The Human and Financial Costs of the Post-10/7 Wars, Two Years Later

Two years after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government has spent a total of $31 billion combined on military aid to Israel and U.S. military operations in the region, according to the latest research from contributors to the Costs of War project, housed at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs. The research series reveals that this U.S. spending in the post-10/7 wars has come with an extensive human toll: over ten percent of the population of Gaza has been killed or injured, while at least 5.27 million people have been displaced in Gaza and the wider region.

As of October 3, 67,075 people in Gaza have been killed and 169,430 people injured according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, out of the approximately 2.2 million people living there in July 2023. These 236,505 casualties (people who have been killed and injured) constitute more than 10 percent of the pre-war population of Gaza. The research underscores that the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers are “not an exaggeration,” as some critics argue; they are likely an undercount.

“Most of the deaths in Gaza have been civilians, many of them children,” said Neta Crawford, co-founder of Costs of War and author of the new report, The Human Toll of the Gaza War: Direct and Indirect Death from 7 October 2023 to 3 October 2025. “The pace and scale of direct killing and injury by the Israel Defense Force bombs and bullets will only be exceeded by the long-term death and misery due to starvation, displacement, destruction of health care facilities and the inadequate level of humanitarian assistance.”

Between October 2023 - September 2025, the U.S. spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel. This figure does not include the tens of billions of dollars in arms sales agreements that have been committed for weapons and services that will be paid for and delivered in the years to come. During the same period, an additional $9.65 - $12.07 billion was spent on U.S. military operations in Yemen, Iran and the wider region, totaling $31.35 - $33.77 billion in U.S. spending on the post-10/7 wars.

“The devastating damage the current Israeli government has done to Gaza and its people would not have been possible without U.S. financing, U.S.-supplied weapons, and U.S. assistance with spare parts and maintenance,” said Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of the new report, U.S. Military Aid and Arms Transfers to Israel, October 2023 – September 2025, co-published with the Quincy Institute. “But despite this dependence, neither former President Joe Biden nor current President Donald Trump have used Israel's reliance on U.S. weapons as a tool to pressure Tel Aviv to change its conduct.”

“The American public has a right to know how U.S. funding is used in conflict, and to recognize that our military activities in the Middle East carry significant costs that are often hidden,” said Linda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of the new report, Costs of United States Military Activities in the Wider Middle East Since October 7, 2023. “These financial and social costs should be weighed alongside policy decisions.”

Additionally, mass population displacement has been a significant feature of the violence experienced in Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank, and other parts of the Middle East since October 7, 2023, where at least 5.27 million people have fled or been forced to leave their homes (as of early September 2025). This total includes an estimated 1.85 million displaced children under 18 years old. Some of these people have since returned home, while many others have not. (This figure does not include Syria and Yemen, where there is a lack of data documenting how the post-10/7 wars have caused displacement.)

“The displacement of over 5 million people to date plus the potential displacement of millions more underscores the urgency of ending the violence as quickly as possible, of allowing the displaced to return home as international law requires, of ensuring reparation for the displaced, and of holding the perpetrators accountable for crimes committed,” said David Vine, political anthropologist and longtime Costs of War contributor, and author of the new report, Mass Displacement since October 7, 2023: Flight from War, Genocide, and Expulsion in Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank.

“For well over a decade, the Costs of War project has shed light on the costs of the so-called U.S. ‘war on terror’; now we’re examining the devastating costs of U.S. military spending and operations in the post-October 7 wars – which in the case of Gaza, many experts call a genocide,” said Stephanie Savell, Director of Costs of War. “Our research highlights numbers, but we must never lose sight of this key fact: what we’re talking about is human suffering. This research shows that the suffering is unthinkably vast. The research will inform efforts to stop the mass killing and displacement, move beyond the war paradigm, and explore true solutions towards peace.”