More than 300 days after the ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, a new normal has been established in the enclave, with services on the brink of collapse and thousands of Palestinians left homeless and without prospects of improving their situation. It was in October 2025 when the United States mediated an agreement to end the attacks, open the border crossings and suspend an Israeli military offensive that had already left more than 70,000 dead. However, the current truce paints a very different map in the Gaza Strip, with continuous attacks, without significant progress in negotiations and with a large part of the population crammed into an increasingly smaller territory.
The United Nations children's agency, Unicef, has counted the deaths of 300 children since the ceasefire was declared, a figure that confirms the lack of progress in the negotiations to permanently end the Israeli military offensive unleashed in October 2023 after the terrible Hamas attacks. "A ceasefire that claims the life of a minor every day is a total failure for children," Edouard Beigbeder, regional director of Unicef in the Middle East and North Africa, denounces in a statement.
Since the pause was signed, the Gaza Ministry of Health denounces that more than 1,200 Palestinians have died and another 4,000 have been injured in attacks that the Israeli Army justifies as specific operations to weaken the capabilities of Hamas in the enclave.
The lack of progress in the negotiations has especially hit the health system, which was greatly weakened by the war. Gazan authorities report that the 34 oxygen stations that existed at the beginning of 2023 have been reduced to 12, of which only four continue to function due to the shortage of oxygen pumps in the enclave. An emergency system to manually pump oxygen has been established for months, but health workers report that its permanent maintenance cannot be guaranteed. The lack of entry of urgent medical supplies and the intermittent blockades by the Israeli authorities for the departure of cancer patients abroad has caused 11,000 Palestinian cancer patients to be at risk of death.
The Ministry of Health assures that three cancer patients die every day due to the lack of adequate medical care, not due to the evolution of their disease. In this sense, Unicef demands that the truce agreements must be implemented with a "latent impact on the ground", to ensure the well-being of millions of Palestinians but also a return to social normality for the little ones, now that the return of the school year is approaching. "For the children of Gaza, the question is simple: Will the killing stop? Will aid arrive as needed? Will the hospitals reopen and the water return? Will the children return to school safely?" says Unicef's Beigbeder.
The humanitarian situation in the enclave is also impacted by the deployment of Israeli forces in the so-called 'yellow line', a control zone where the Army is stationed and which has reduced the habitable territory for Palestinians to a third. Families huddle between rubble, tents and mountains of garbage, exposed to inclement weather and diseases resulting from the lack of access to drinking water. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that Israeli forces now control more than 60% of the enclave, and their stated goal is to reach 70%. According to a new United Nations report, the number of destroyed structures in Gaza has increased by 9% since the ceasefire was signed. Schools, clinics and residential buildings have been demolished or damaged in areas that were supposed to be under Palestinian control. Far from retreating, the Army has built new surveillance posts, expanded outposts and erected concrete barriers that fragment the territory into isolated cantons.
