Rep. Tlaib said through tears to her colleagues in the chamber. Instead of Congress making moves to prevent genocide, they’re absurdly voting on censure for the only Palestinian in the House. In a time when we should be elevating Palestinian voices, many are seeking to keep them silenced.
Western media does the same. It has always done a terrible job of reporting on Palestine/Israel with bias against Palestinians, but this has never been more evident than in the past month. Israel’s propaganda and false claims that demonize Palestinians are consistently accepted as facts and reported without being verified, and once verification fails or proves otherwise, the statements are walked back. By then, though, the damage is done and ideas have taken root. There have been critical moments in Gaza and the West Bank that are being downplayed or minimized in a seeming effort to absolve Israel of its violent extremism and devaluing Palestinian lives. We’ll take a look at some of these below.
In addition to the constant battle of narratives in the news, there has been a concentrated effort to censor and ban journalists who are reporting from Gaza. They and their families have been targeted by air strikes, and 39 journalists have been killed by Israeli attacks in the last month. The Israeli military’s continued pattern of targeting journalists and their families clearly points to assassinations, intending to suppress and silence some of the only people in Gaza who can show the world what life under the Israeli military’s ongoing genocide and siege looks like. Palestinian journalists, content creators, and activists’ accounts have been banned on social media. Palestinians in the West Bank speaking out against the massacres in Gaza are being arrested for “inciting violence”. Electricity was cut by Israel to Gazans as collective punishment, and also as a way for Israel to complete military operations under the cover of darkness and communication blackout.
This has been a war on our own understanding and it’s perpetuating the genocide of Palestinians.
So, maybe you’ll have heard of some of what I’ve included in the timeline below, but the reality is that most haven’t. If you’re just showing up, I want to show you how the confirmed death count got to 10,500 Palestinians in just 30 days. I want to expose the horrors the State of Israel is enacting on Palestinians. I want to help you connect these recent events to a much longer history so we can be informed and not get sidetracked by the wrong debates. I want us to seek understanding so we can move toward what matters, not what distracts and disrupts healing.
Let’s pick up where we left off.1
October 7 | Hamas launches an armed resistance and series of attacks in southern Israel called “Al-Aqsa Flood” in response to 75 years of oppression of the Palestinian people. 1,400 Israelis are killed and at least 240 taken hostage. In retaliation, Israel carries out airstrikes against thousands of targets in Gaza, dropping bombs on a population of 2.2 million Palestinians where 70% are already registered refugees, and over 50% of the population are children (due to the very low life-expectancy age of Palestinians in Gaza.) News stations, multi-family apartments, and hospitals are targeted. More than 3,000 Palestinians from Gaza who were working in Israel are rounded up and taken hostage by Israel.
October 10 | Israeli Ministers impose a complete lockdown on Gaza, cutting off food, water, fuel, and electricity to Gaza, which they have controlled the flow of for 15+ years.
October 11 | Israeli authorities have place the entire occupied West Bank on lockdown.
- U.S. President Joe Biden gives a speech where he claims to have seen photos of “terrorists beheading children”, which the White House walks back due to unverified claims. Two days later, CNN apologizes for reporting the same misinformation.
October 13 | Israel tells 1 million Palestinians civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the South of the strip. The same day, Israeli begins bombing the areas the refugees fled to. Israel uses internationally-prohibited white phosphorus on densely-populated Gaza, and notably on al-Durrah Childrens Hospital.
October 15 | U.S. military warships move to the Mediterranean near Israel.
October 17 | Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City is bombed, killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians sheltering or receiving treatment at the facility. Israel publicly takes credit for the strike, then deletes their posts and says Hamas accidentally bombed Palestinians themselves. Israel goes so far as to circulate fabricated footage to support their false claims. Sources say investigations found the blast consistent with Israeli fire.
October 18 | The United States is the only nation that votes against a U.N. resolution that would allow humanitarian aid to millions of people trapped in Gaza.
October 19 | Israel bombs St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, the third oldest church in the world, killing dozens of Palestinian civilians.
October 20 | Israel mounts for a military ground invasion. ABC News reports Israeli military has the “green light” on a ground assault on Gaza, with support from President Biden.
October 23 | The Ministry of Health in Gaza announces a complete collapse of the Gaza hospital and healthcare system. They are nearly out of supplies, medicine, water, and fuel for generators.
October 25 | As Palestinian journalists are using their last battery resources to report from Gaza, Israel kills of the family of Al Jazeera Gaza’s Bureau Chief Wael Al-Dahdouh. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asks Al Jazeera to “tone down” Gaza coverage. Meta (Instagram) bans the largest Palestinian news account, Eye on Palestine, which takes days to restore. These are all in an effort to prevent us from seeing the atrocities being committed in Gaza and across Palestine.
October 26 | The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza releases list documenting the deaths of more than 7,000 Palestinians, including nearly 3,000 children, since October 7. President Biden responds that he has “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” and he doubts that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed, further dehumanizing Palestinians and dismissing their suffering.
- The U.S. Department of Defense announces sending more arms, supplies, and 900 U.S. troops deploying to the Middle East.
October 27 | Israel destroys cell towers and phone lines to create a total communication blackout. Not only is information not able to get out of Gaza, people can’t call for an ambulance or help, and can’t check on each other even within Gaza. IOF is preparing for the 'next stages of war', which includes a ground assault.
October 31 | Israeli airstrikes hit the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp where over 116,000 refugees live in .5 square miles in the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 50 Palestinians and wounding hundreds.
- 300 more U.S. troops are deploying to the Middle East, and the DoD submits an "urgent supplemental budget request requesting $10.6 billion to help Israel defend itself.”
November 1 | Gaza’s border with Egypt opens for limited evacuation for around 500 people, allowing access to medical treatment to the wounded, and a path to flee Gaza for some foreign passport holders. A convoy of 51 humanitarian aid trucks manage to enter Gaza, but this is a very small percentage of the aid truly needed.
- Israel again strikes Jabalia Camp, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, killing at least 195 Palestinians between the two strikes and wounding over 1,000.
November 2 | The Israeli military surrounds Gaza City and encircles half of the Gaza Strip from the coast to the north and eastern border of Gaza with Israel. Palestinian civilians, including the ill and injured unable to evacuate from the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City, are now completely trapped within the frontlines.
- An Israeli air strike hits the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza and kills and wounds dozens, making it the third bombing of a Palestinian refugee camp in three days.
- UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the agency supporting Palestinian refugees) say they are sheltering around 700,000 people in over 150 UNRWA buildings like schools that have become emergency shelters. Since October 7, 60 UNRWA buildings have been impacted, with some being directly targeted. A total of 88 UNRWA staff have been killed. Most UNRWA staff in Gaza are refugees themselves.November 3 | Israel bombs the entrance of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, where tens of thousands of displaced and wounded Palestinians are sheltering in Gaza City, unable to evacuate. A convoy of ambulances and horse drawn carriages returning from a medical transport to the Rafah border is targeted. At least 16 hospitals across Gaza are no longer functioning due to damage from bombing and a lack of fuel.
- The U.S. House of Representatives approves $14.3 billion in additional military aid for Israel as it wages war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. To date, the U.S. has provided aid worth more than $124 BILLION DOLLARS to the State of Israel. President Biden asks Congress for a $106 billion dollar emergency spending package that includes funding for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says, "We are not going to create any conditions on the support that we are giving Israel to defend itself.”
- 3,200 Palestinian workers from Gaza who were taken hostage on October 7 are released from Israeli custody bearing numbered tags on their bodies. Previously, Gazan workers granted permits were approved after strict and thorough background checks by Israeli intelligence and the Israeli army. This means each worker was already confirmed as a civilian with no political affiliations in the Gaza Strip or connections with armed factions. Despite it being known they have no connection to any political or armed groups, the returnees report being tortured and interrogated about Hamas operations while illegally imprisoned.
November 6 | Israeli forces arrest 22-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi for “inciting terrorism” during overnight raids in the occupied West Bank. In her short life, Ahed has witnessed countless arrests, including her brother and father, and saw her cousins get shot in the head with a rubber at age 11, and another killed when a tear gas canister hit him in the face. An image of Ahed confronting IOF soldiers during a protest in 2012 went viral, and resurfaced recently when she was mistaken as a Ukrainian girl standing up to a Russian invader. In 2018, she was detained by the IOF when she slapped an Israeli soldier who raided her village. She was held in prison for 8 months at age 16. She has been repeatedly targeted and arrested, her punishments always far outweighing her crimes and means.
November 7 marks one month. More than 10,500 Palestinians have been killed, including over 4,300 children. Many are still missing or trapped in the rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli military. Israel’s siege on Gaza’s food, water, electricity, and fuel mean even more will die soon. There is no ceasefire in sight.
Since October 7, more than 1.6 million Palestinians in Gaza have lost their homes. 70% of the population has been displaced. Most living in Gaza were already internally displaced refugees. The infrastructure damage to roads and Israel’s continued bombing makes movement extremely dangerous or impossible. Israel continues to bomb indiscriminately, without regard for innocent lives, including the areas they told Palestinians to evacuate to. There is nowhere for Gazans to go because of the blockade. Even if they could flee Gaza, they won’t because Israel has never let refugees return to their land, violating international law for nearly 75 years and creating permanent refugees of Palestinians.
There is no drinking water coming in to Gaza. There is no food. There is no central electricity, and fuel that powers generators and vehicles is running out. There is too little aid coming in because of Israeli lockdown on Gaza. Every human in Gaza is trapped by Israel in what is functioning as an extermination camp.
Palestinians in the West Bank are being brutalized and tortured. More than 160 have been killed in the past month, adding to the 248 killed earlier this year. At least 2,215 have been taken hostage, joining the thousands already in administrative detention/military custody (without charge or trial) and thousands more who are incarcerated in Israeli prisons.
Every day Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, refugee camps in the Middle East, and in the diaspora are resisting by existing, and they’re being killed for having survived so much already.
November 8 | WHEN
November 9 | DOES
November 10 | THIS
November 11 | END?
This has been so deadly. There has been so much lost on every side since 1948.
When does the 2023 Catastrophe end? When does the ongoing Nakba end?
We have decades of information about the occupation of Palestine by Israel’s military and settler-colonial Zionism project, and also the Palestinian struggle and success resisting apartheid and genocide. And now that the world is finally watching, there is a month’s worth of atrocities on record.
While some parts of the Israel and Palestine history are complex and deserve to be explored, it doesn’t take much to get to a place of understanding that what we’ve witnessed in the last month is not too complicated or too nuanced for us to comprehend. In the past month, we’ve witnessed numerous international law violations. We’ve seen extreme collective punishment. We’ve heard Israeli leaders call Palestinians “human animals” and that the children of Gaza “brought this upon themselves.” What we're seeing is not an isolated incident. What we’re watching is genocide, and it has been for a long time. We have now witnessed too much, and we can’t turn away anymore.
Aren’t we ready to stop ignoring a hundred years of Palestinian oppression? Getting honest about the history and advocating for justice does not mean abandoning innocent lives in Israel. It means striving to break the cycles of bloodshed, oppression, and division.
This history and context I’ve shared over the last two posts is why a ceasefire will not be enough. A ceasefire is a pause, not the end. A humanitarian pause is a temporary ceasefire in an defined location, but the bombing doesn’t stop. A ceasefire alone doesn’t bring justice to those affected by the events of the last month, and it doesn’t bring justice to the long-suffering of Palestinians. A ceasefire will not last. A ceasefire isn’t peace because doesn’t address the underlying issues that have persisted for decades. It doesn’t end the violence, which began long before October 7, 2023.
So, instead of throwing our hands up in defeat (because we’re somehow STILL unable to make a ceasefire happen), we ask why we didn’t know. We ask why we weren’t listening before October 7. We ask why we’re still calling it Israel’s self-defense. We stop giving Israel a pass to kill tens of thousands in Gaza and the West Bank. We call it a settler-colonialism. We call it a Palestinian genocide. We clearly insist there’s an occupier and an occupied. We ask how to hold Israel and its accomplices accountable. We ask what we can do to bring justice and reconciliation for Palestinians so they can live in peace with all of their neighbors. We grieve normalizing the breaking of Palestinian bodies. We stop denying Palestinian human rights and dignity. We stop pretending like their human stories aren’t intertwined with the histories we’ve traced.
We keep listening. We keep going.
I don’t know why we have to keep repeating this, but Palestinians are human. Every single one of the 10,500 who have been killed. Every one of the 14.3 million still living under occupation and in the diaspora. They deserve so much better than we’ve afforded for them the past 75 years.
Motaz Azaiza is a venerable 24-year old photojournalist, photographer, and filmmaker from the Gaza Strip, born and raised in Deir al-Balah Refugee Camp. His work is offering tragic insight into the plight of Palestinians as he offers a window into Gaza for us, having captured images and reported on many of the events in this timeline.
Motaz said this on November 1:
“The internet went down again and believe me or not, I was happy. Because after what we show to the world, they just said we are sooo sorry and no one does a thing.” –Motaz Azaiza
Can you even imagine feeling so helpless?
No photographer or mother or teenage homemade reporter or artist or child should have to forsake their own privacy, safety, and dignity to beg the world to see them as human beings. In addition to personally facing this nightmare, Palestinians are continually asked to prove their pain, prove their humanity, prove their innocence. And when they do, we’re still ignoring, consuming, forgetting. We’re uncomfortable so we’re looking away.
These are not images we should ever have to see – I know that – but they’re realities Palestinians should never have to live.
Since October 7th, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been going to bed at night (I'm sure sleep is near impossible to come by) wondering if they'll wake up tomorrow. Whole families are sleeping in one room so they don't have to suffer the trauma of digging in the rubble with their hands to find their loved ones if their home is bombed. If they're going to die, they say they want to die together.
Can you even imagine feeling so hopeless?
With their last bits of cell service and internet, Gazans are asking the world not to forget them. To not reduce them to numbers. To not remember them only by the horrific events that have happened to them in the last few weeks, but to never forget it. You’ve seen it from Motaz. You’ve heard it from me.
What will it take for everyone to see Palestinians as humans who don’t deserve to suffer and die in this brutal, agonizing way? I don’t know but I’ll keep trying. I won’t lose hope even though I’m not sure how many more will have to die for people to get it. Or how much more will be lost to this cruel regime that keeps no one safe, before we open our eyes and see. Or what it will take to grow in compassion that compels us to act instead of just spectate.
What I need you to take away today is not just bad news but hope: it doesn’t have to be this way.
Amplify their stories. Remember their lives. Keep doing your homework and learn about Palestinians. Do not become desensitized. Keep fighting for justice for Palestinians everywhere. Email your representatives in Congress and tell them to support a ceasefire AND future steps to justice.
Justice is only achievable by ending the occupation, lifting the blockade on Gaza, returning refugees back to their homeland, and fully dismantling the apartheid systems that target and oppress Palestinians.
This is how this long genocide of the Palestinian people ends.
This is how the Nakba ends.
Until then,
P.S. Comments are open, but I will not tolerate any hate speech or trolling. We’re here to learn and grow, and end the genocide. If you have genuine questions or comments in that spirit, please feel free to engage the comment section below. Subscribers can also reply to this email to reach me directly and privately. I always respond to email replies!
Sources: Al Jazeera live blog; Let's Talk Palestine; Middle East Eye; Eye on Palestine; UNRWA, Palestinian Gaza Ministry of Health, B’Tselem, Motaz Azaiza.