The carnage began with a violent cross-border attack by Hamas militants on Israeli civilians. Israel’s retaliatory response was swift, and by the middle of the week, the full destructive force of its military was bearing down on the Gaza Strip amid mounting threats of a ground invasion.
The toll, whether caused by bullets or air strikes, has brought unimaginable grief for Israelis and Palestinians alike. In wrenching scene after wrenching scene, relatives weep over their dead, whose lives were suddenly and violently cut short in an erupting war that has shattered thousands of families.
In the southern city of Sderot, an Israeli woman clings to a body lying in the road next to an overturned motorcycle. Now covered in a white sheet with a black boot poking out, the person was killed by Hamas militants the day they broke through the fortified border with Gaza. The woman cries in agony as she lays her head on the person’s chest.
Miles away in Gaza City, two Palestinian women comfort one another in a crowd gathered to mourn those killed by an Israeli airstrike. One, looking weary and exhausted, gazes upward in sorrow.
These images, taken by Associated Press photographers on the ground on both sides of the conflict, provide a window into the unbearable losses of this past week.
Palestinians celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, east of Khan Younis, during a surprise attack on Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
The body of a man shot dead lies in front of a gate at Kibbutz Kfar Azza during an attack by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
A house burns in Kibbutz Kfar Azza during a deadly attack on the community by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip during a deadly attack on the community, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip during a deadly attack on the community, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Palestinians walk and drive away from Kibbutz Kfar Azza, Israel, near the fence with the Gaza strip following a deadly attack on the community on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The rockets were fired as Hamas announced a new operation against Israel. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
The bodies of civilians killed by Palestinian militants lie covered in Sderot, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
An Israeli woman grieves over the body of her relative who was killed by Palestinian armed militants who entered from the Gaza strip, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
A ball of fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building after it was struck by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinian relatives mourn over the body of Ahmad Awawda, 19, who was killed in clashes with Israeli troops near the city of Nablus the previous day, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinian civil defense crews try to extinguish a fire in a house that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday Oct. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)
Rockets are fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023.. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians inspect the rubble of the Yassin Mosque, destroyed after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, early Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Relatives mourn people killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israelis evacuate a site struck by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
An Israeli firefighter kneels to compose himself after he and his colleagues extinguished cars set on fire by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians walk amid the rubble following Israeli airstrikes that razed swaths of a neighborhood in Gaza City, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israelis take cover in a shelter as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza strip, in Ashkelon, Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians walk through the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
Israeli soldiers take positions near Kibbutz Kfar Azza on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Hamas militants overran Kfar Azza on Saturday, where many Israelis were killed and taken captive. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Rubble litters a street between smoldering buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Israelis take cover from the incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Mourners grieve beside the body of Mapal Adam during her funeral in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. Adam was killed by Hamas militants on Saturday as they carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack that killed over 1,300 Israelis. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Palestinians evacuate a man wounded during an Israeli aerial bombardment of Jabaliya, near Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammad Al Masri)
Palestinian children wounded in Israeli strikes are brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Ali Mahmoud)
Palestinians wounded in Israeli strikes wait to be seen at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Ali Mahmoud)
Tents, debris and a burned out van are scattered about the site of a music festival near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. At least 260 Israeli festival-goers were killed during the attack by Hamas gunmen on Saturday, Oct. 7. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Family members mourn during the funeral of Israeli soldier Shilo Rauchberger at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Palestinians evacuate wounded after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Israelis take cover as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in Rehovot, Israel, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Dor Kedmi)
Eli Albag cries over the photograph of his daughter Liri, as he gathers with others during a protest demanding the release of dozens of Israelis who were abducted by Hamas during their unprecedented attack a week earlier, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Israeli soldiers walk past houses destroyed by Hamas militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli tanks head towards the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Palestinians flee from northern Gaza to the south after the Israeli army issued an unprecedented evacuation warning to a population of over 1 million people in northern Gaza and Gaza City to seek refuge in the south ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Palestinians wounded in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip are brought to al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah City, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel toward the Gaza Strip, in a position near the Israel-Gaza border, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Allerruzzo)