More than 73,000 Palestinians are dead. Gaza's Health Ministry logged the count on 2 July 2026, the 1,000th day of Israel's genocide in Gaza, and the exact figure shifted even as the day was recorded. A statistical update put it at 73,066; the ministry's running toll reached 73,074 after four more bodies, two of them pulled from the rubble, arrived in the previous 24 hours.
More than 173,000 people have been wounded. Another 9,500 are missing, most under collapsed buildings. Gaza's government says 55 percent of those killed are children, women, and the elderly.
The children's toll is large enough that its keepers disagree on the exact number. Save the Children puts it at "at least 21,000 confirmed killed," and expects the real figure to be higher because so many bodies stay buried. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in a tally through 1 April 2026, counts 21,283 children killed and 44,486 wounded. Gaza's Government Media Office says the number has now passed 21,500. Among the dead, by the bureau's count, are 5,031 children under age five and more than 1,000 babies born during the war.
UNICEF's language is plainer. The children, it said, "were killed in their homes. In their schools. Playing football. Fishing."
Then the physical erasure. Gaza's government reports more than 90 percent of the Strip destroyed, 335,000 homes flattened and 737,000 more damaged, under more than 223,000 tons of explosives. It says Israel now controls over 80 percent of Gaza. Netanyahu himself acknowledged on 24 June 2026 that the occupation had reached 70 percent, penning Palestinians into less than a third of their own land. The government's estimate of direct losses runs to about $80 billion across 15 sectors; the UN separately puts reconstruction at about $70 billion.
A ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025. The killing continued. UNICEF says at least 265 children have been killed since, and more than 400 wounded, close to one child a day. Hamas spokesman Hazım Kasım put the post-ceasefire dead above 1,050, with more than 3,400 wounded; the Health Ministry's figure is 1,059 killed. Kasım called it "the continuation of the genocidal war by other means."
The genocide characterization rests on formal proceedings. South Africa's case against Israel is before the International Court of Justice, which ordered provisional measures in 2024. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Republic of Türkiye holds the same position.
Türkiye has carried Gaza onto the fields where the world was watching. During Türkiye's 3-2 win over the United States at the 2026 World Cup, a Turkish fan waved a Palestinian flag through the match. At Wimbledon, after organizers barred her Palestine pin, Turkish player Zeynep Sönmez taped a watermelon-shaped dampener, red, green, white, and black, to her racket. Ankara is among the governments pressing to bar Israel from international sport.
One of the dead was a goalkeeper. Saleem Al-Ashqar, 32, was killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, the Palestinian Football Association said. He had married five months earlier. His wife is expecting their first child.