ANALYSIS: By Tracy Campbell
Tracing the illegal land, sea and air siege of the Gaza enclave by Israel:
2006: Hamas elected in the last Palestinian legislative election
Israel withheld Palestinian tax revenues and imposed further restrictions on Gaza. Major international donors suspended direct funding to the Palestinian Authority.
That summer Israel launched a major attack on Gaza. On June 28, Israel destroyed all six transformers at Gaza’s only power station.
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2007: Gaza ghetto was sealed
Israel imposed an unlawful land, sea and air blockade on Gaza. For the next 16 years, more than 2 million people were trapped in a strip of land about 40 km long with illegal occupation forces controlling their borders, airspace and territorial waters. Most people could not leave without Israel’s permission. Israel restricted imports, virtually eliminated exports for years, restricted fishing waters and prevented people from accessing farmland along the perimeter.
The United Nations described Gaza’s population as “locked in”. UN bodies repeatedly described Israel’s blockade as collective punishment. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment.
Children born when Israel imposed the blockade were 16 years old by October 2023.
And inside the ghetto came Israel’s attacks:
2008–09: Operation Cast Lead
Israel killed 1383 Palestinians in three weeks — more than the resistance attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
2012: Operation Pillar of Defense
Israel killed 174 Palestinians in eight days.
2014: Israel attacked Gaza for 51 days
Israel killed 2251 Palestinians, including 551 children — more than October 7, 2023.
Then Palestinians tried peaceful resistance.
2018–19: The Great March of Return
For almost two years, Palestinians marched against Israel’s blockade and for their right of return. Israel put snipers on the ghetto walls and shot them.
Illegal occupation forces killed more than 200 people and shot and crippled thousands more during the demonstrations. A UN Commission of Inquiry found that Israeli snipers intentionally shot children, journalists, health workers and people with disabilities who were recognisable as such.
In 2020, Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed the snipers. One Israeli sniper described shooting 42 knees in a single day.
It was the end of peaceful resistance in illegally occupied Gaza.
2021: Israel bombed Gaza again
Israel killed 261 Palestinians, including 67 children.
2022: Israel killed another 49 Palestinians, including 17 children.
May 2023: Israel killed another 33 Palestinians.
By October 2023, an entire generation had been born and raised inside Gaza Ghetto under an unlawful Israeli blockade, through repeated Israeli attacks, electricity shortages, polluted water, economic strangulation and an Israeli permit system controlling whether people could leave.
Then came 7 October 2023 — Al-Aqsa Flood.
Al Qassam Brigades and other armed groups broke through the ghetto walls and attacked Israeli military bases and communities.
7 October 2023 was not Year Zero
It came after sixteen years of unlawful blockade.
It came after Israel repeatedly attacked Gaza and killed thousands of people.
It came after the people marched against their imprisonment and Israeli snipers shot them from high on the wall.
It came after decades of illegal occupation.
And what followed is genocide by Israel.
Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians according to the recorded death toll alone. The real number is substantially higher.
As early as July 2024, when the recorded direct death toll stood at 37,396, public-health researchers writing in The Lancet estimated that, once indirect deaths were included, a death toll of 186,000 or more attributable to Israel’s attack on Gaza was plausible.
Israel has displaced almost the entire population of Gaza, many repeatedly. Israel has destroyed homes, neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools, universities, water systems, sanitation systems and much of the infrastructure necessary to sustain human life.
In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the Genocide Convention, with genocidal intent. Its conclusion was unequivocal: Israel is responsible for genocide in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful. The Court has also confirmed that the law of occupation applies in Gaza and treats Israel as the occupying power there.
For 20 years Israel told the world that history begins and ends when Israel suffers.
It does not.
Al-Aqsa Flood belongs to history. It was never Year Zero.
Tracy-Moana Campbell is an employment relations advocate based in Masterton and an activist on Palestinian human rights. She had a commercial orange grove in Lebanon 10km from the Israeli border in 2005-2011. Israel bombed her oranges in 2006. It is a war crime to destroy civilian food sources. This commentary was originally a social media post but has been republished with the author’s permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.