Palestinians in Gaza reflect on Israeli elections: 'We are human beings just like you'

During the funeral of three Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on October 25, 2026. DAWOUD ABU ALKAS/REUTERS Every day in Gaza has brought more violence and mourning. Grim tolls arrive each day on phones, in the form of statements that have become routine: a succession of names, ages and places. These were the statistics of violence inflicted by Israel on Palestinians, repeated with apparent indifference from the international community.

On Sunday, October 25, Israel carried out strikes from the north to the south of the Palestinian enclave, hitting the Islamic University of Gaza twice and sowing panic among students, many of whom were injured. Three security guards at the university were killed. In Khan Yunis, Deir al-Balah and on the Al-Rashid coastal road, strikes killed four men whom the Israeli military described as members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Fatima Al-Bayouk, eight years old, is the sole survivor of her family after an Israeli attack at the end of 2023.

The child, who had been miraculously rescued from rubble where she had been trapped for two days, was killed three years later by Israeli bullets east of Deir al-Balah. Just a few miles away, around 7.3 million Israeli voters were called to elect their Parliament on Tuesday, October 27. At the helm of six governments since 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu, now 77, is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and is on trial in Israel in three corruption cases.

He seeks to hold onto power. The legislative ballot takes place three years after the massacres carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in a country further to the right than ever before, after an election campaign marked by overt Jewish supremacism. You have 73.23% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.