A year after Hamas launched a cross-border attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, the images of that day and its ongoing aftermath still defy belief.
No one thought they would see heavily armed Hamas gunmen going door-to-door on quiet Israeli streets or storming a crowded music festival, mowing people down for hours with no soldiers in sight.
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Destruction left by the Israeli air and ground offensive is seen in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A woman holds her cat in front of a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Hussein, brother of Hezbollah fighter Ali Hassan al-Atat, who was killed by an Israeli strike, lies on top of his brother's coffin during his funeral procession in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman reads the Quran at the site of the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Two women take a selfie next to newly painted graffiti of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a day after Hezbollah confirmed its leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Flames rise after an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
An Israeli soldier covered in a prayer shawl prays at a mobile artillery position in northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Ultra-Orthodox Jews observe part of an intercepted ballistic missile that fell in the desert near the city of Arad, Israel, Sunday, April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/ Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners from the Druze minority surround the bodies of some of the 12 children and teens killed in a rocket strike at a soccer field, in the village of Majdal Shams at the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Aseel al-Titi, wearing a Hamas headband, a former Palestinian prisoner who was released by the Israeli authorities, is greeted by friends and family members in Balata, a Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus, West Bank, Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza wave photos of their loved ones and the Israeli and U.S. flags during a protest calling for their return, outside a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and families of hostages, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to the hospital in Deir al Balah on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Hostage Luis Har, left, is hugged by relatives after being rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip, at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. (Israeli Army via AP)
A Red Cross vehicle carrying Israeli hostages drives by at the Gaza Strip crossing into Egypt in Rafah on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli soldiers escort the media to a tunnel found underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. Israel says that Hamas militants sought cover on the grounds of the hospital and used the tunnel for military purposes. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Ambulances are seen on a road near an Israeli forces tank during an Israeli army ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Israeli soldiers stand at the entrance of a tunnel where the military says six Israeli hostages were recently killed by Hamas militants, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Police use water cannons to disperse demonstrators during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip, on the outskirts of Gaza City, during the ongoing Israeli bombardment on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Palestinians flee from the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza after an Israeli ground and air offensive on Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli soldiers move on armored personnel carriers (APC) near the Israeli-Gaza border as smoke rises to the sky in the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A bulldozer unloads the bodies of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel and turned over by the Israeli military during a mass funeral in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023.(AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Mohammad Shouman carries the body of his daughter, Masa, who was killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during her funeral in Rafah, southern Gaza, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians are treated at the Khan Younis hospital after being wounded during an Israeli army bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, December 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Faten Mreish holds her son's body at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Aug. 28, 2024, after he and others were killed in an Israeli bombardment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip play next to the border with Egypt, in Rafah, southern Gaza, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Members of the Al-Rabaya family break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside their home destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Essa)
People stand in front of a gate at the Nitzana border crossing with Egypt in southern, Israel, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, protesting against the humanitarian aid to enter Gaza until all the hostages are released. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians take food from a humanitarian aid truck as it crosses into the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli female soldiers pose for a photo on a position on the Gaza Strip border, in southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees, in Gaza, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Moti Milrod, Haaretz)
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
A woman mourns the covered bodies of her child and her husband killed in an Israeli army bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Tuesday Dec. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Antonio Macías' mother cries over her son's body covered with the Israeli flag at Pardes Haim cemetery in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in central Israel, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Israeli Lt. Col. Ido Ben Anat stands in an apartment during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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)
Israelis take cover from the incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The bodies of a father and his child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, lie in front of the morgue at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
A Palestinian reacts as a child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel toward Lebanon, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue in Deir al Balah, Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Sivan, the mother of Israeli soldier Sgt. Dolev Malca, screams as she salutes her son during his funeral in Shlomi, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Sunday, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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 Alerruzzo)
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. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israelis killed by Hamas militants lie on the road near Sderot, Israel, on Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The site of the Nova music festival where revelers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 during the cross-border attack by Hamas militants is seen near Kibbitz Reim, southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers walk by civilians killed by Palestinian militants in Sderot, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Blood is splattered in a child's room following a massive Hamas militant attack in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
No one thought they would see entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip turned into rubble-strewn wastelands, with high-rises leveled, paved roads turned to dirt and people fleeing on foot with only what they could carry. Few thought it would last this long, or claim so many lives.
Hamas' surprise attack and the war it triggered in Gaza have brought unprecedented death, destruction and anguish to both Israelis and Palestinians. Its ripples across the Middle East have raised the specter of an even larger conflict.
Associated Press photographers have tried to capture its impact on ordinary people.
They have photographed Israelis returning to the scenes of the killings, mobilizing for war and protesting their country's wartime leadership and its failure to return scores of hostages.
They have been there as Palestinians dig for survivors after airstrikes and as the wounded are treated on the floors of overwhelmed hospitals. They have photographed people huddling in tents and crowding around aid stations, reaching with empty pots for desperately needed food,
They have followed Palestinians from one end of Gaza to another as they flee airstrikes and evacuation orders, often traveling by foot or donkey cart with only what they can carry.
And they have been to funerals — too many funerals — on both sides.
As with all wars, civilians have paid the heaviest price. Young Israelis were killed by the hundreds at the music festival. Grandparents in their 70s and 80s were dragged into Gaza and held in tunnels, where many perished. Airstrikes killed Palestinian children in front of their parents and left thousands of orphans — some with no living relatives.
Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, drawing retaliatory strikes in a cycle of escalation that has steadily worsened. In recent weeks, Israeli warplanes have pounded large areas of Lebanon, killing Hezbollah's leader and several of his top commanders, as well as many civilians. Ground operations commenced last week.
The bombings have brought more giant plumes of smoke, more blackened craters where buildings once stood, more screaming ambulances and more people — by the hundreds of thousands — taking to the roads to flee the war's widening vortex.
Through it all, there have been some moments of joy, however fleeting.
There were happy homecomings — on both sides — last November after more than 100 hostages were freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
But a year on, everyone still seems to be trapped in the violent reality unleashed in the early hours of Oct. 7, with no end in sight.
Destruction left by the Israeli air and ground offensive is seen in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A woman holds her cat in front of a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Hussein, brother of Hezbollah fighter Ali Hassan al-Atat, who was killed by an Israeli strike, lies on top of his brother's coffin during his funeral procession in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman reads the Quran at the site of the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Two women take a selfie next to newly painted graffiti of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a day after Hezbollah confirmed its leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Flames rise after an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
An Israeli soldier covered in a prayer shawl prays at a mobile artillery position in northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Ultra-Orthodox Jews observe part of an intercepted ballistic missile that fell in the desert near the city of Arad, Israel, Sunday, April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/ Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners from the Druze minority surround the bodies of some of the 12 children and teens killed in a rocket strike at a soccer field, in the village of Majdal Shams at the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Aseel al-Titi, wearing a Hamas headband, a former Palestinian prisoner who was released by the Israeli authorities, is greeted by friends and family members in Balata, a Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus, West Bank, Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza wave photos of their loved ones and the Israeli and U.S. flags during a protest calling for their return, outside a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and families of hostages, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to the hospital in Deir al Balah on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Hostage Luis Har, left, is hugged by relatives after being rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip, at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. (Israeli Army via AP)
A Red Cross vehicle carrying Israeli hostages drives by at the Gaza Strip crossing into Egypt in Rafah on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli soldiers escort the media to a tunnel found underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. Israel says that Hamas militants sought cover on the grounds of the hospital and used the tunnel for military purposes. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Ambulances are seen on a road near an Israeli forces tank during an Israeli army ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Israeli soldiers stand at the entrance of a tunnel where the military says six Israeli hostages were recently killed by Hamas militants, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Police use water cannons to disperse demonstrators during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip, on the outskirts of Gaza City, during the ongoing Israeli bombardment on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Palestinians flee from the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza after an Israeli ground and air offensive on Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli soldiers move on armored personnel carriers (APC) near the Israeli-Gaza border as smoke rises to the sky in the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A bulldozer unloads the bodies of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel and turned over by the Israeli military during a mass funeral in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023.(AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Mohammad Shouman carries the body of his daughter, Masa, who was killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during her funeral in Rafah, southern Gaza, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians are treated at the Khan Younis hospital after being wounded during an Israeli army bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, December 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Faten Mreish holds her son's body at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Aug. 28, 2024, after he and others were killed in an Israeli bombardment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip play next to the border with Egypt, in Rafah, southern Gaza, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Members of the Al-Rabaya family break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside their home destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Essa)
People stand in front of a gate at the Nitzana border crossing with Egypt in southern, Israel, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, protesting against the humanitarian aid to enter Gaza until all the hostages are released. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians take food from a humanitarian aid truck as it crosses into the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Israeli female soldiers pose for a photo on a position on the Gaza Strip border, in southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees, in Gaza, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Moti Milrod, Haaretz)
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
A woman mourns the covered bodies of her child and her husband killed in an Israeli army bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Tuesday Dec. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Antonio Macías' mother cries over her son's body covered with the Israeli flag at Pardes Haim cemetery in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in central Israel, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Israeli Lt. Col. Ido Ben Anat stands in an apartment during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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)
Israelis take cover from the incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The bodies of a father and his child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, lie in front of the morgue at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
A Palestinian reacts as a child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel toward Lebanon, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue in Deir al Balah, Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Sivan, the mother of Israeli soldier Sgt. Dolev Malca, screams as she salutes her son during his funeral in Shlomi, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Sunday, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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 Alerruzzo)
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. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israelis killed by Hamas militants lie on the road near Sderot, Israel, on Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The site of the Nova music festival where revelers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 during the cross-border attack by Hamas militants is seen near Kibbitz Reim, southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers walk by civilians killed by Palestinian militants in Sderot, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Blood is splattered in a child's room following a massive Hamas militant attack in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
