As calls for a ceasefire echoed across international corridors following U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest proposal, Gaza was once again engulfed in fire. Between 4 and 7 October 2025, Israeli warplanes carried out more than 230 air and artillery strikes across the Strip, targeting areas already teeming with displaced civilians. The result was devastating: at least 118 people killed, including large numbers of women and children. Gaza City alone accounted for 72 of the dead, a grim reminder that “ceasefire” often remains little more than a word.

Residents describe the nights as endless, marked by the roar of warplanes and the smell of burning rubble. Families who had already lost their homes were hit again inside temporary shelters, turning supposed places of refuge into graves. These strikes, carried out despite repeated international appeals for restraint, form part of what many in the Strip see as a deliberate continuation of the genocidal campaign that has shattered Gaza for two years.

Human rights experts warn that such sustained attacks on civilian infrastructure, from homes and hospitals to water networks, represent not only violations of humanitarian law but also an effort to erase the very foundations of life in Gaza. Each new bombardment deepens the despair of a people who have seen truce after truce dissolve into dust, their hope reduced to endurance beneath the rubble.