Gaza Health Ministry Counts 1,471 Killed Since Ceasefire as Mamdani's Oct. 7 Statement Splits New York

The Gaza ceasefire reaches its one-year mark on Saturday, Oct. 10. Its terms are only partly met, and the strikes have not stopped.

The Gaza Health Ministry says 1,471 Palestinians have been killed and 5,189 wounded since the truce began, including four killed and 28 wounded in the past 24 hours. The ministry puts the total death toll since October 2023 at 74,254. The ministry is run by Hamas. The UN considers its figures reliable.

The UK-based charity Islamic Relief said Thursday, Oct. 8, that its own tally is at least 1,454 killed and more than 5,000 wounded over the year. That works out, in the group's words, to one Palestinian killed or wounded every 90 minutes. It says at least 320 of the dead were children.

What the ceasefire did and did not deliver

The Trump administration brokered the October 2025 deal. Under it, Hamas released the remaining 48 hostages and Israel released thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Large-scale Israeli bombardment stopped, and more aid and medical supplies entered Gaza.

The harder parts have not happened. Israeli forces were to withdraw as Hamas disarmed, with security handed to an International Stabilization Force and a new Palestinian security force. Hamas has not been disarmed, and Israeli strikes continue.

In the past week alone, the ministry says, more than 30 people were killed. On Thursday, Wafa reported that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian southeast of Deir el-Balah. It also reported that an air strike on a house in central Khan Younis wounded several people.

Israel's position is that it is targeting Hamas operatives and that Hamas keeps violating the ceasefire. Neither the ministry's count nor Islamic Relief's separates combatants from civilians. The Israel Defense Forces told the BBC it had no record of the Sept. 21 shooting of Fida al-Toutah, a 31-year-old mother of five. Her family says she was hit by gunfire at her tent in central Gaza.

Islamic Relief says Israel has used the so-called Yellow Line, which marks the area under Israeli military control, to push Palestinians out of 65 percent of Gaza. That leaves nearly 2.1 million people in the remaining 35 percent. The group says Israel is still blocking shelter materials, fuel and medical supplies. It also says about 82 percent of Gaza's structures are damaged or destroyed, more than half of health services are shut, and more than 20,000 severely ill patients are denied permission to leave for treatment. These are the charity's figures.

The fight in New York

The same numbers sit at the center of a political fight in New York City. On Wednesday, Oct. 7, the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack, Mamdani issued a statement and attended a vigil. Israeli authorities say that attack killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

Mamdani called the attack a "horrific war crime." He also wrote: "The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government's devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed."

"Genocide" is Mamdani's characterization. Israel rejects the charge, and it is not an established finding in any source here.

City Council member Vickie Paladino, a Republican, called the statement "another disgraceful comment from the mayor." She said he "devote[d] 60% of the statement to lies about Israel." The Israeli Consulate in New York invited Mamdani to a screening of footage from the Oct. 7 attacks. He did not attend.

At the vigil, protesters shouted over the speakers, and some waved Hamas flags or yelled "Long Live Hamas!" Others called Mamdani a "traitor" and accused him of "honoring a genocide" by showing up. Several told a reporter that firing Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch would be a step toward winning them back. According to The Times of Israel, speakers at a City Hall rally earlier that day also criticized him for keeping her.

So Mamdani is being attacked from both directions, and he has not moved. Speaking to reporters Thursday at an unrelated event, he said, "There must be room to mourn every single life." That includes, he said, the "more than 1,100 that Hamas killed three years ago" and "the 74,000 Palestinians that the Israeli government has killed since." The 1,100 figure is his own and is lower than the Israeli count of more than 1,200.

He accused the Israeli government of using Oct. 7 as "a justification for a genocide." He defended the emphasis on Palestinian deaths by saying the killing is "ongoing, as opposed to something that simply happened three years ago." He repeatedly declined to say he would change anything about his statement or his attendance at the vigil.

Brad Lander, the Mamdani-endorsed Democratic nominee in New York's 10th Congressional District, also attended. He said he was saddened that protesters drowned out the testimony. He praised the mayor for coming despite the expected backlash. "From where I sit, Mamdani is a very strong supporter of Palestinian freedom and human rights," Lander said.

What comes next

In Israel, Netanyahu said on the eve of the anniversary that the country is "the strongest country in the Middle East" and its enemies "weaker than ever." He also warned that Hamas could try to attack before the election. Israelis are preparing for their first national vote since the attack. He has resisted calls for an independent investigation of the security failures that preceded Oct. 7.

Two questions are unresolved heading into the anniversary. One is whether Hamas disarms and Israeli forces withdraw from the Yellow Line, as the deal envisions. The other is whether the daily strikes and the humanitarian restrictions Islamic Relief describes end before the truce enters its second year.