Image credit: AFP/Reuters
The war started on October 7, when hundreds of Hamas gunmen entered the border from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people. In retaliation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "destroy" Hamas.
On February 6, earthquakes flattened entire cities in southeast Turkey, killing at least 56,000 people. Nearly 6,000 were killed across the border in Syria. On September 8, Morocco suffered a similar fate as a quake centred on the Atlas mountains killed nearly 3,000 people.
Drought made worse by climate change was cited as one of several factors behind the deadliest wildfire in the US in a century that claimed at least 115 lives on the Hawaiian Island of Maui in August.
The space race heats up in 2023, with rising star India becoming the first nation to successfully land an unmanned craft on the Moon's South Pole in August.
The spate of coups that have marked a brutal democratic backsliding in francophone Africa continues in 2023, with Niger and Gabon the latest countries to overthrow an elected president.
The existential dread caused by generative AI in the creative economy spreads to Hollywood in 2023, where writers go on strike in May to demand curbs on the use of the technology in films as well as a pay rise.
The year goes out with a sizzle, with the European Union's climate monitor predicting 2023 to be the hottest on record.