TEL AVIV — One hundred days ago, Hamas terrorists evaded Israeli security and surveillance to pierce the fence enclosing the Gaza Strip.
Under cover of a barrage of rockets that began before dawn, they stormed into Israel in pickup trucks, motorcycles and paragliders carrying out a vicious, hourslong assault that resulted in more than 1,200 people killed, according to Israeli officials. Another 240 people taken hostage, with more than 100 still in Hamas’ captivity.
Israel responded to the surprise attack with a military onslaught of Gaza in what has become one of the most destructive wars in recent history, killing Palestinians at an average of about 250 a day — a rate unseen in previous conflicts. So far, about 24,000 people have been confirmed killed, with thousands more buried under the rubble and presumed dead.
The violence has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people and is driving widespread hunger and devastation. The ongoing assault is inflaming tensions, threatening to pitch the region into a wider war, and polarizing global politics and populations.
Protests erupted around the world this weekend — including in Washington, D.C., London, Bangkok, Jakarta, Sydney and Johannesburg — calling for an end to the war as the conflict reached the bitter milestone of 100 days.
In Israel, thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv for a 24-hour rally marking 100 days since the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked what has become the longest and deadliest conflict between Israel and Palestinians since Israel’s establishment in 1948.
‘100 days… I can’t believe it’
The words “bring them home” rang through central Tel Aviv as the families of those held hostage and thousands of supporters gathered the streets, calling on the Israeli government and the international community to do more to see their loved ones released.
“I never thought I would get to this day,” said Ella Ben Ami, whose parents were taken hostage from their home in Be’eri, a kibbutz in southern Israel miles away from the Gaza border. Her mother, Raz Ben Ami, was one of dozens of hostages released by Hamas in November, and her father, Ohad Ben Ami, remains in captivity.
“A week after the 7th of October, I was like … I can’t believe it’s been a week without my parents’,” Ben Ami, 23, told NBC News on Saturday in “Hostage Square” — a plaza that has become a gathering place for families of those held hostage in Gaza. “So, 100 days… I can’t believe it.”
“It’s hard to keep the hope so many days. It’s hard to keep optimistic so many days,” said Ben Ami. She said her mother, who is still recovering from her time in captivity, “can’t sleep at night” and struggles to eat and drink “because she’s all the time thinking about my dad.”
‘100 days of fear’
Inside Gaza, the 100-day milestone marks 14 weeks of relentless attacks from Israeli forces by land, air and sea.
Roughly 85% of the more than two million people living in Gaza have been displaced by the war, while much of the enclave’s infrastructure, including homes, schools, hospitals and cultural landmarks — has been destroyed in Israel’s offensive, according to United Nations’ estimates.
In the midst of the fighting, much of the Gaza Strip has been plunged into a spiraling health crisis, with limited access to food, clean drinking water and medical supplies.
“I want to say that every 30 or 20 minutes, I would be exposed to death — either physically, morally, or psychologically,” said Maher Mahmoud Daowd, a 33-year-old father whose family was forced to flee their home in Khan Younis to seek relative safety further south in Rafah, near Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Not long ago, the Israel Defense Forces had designated Khan Younis a safe zone, ordering thousands of people in northern Gaza to evacuate the area to the city in the south. But as Israel expanded its offensive across southern Gaza, Khan Younis has also become a battle zone, making Rafah one of the few places where displaced Palestinians can find limited refuge, though the IDF continues to bomb that city too.
Daowd, a cultural activities coordinator who, before the war, was working toward…
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