Grief and vengeance: 100 days of war in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (2024)

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It has been a terrifying time for the families of the Israeli hostages. They have lobbied lawmakers, foreign diplomats and the prime minister to bring their loved ones home. During a brief pause in the fighting, about 110 hostages returned. But almost 130 did not. Outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, empty yellow chairs are lined up to remember the missing.

Once a lush communal farm, Kibbutz Kfar Aza now stands as a memorial. Its buildings are scarred by the assault that took place there. At least 60 people were killed as Hamas militants went house to house. Most of the surviving residents have been displaced to hotels or rental properties.

For Muslims, Jews and Christians, there are few places holier than Jerusalem’s Old City, and usually it would be bustling. Now it is quiet, and heavily patrolled by Israeli security forces.

Here, in November, Muslim worshipers pray together on a sidewalk after Israeli police blocked the Lions’ Gate into the Old City.

On a somber Friday in November, the tension was palpable in the Old City as Muslims headed to al-Aqsa Mosque for prayer. Israeli police checked IDs and prevented many from entering.

President Biden has shown strong public support for Israel and sent weapons to aid in the country’s military offensive in Gaza, even as his administration has pushed for lower-intensity operations.

Gaza’s health system is on its knees. Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, saying Hamas militants use them to store weapons, or to hide. Inside the few remaining facilities, wards are overflowing with patients, many treated on the floor. “Doctors are stepping over bodies of dead children to treat other children who will die anyway,” said a staffer for Doctors Without Borders.

About 1 in every 100 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since Oct. 7. Here, women weep over the death of a child, found beneath the Abu Ishaq family home in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18.

The dead have filled cemeteries and mass graves. Some of those sites have since been damaged by Israel’s ground offensive. Here, relatives mourn loved ones killed in an Oct. 22 Israeli airstrike in central Gaza.

Palestinians tried to pull people from under the rubble of a destroyed house in the southern city of Khan Younis on Oct. 16.

On Nov. 8, people streamed into Rafah along Salah al-Din Road. About half of Gaza’s population is now in the city, which sits on the Egyptian border; before the war it was home to 280,000 people, but now there are more than 1 million. Aid workers say shelters there are dangerously overcrowded.

Blocks of streets in Gaza have been reduced to rubble. On Oct. 8, an Israeli airstrike destroyed this building in Burj al-Aklouk. The intensity of the strikes has had a profound effect on children. “I cry all the time. I feel my limbs trembling from the targeting and bombing. I run away to the arms of my mother, who always tells me that we will soon return to our homes. I saw the bodies and the dead when our house was bombed,” said 12-year-old Mayar Abu Haben, from the Jabalya refugee camp. “When will I return to my home?”

In the Balata refugee camp, an Israeli airstrike targeting militants killed five Palestinians and wounded two others on Nov. 18. Among the dead was 16-year-old Mohammed Emsamy. His brother had been arrested weeks earlier for throwing stones at the Israeli army, his aunt said. Here, at upper left, you see her mourning.

An Israeli surveillance drone flew over the funeral.

The Ajak family have harvested their olive grove for over a century. Since Oct. 7, they have been so scared of settler attacks that they harvest only on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The Israeli army suggested it was a day when settlers were less likely to harass them, they said.

During a pause in hostilities in Gaza in late November, Israel released three Palestinian prisoners for each Israeli hostage set free by Hamas. In the West Bank, large crowds gathered outside the Israeli prison to await each release.

The newly released prisoners were received as returning heroes. Teenage boys holding the green flag of Hamas were carried high on strong shoulders through the cheering crowd.