The Light of Hope has gone out
The Light of Hope has gone out
Gaza, three years on
“The light of hope has gone out for the people of Gaza.”
Dr Lubna Sabbah — Health Programmes Manager, DSPR Gaza, 30 September 2026
Today, as Israel and people around the world commemorate the 1,200 people killed three years ago in the Hamas-led breakout attack, we also mark the third year of the Gaza genocide.
The ceasefire of 10 October 2025 was supposed to bring the genocide and the assault on Gaza to an end. It has not. Since then, 1,400 Palestinians have been killed, and the total death toll now stands at no fewer than 74,237, with more than 175,200 injured. The area under Israeli occupation, which was meant to shrink from 55% of Gaza in October 2025 to 40% and then to 15%, has instead grown to 70%. Palestinians have been cleared from this area, and recently published Google Earth images show its near total destruction.
In the rest of Gaza, conditions remain desperate. Food is scarce and most people depend on aid. Water supplies are precarious, and little of the sewage system or electricity supply has been restored. Around 90% of the 2.2 million population are living in vermin-infested tents or badly damaged buildings. Israel blocks the entry of building materials and routinely holds up shipments of fuel and medical supplies.
The devastation of Gaza
West Bank
Elsewhere, the picture is no better. In the West Bank, state-sponsored settler violence is growing rapidly, settlements are expanding massively and any notion of areas under Palestinian control is being dismantled. Across large swathes of southern Lebanon, Israel continues to commit ecocide.
Meanwhile, these abuses have become campaign material in the Israeli election. Blame for the failures leading up to the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 is a central issue, and politicians are courting votes with the brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including torture and starvation diets, a new death penalty for Palestinians accused of terrorism, settlement expansion, land grabs and the displacement of Palestinians. At the same time, Israel’s Central Elections Committee has tried to disqualify every Arab Palestinian party list and candidate.
The likely outcome of the election is a further decline in Palestinian life in Gaza and the West Bank, as Israel tries to force Palestinians to leave by making conditions so unbearable, and any improvement so remote, that they feel they have no choice. Unless there are concerted international efforts to hold Israel to account, a year from now we’ll be writing either of the displacement of the Palestinian people or of even greater loss of life and even more horrific conditions.
Recent statement
There are signs that pressure works. Ed Miliband’s recent statement on the government’s response to the illegality of the settlements and the events in the West Bank shows what the sustained campaigning of so many people can achieve, and that concerted international pressure is within reach. But while we welcome his statement on banning settlement trade, it doesn’t go far enough and is unlikely to be effective. We must push the government to declare an ethical breach of the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement, given Israel’s failure to respect human rights and democratic principles, and to suspend the agreement.
We welcome the government’s acceptance of the ICJ’s 2024 opinion on the illegality of the occupation, which calls on UN member states to do all they can to end it. But there is far more the government can do. And although the opinion doesn’t focus on Gaza, Israel’s occupation of 70% of Gaza must surely fall within it.
We also welcome the government’s decision, set out in the same statement, not to issue any new arms licences. Again, this isn’t enough: the UK must stop arming Israel and providing it with material support.
Displaced
Dr Lubna from our partner DSPR in Gaza
Dr Lubna leads the work of our partner DSPR (Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees) with mothers and children in Gaza. She has been displaced multiple times during the genocide and has endured food shortages, bombing raids and the loss of colleagues and friends. Throughout, she has continued to provide support and therapy to deeply traumatised children and their mothers, helping them to cope.
For Lubna, the light of hope in Gaza has gone out. Yet it is she, together with the health and aid workers, teachers, journalists and mothers holding their families together, who are the lights of hope that inspire us to keep going, and the reason we must keep up every bit of pressure we can. Now is not the time to step back or slow down.
Today we will observe a period of silence to remember all those killed over the last three years. And we look forward to seeing those of you who can join us at the Global Day of Action for Palestine march in central London this Saturday, 10 October.
