This is Not a “War”: Israel and Hamas by the Numbers

The term “Israeli–Gaza War” often used by the media is a misnomer.

War is typically understood as “a geographically limited armed conflict between two or more sovereign nation states characterized by violence conducted via an armed, organized military force.” Under this definition, what is occurring in Gaza cannot be defined as a “war.”

Military Might

First, a side-by-side comparison reveals that one side of the conflict does not even have “an armed, organized military force.”

Israel has an estimated 90 nuclear warheads, 49 gunships, five submarines, over 2,200 tanks, 530 artillery weapons, 144 military helicopters, 303 fighter jets, and 88 other military planes. Hamas-run Gaza has a grand total of zero of each of those.

Israel has an army of 634,500 with a budget of over $23 billion. Hamas has fewer than 25,000 mostly untrained combatants with a $600 million budget.

Israel has an Iron Dome. Gaza doesn’t.

To say Gaza has an organized military force is a stretch of the imagination. Israel ranks 15th among 145 world powers in military firepower. Neither Gaza nor the West Bank makes the list, indicating they lack any type of functional, organized military.

The air superiority of the Israeli Air Force—and the lack of Gazan defenses—has transformed Gaza into a pile of rubble. Over 90 percent of homes have been damaged or destroyed, 57 percent of the water and sewer infrastructure is nonoperational, and 98 percent of financial institutions are gone.

Not surprisingly, 90 percent of Gaza’s population (1.9 million people) has been displaced. The economy has shrunk by 83 percent. Reconstruction is expected to cost $53.2 billion.

For perspective, the total Gross National Income for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 2024 was $16.65 billion—about one-third of what it would cost to rebuild.

The economic inability of Palestinians to rebuild Gaza makes Trump’s vision of a redevelopment project under U.S. stewardship—dubbed the “Riviera of the Middle East”—feasible. While the plan has been condemned, the destruction of infrastructure and the ethnic cleansing of the land through mass killings and deportations continue unabated, moving Trump’s “final solution” for the area closer to reality.

Government

Second, the governing structures of one side of the conflict could not be defined as a “sovereign nation.” While it is true that since 2007 Gaza has been ruled by Hamas, responsible for government functions like policing, health care, education and taxation, the reality is the area remains subject to Israeli domestic policies—denying Gaza sovereignty.

The land, air, and sea blockade since 2007, along with the construction of a wall surrounding the entire territory, has crushed any hope of self-rule or economic sustainability. The twenty-foot wall—complete with only three operating crossings (Beit Hanoun, Rafah, and Kerem Abu Salem) before the conflict—has, as many Palestinians argue, turned Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world.

Expanding Geography of War

Finally, the “armed conflict” is not “geographically limited.” By mid-July 2025, figures place the casualties in Gaza at about 58,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, with women and children constituting more than half that number. Some estimates, citing undercounting and gaps in official methodology, put the death toll at 109,000. An additional 129,880 have been reported injured.

None of this includes the deaths from the recent famine conditions resulting from Israeli aid blockades. When this data is released, the results will likely be even more damning.

These deaths occurred within Gaza, but Palestinians are also being killed in the West Bank—where the “war” is supposedly not taking place. Since the start of the conflict, about 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 202 children. At least 9,230 have been injured, 6,574 displaced, and 3,091 structures—mostly homes—have been demolished.

These killings indicate the Israeli campaign is not solely against Hamas or the inhabitants of Gaza. It targets Palestinians in general, regardless of whether they identify as Hamas or live in the so-called war zone. Being Palestinian—anywhere in Israel or Palestine—is sufficient grounds for being killed by Israeli forces and/or armed settlers squatting on occupied land.

What to Call It

So how do we define this conflict? Not as the Israeli–Gaza War.

By definition, it cannot be called a war. What do you call a superior armed group massacring a predominantly unarmed population—mainly women and children—whose common denominator is ethnicity, race, or religion? By definition, you call it genocide.

According to Article II of the United Nations’ 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it means:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; …”

Israel, with the military backing of the United States, is engaged in the genocide of the Palestinian people—wiping out those who refuse to self-deport so settler colonialists can complete the full occupation of Palestine.

For “never again” to matter, it can never be limited to just one persecuted group. “Never again” must mean when it comes to genocide—regardless of the targeted ethnic, racial, or religious group—the collective response is: never again. Never again to being a victim. Never again to being a perpetrator.

So, if you have ever wondered how you would have responded to the German-inspired Holocaust had you been alive during the Second World War, well, now you know.