A Palestinian mother mourns her son, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike just over a month into the ceasefire, at Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, on Nov. 20, 2025.
Editor's note: This story contains graphic images of violence and death.
GAZA STRIP — President Donald Trump promised an end to Israel's war in Gaza after he pushed Israel to agree to a ceasefire and Hamas to release remaining Israeli hostages. The deal came into effect on Oct. 10, 2025.
A year later, however, there's still no international peacekeeping force in Gaza as promised and no reconstruction. Instead, Israel's military has expanded its control to roughly 70% of Gaza, squeezing more than 2 million Palestinians near the sea's edge.
Israel has also continued targeting Hamas throughout the ceasefire. Those attacks have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians this past year, nearly 500 of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Although the bombings have not stopped, they have slowed down during the ceasefire.
That has given people in Gaza a chance to recover from what U.N.-backed experts declared was a famine in the north of the territory last year. More food is now entering, reversing starvation across Gaza.
NPR's reporter in Gaza, Anas Baba, has been capturing moments of respite and continuous grief over the past 12 months of the ceasefire. Below are a selection of his photos.
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Palestinians returned to the ruins of Gaza City after Israeli forces withdrew and ended their ground operation on the first day of the ceasefire, on Oct. 10, 2025.
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In Khan Younis, families greet Palestinian prisoners who were freed in exchange for Israeli hostages on Oct. 13, 2025.
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At Al-Shifa Hospital on Oct. 23, 2025, Joud Al-Angar, 12, and his younger cousin are covered in dime-sized scabs after they were wounded by a piece of shrapnel from an Israeli munition. They found it in the rubble and thought it was coal they could use to help their family cook dinner.
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The bodies of multiple people, including children, are covered in shrouds at a morgue at Al-Shifa Hospital on Nov. 20, 2025, after Israeli airstrikes targeted homes and tents.
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People inspect the aftermath of a deadly Israeli airstrike that destroyed a home in Gaza City six weeks into the ceasefire on Nov. 20, 2025.
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A father and his son wade through flooded streets in Gaza City after picking up humanitarian aid on Nov. 25, 2025.
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Children wear virtual reality headsets as part of a TechMed Gaza initiative that aims to help provide children with psychosocial support for trauma, in Al-Zuweida, Gaza, on Dec. 10, 2025.
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Saqer Al-Ankah holds his dying 10-year-old granddaughter, Bayan, in his arms at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Dec. 10, 2025, after she was shot in her tent by Israeli troops who occupy northeast Gaza.
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Makeshift tents like these in Gaza City on Dec. 11, 2025, offer little protection from the winter cold, but the U.N. says roughly 1.5 million people have only these for shelter after Israeli airstrikes destroyed nearly all the buildings in the war.
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Raed el-Ghazawi and his children stand in a tent in Gaza City on Dec. 11, 2025. The family of five says the tent is freezing cold and damp from winter rainstorms.
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On Dec. 17, 2025, Palestinian Christian children decorate a Christmas tree inside the Holy Family Church in Gaza City for the first time since the beginning of the war.
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Fresh produce returns to Gaza City's streets on Dec. 23, 2025, after U.N.-backed experts declared a famine there amid Israeli restrictions on aid during the war.
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Patients sit in a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Gaza City on Dec. 31, 2025, a day before Israel banned more than 40 international aid organizations from bringing in staff or aid to Gaza.
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Palestinian female artists gather at the beach in Gaza City for the first time since the war began to paint as a form of therapy, on Feb. 12, 2026.
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Palestinian rescue workers begin the work of retrieving corpses from under the rubble of homes bombed by Israel during the war in Beit Lahia, Gaza, on Feb. 16, 2026.
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The skeleton of Shawqi Abu Naser, 60, is retrieved from under the rubble on Feb. 16, 2026, more than a year after an Israeli airstrike killed 132 people from the same family in Beit Lahia.
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A mother from the Abu Nasr family sits by her son's body in Beit Lahia on Feb. 17, 2026. The body was retrieved from under the rubble more than a year after 132 people were killed in a single Israeli airstrike on the family home.
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Palestinians gather in an open space in Gaza City for early morning prayers that mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on March 20, 2026.
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A child smiles next to a man dressed as a clown on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan fasting, in Gaza City on March 20, 2026.
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A Palestinian boy shakes hands with Hamas militants on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, following the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in Gaza City on March 20, 2026.
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Palestinians stand next to boxes of U.N. food aid in an area that aid groups need Israeli permission to enter in Jabalia, Gaza, on April 18, 2026.
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A yellow block placed by Israeli forces marks the expanding territory controlled by the military in Bureij, Gaza, on May 7, 2026. Palestinians are barred from entering the area.
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Young Palestinian chess players gather at a coffee shop in Gaza City for the first tournament since the start of the war, on May 12, 2026.
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A Palestinian child carries jugs of water as he passes by a mural of Spanish soccer star Lamine Yamal that is painted on the rubble of a home destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, in Al-Shati refugee camp, Gaza, on May 14, 2026.
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A building burns after an Israeli airstrike killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the leader of the military wing of Hamas, his wife, his daughter and a neighbor in Gaza City on May 16, 2026.
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Children jump on a trampoline during the Eid holidays on May 31, 2026, in Beit Lahia, which the Israeli military had deemed an "orange zone." Aid organizations are restricted from entering the area.
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A child looks into a burned car that was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on a busy street in Gaza City on June 22, 2026. A teenage girl who was going to find internet access to take her final exams was killed in the strike.
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A plume of smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike targeted a home in Gaza City nine months into the ceasefire on July 12, 2026.
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Thousands of displaced Palestinians gather under Egyptian flags amid the rubble in Gaza City for a public screening of Egypt's match against Argentina in the World Cup on July 7, 2026.
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One-hundred corpses are wrapped in Palestinian flags in Gaza City on Aug. 4, 2026, after being retrieved from under the rubble of a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.
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A Palestinian child whose brother was killed in an Israeli airstrike cries at the door of a morgue at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Aug. 19, 2026.
Anas Baba / NPR
Palestinian children form a chain for a global solidarity initiative called Swim With Gaza that raises money for swimming lessons in Khan Younis on Aug. 25, 2026.
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A child's toys are stained with blood in Gaza City on Sept. 1, 2026, following an Israeli operation to kidnap a Hamas security officer. His family was killed in Israeli airstrikes.
