“On this day in 2023, Hamas launched a brutal attack on southern Israel that became the catalyst for a year of escalating and widening conflict in the region,” said Pillay. “During this attack, numerous atrocities were committed in utter violation of the most fundamental principles of international law and morality,” he continued.

However, Pillay said, the enormity of Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza is shockingly unacceptable. “It has exponentially compounded the violations and suffering inflicted on innocent civilians, with more than 41,700 people killed—including over 16,000 children—a further nearly 100,000 people wounded, and over 10,000 missing and presumed dead underneath the rubble, according to health authorities in the enclave,” Pillay said. “Around 1.9 million people—90% of the population of Gaza—have been forcibly displaced from their homes, many multiple times, and almost half a million people are facing catastrophic food insecurity, while Gaza’s critical infrastructure, medical and education services, housing, economy, farmland, and fishing fleets have largely been laid to waste.”

During this period violent attacks and other violations by illegal settlers and Israeli security forces against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have risen sharply, Pillay noted. “Israel’s war in Gaza and its violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring States have also massively amplified tensions in the wider region, resulting in increased military confrontation on multiple fronts, intensified exchanges of fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and for the first time directly with Iran,” Pillay said. “Israel’s ground incursion into southern Lebanon, and the missile attacks and other hostilities between Iran and Israel, now threaten an even wider conflict, setting the whole Middle East region ablaze, and compounding the existing threats to global peace and stability.”

One year after the attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel and its adversaries seem locked in a deadly spiral of violence, continued Pillay. 

“If the modern history of the Middle East teaches one clear lesson, it is that there is no path to sustainable peace through repeated cycles of armed conflict and continuing occupation and oppression, but only to increasing antagonism, hatred and extremism on all sides,” Pillay said. “The only solution is to break the cycle of violence, to refrain from more killing and destruction, and to engage in dialogue and negotiations for a peace founded on justice and equal rights for all.”

Pillay reiterated the WCC’s call for a ceasefire on all fronts. “Hamas must release all the remaining hostages immediately and unconditionally,” he said. “Israel must release Palestinian political prisoners and move swiftly to ending its occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people in the territories occupied since 1967, and guarantee equal human rights for all people in its territory, regardless of race, religion or origin. And all members of the international community must end their complicity in sustaining conflict, occupation and oppression in the region.”

Read in full: WCC statement: One year after 7 October attacks