For nearly 60 days, Gazans did not have to tally the newly dead as a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas held. Hostages and prisoners were freed, food and supplies returned to markets, and people picked their way through ruins they had called home.
On Tuesday, after weeks of fruitless talks to extend the cease-fire, Israeli warplanes bombarded cities up and down the Gaza Strip, and the counting began again.
More than 400 people were killed in the strikes, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Among the dead were 130 children, the U.N. Children’s Fund said, reporting that some of the airstrikes hit shelters where families were sleeping.
After weeks of relative calm, the attacks on Tuesday appeared to catch many Gazans off guard, including those who had returned to battered neighborhoods and were sheltering in close quarters together. The result was one of the deadliest single-day tolls of the entire war, which began with the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted.
The Israeli military response devastated Gaza, killing tens of thousands of people, displacing millions and flattening towns. Day after day, month after month, survivors searched for the wounded and the dead.