LONDON: As the US-Israeli war with Iran consumes diplomatic attention and rattles global markets, many fear Gaza is once again being pushed to the margins.
More than six months into a ceasefire that has seen continued violations, hundreds of thousands in Gaza are living in dire conditions, with aid severely constrained as the Rafah crossing remains closed.
Feelings of abandonment deepened on March 1, a day after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, when Israeli authorities shut the Rafah border crossing, a vital route for aid and the evacuation of critically ill patients.
The closure triggered panic buying across Gaza as residents feared a return to the famine-like conditions that blighted the enclave at the height of the conflict.
Rafah crossing closure has reignited fears of famine among families still facing displacement and violence. Since the terms of a US-brokered ceasefire deal came into effect on October 10, Israel remains in control of nearly half of the Gaza Strip, including all its border areas. (AFP)
Maysaa Yousef, a mother of four and an artist in central Gaza, described the initial hours after the strikes began on Iran.
“We woke up and learned they had struck Iran and that a war had started,” she told Arab News on March 4. “All the crossings were closed that morning, and nothing was entering Gaza. People were terrified we would fall back into famine again.”
Yousef said people rushed through markets in a frenzy, grabbing whatever food they could find, including items they did not need.
“Nothing was left,” she said. “Those who didn’t have money borrowed it, and people brought carts to carry what they bought.”
Yousef and her family were among them. “We did the same,” she said. “We ran through the markets, going anywhere food might still be available. Shopkeepers became so frightened that people would steal food that they shut their doors.
“The whole situation in Gaza descended into chaos, as if the war had returned to us, not Iran. Then there were many fighter jets. The noise was worse than during the war on us.”
As of early 2026, Israel controls the eastern, more militarized part of Gaza, including buffer zones and corridors, while Hamas controls the western, coastal side, where most of the remaining civilian population lives.
This internal divide is commonly marked by the “Yellow Line.”
Humanitarian aid enters almost exclusively through crossings controlled by Israel, especially Kerem Shalom. Aid is inspected and offloaded there, then trucked deeper into Gaza by UN and humanitarian agencies.
The Rafah crossing, the only gateway to the outside world that does not pass through Israel, remains closed.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a unit within the Ministry of Defense, said on March 1 that the closure of all crossings into the Gaza Strip was part of “several necessary security adjustments” because of the war with Iran, The Times of Israel reported.
Israel views Hamas as the main obstacle to easing Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, arguing that the Iran-backed group, which still controls swathes of the strip, continues to divert aid and uses civilian areas for military activity.
On March 2, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the crossings to reopen.
IN NUMBERS
• 738 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10.
• 589 Aid workers killed between Oct. 7, 2023 and early April 2026.
“It is imperative that all crossings be reopened … as soon as possible,” Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “In recent days, our partners have been forced to ration fuel, prioritize life-saving operations, albeit in reduced capacity as our local stocks are going down.”
In the second week of April, the World Health Organization halted medical evacuations to Egypt via Rafah after Israeli forces killed a contractor driving a WHO-rented vehicle in southern Gaza.
A convoy transporting Palestinians heads towards the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after it opens for the first time since the US-Israel war with Iran started, in Khan Yunis on March 19, 2026. (AFP)
The Israeli military said troops had “identified an unmarked vehicle approaching them and the Yellow Line, posing an immediate threat,” referring to the boundary of Israeli-held territory.
By April 20, the International Rescue Committee warned that Gaza’s humanitarian crisis was “being forgotten,” even as conditions in the embattled Palestinian enclave were “deteriorating at an alarming pace.”
At least 2.1 million people, almost all of Gaza’s population, remain displaced within the enclave, with most sheltering in tents while facing winter flooding and storms, summer heat, and rodent infestations.
Families are struggling to survive amid severe shortages of the most basic, life-saving supplies.
“Gaza’s crisis is far from over,” said Faten Abu Mousa, IRC Gaza child protection manager. “For millions of civilians, the emergency is ongoing, relentless, and life-threatening.”
Food insecurity remains widespread and severe, she added. About 1.6 million people, or around 77 percent of Gaza’s population, are expected to face acute food insecurity.
“Despite expanded distributions of food parcels, bread, and hot meals, families are struggling to meet even their most basic nutritional needs,” she said. “Prices remain prohibitively high, placing food further out of reach for many.”
The strain extends far beyond food. Gaza’s health system is on its knees, with 94 percent of hospitals damaged or destroyed.
This picture taken during a media tour organised by the Israeli army on October 3, 2025, shows an Israeli army tank in front of a war-damaged building in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City. (AFP)
Civilians remain caught in a cycle of violence as Israeli airstrikes and ground operations put lives at risk, while essential infrastructure, including health services, water systems, and aid delivery, remains severely constrained.
On April 17, at least 37 displaced Palestinians, including children, were killed in a series of Israeli strikes on Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis city in southern Gaza, according to media reports.
Witnesses in Al-Mawasi told the BBC that a powerful explosion that night set tents ablaze. One man said he woke to “screaming and panic” as flames spread quickly from one tent to another.
While global attention is focused on the Iran conflict, aid groups warn that already limited humanitarian funding could be stretched further, slowing the response, even as needs remain high.
“The situation is extremely difficult,” Dr. Salwa Al-Tibi, Gaza-based country director for the US NGO MedGlobal, told Arab News. “Living conditions in Gaza remain dire.
“Most families are still displaced and heavily dependent on humanitarian aid, including trucked drinking water, because there is no reliable water supply at all.
“Many civilians cannot afford basic food or essential goods, and they also lack protection from violence and environmental hazards.”
Hunger and inadequate shelter are impacting child development. (AFP)
A prolonged shortage of cooking gas and fuel since the start of the war has compounded the hardship. Supplies of gas entering Gaza, even after the ceasefire was declared, remain well below the population’s actual needs, according to UN agencies.
“This is the reality for me and for many families here in Gaza under these extremely difficult conditions,” Al-Tibi said. “The airstrikes are still causing major problems, including more damage to critical facilities and further disruption to daily life.”
Indeed, Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have continued since the ceasefire took effect Oct. 10, with violence surging in recent weeks, the UN said on April 21.
“Our partners on the ground report that between April 12-18, incidents such as gunfire, shelling and strikes increased by 46 percent compared with the previous week, marking the highest weekly total since the October ceasefire agreement went into effect,” Dujarric told a press conference.
Between Oct. 7, 2023, when the war began, and April 6 this year, at least 72,312 Palestinians have been killed and 172,134 injured, according to Gaza’s health authority.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said in a recent report that Israeli authorities are “purposefully and systematically destroying the conditions necessary for life in Gaza, while also severely limiting the entry of food, water, medicines, and other essential supplies into the strip.”
For civilians, that pressure is felt not only in shortages, but also in the constant threat of renewed displacement.
On April 13, Yousef, who lives among the rubble of her former home, told Arab News she and her family had spent the previous two weeks enduring “psychological warfare.”
“We’ve been packing our things and preparing for displacement after the army sent messages to our phones saying: ‘Wait for us next week, we’re coming to have coffee at your place, so be ready,’” she said.
“I keep thinking: Where are we supposed to go? No one is thinking about us. And now Gaza is on the brink of a plague-like disease. Rats and weasels have spread so much that they’ve become more numerous than people.”
She added that weasels were attacking newborns in the tents, and Israel was refusing to allow in pest-control products.
“The rodents’ droppings are mixing with the already unsafe water we use,” Yousef said. “Even the drinking water is contaminated. Sometimes I go for days refusing to drink it, but then I have no choice. You can often see green algae in it.”
She recounted one incident in which a rodent attacked a child. “A couple of weeks ago, a weasel bit a newborn on the face while the baby was sleeping in a tent at night,” Yousef said on April 6.
“It was completely dark, and the mother scrambled to find some source of light to understand why her baby was screaming. There are often no light sources at all late at night.”
Al-Tibi, who is living in displacement in Gaza City after her home was destroyed by an Israeli strike, said the waste and sanitation crisis is worsening.
“Municipalities are unable to collect garbage because of the lack of fuel and equipment,” she said. “Damage to sewage infrastructure has caused sewage to (spill into) residential areas.
“At the same time, everything here has been badly damaged, and there are severe shortages of medical supplies, fuel, and basic resources because of the blockade. This has also made effective pest control almost impossible.
“One of the most urgent issues facing people across Gaza is the growing public health crisis caused by the uncontrolled spread of rats, insects, scabies, and other skin diseases.
“This is being driven largely by the accumulation of waste, the collapse of sanitation systems, and the breakdown of infrastructure.
“The situation has led to rodent bites, widespread scabies outbreaks, and serious infections among displaced families, including myself.”
Rats are everywhere, she said, with no means of addressing the infestation.
“If you speak to anyone on the street in Gaza, one of the first things they will say is: Please help us find a way to deal with the insects and rats,” Al-Tibi said.
“There are many reasons why rats and insects are spreading so widely, including the buildup of solid waste, the destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of basic services.”
The destruction is vast. On April 20, the UN and EU said Gaza’s human development had been pushed back by 77 years, with $71.4 billion needed over the next decade for recovery and reconstruction.
The final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, carried out jointly with the UN-partnered World Bank, estimated that $26.3 billion will be required in the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the heaviest toll is being borne by Gaza’s youngest residents.
“The famine has affected children more than adults,” Yousef said. “Before the war, there was plenty of food in Gaza, so adults at least had the chance to grow and build their bodies properly. But children are being denied that chance, and many are growing up weak and frail.
“For the past three years, the food available to us has been extremely limited. Throughout the whole month of Ramadan, I craved just one egg.
“Fresh fruit and vegetables are rarely available. I could not find eggs or milk. We eat whatever meat reaches us, even if it has spoiled after long delays at the border crossing.
“We are still starving because we have no alternatives. We rely heavily on canned food in our diet. Canned food is dead food — it has little nutritional value and has weakened our immunity.”
The emergency did not begin with the current closure. In late August 2025, an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis said famine thresholds had been met in the enclave.
Gaza’s food crisis began when Israel blocked the entry of food and water on Oct. 9, 2023. UN agencies were already warning of mass starvation in December 2023.
Throughout 2024, aid groups and UN agencies repeatedly warned that famine was imminent. Formal confirmation only came in August 2025 because the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification requires evidence of extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths.
Against this backdrop, the IRC urged the international community to keep Gaza at the forefront of global attention, stressing that sustained focus, funding and a rapid, unhindered expansion of aid are critical to preventing further loss of life.
Protecting civilians, safeguarding aid workers, restoring medical evacuations and ensuring a steady flow of assistance must remain urgent global priorities, the organization said.
