QUO VADIS, GAZA?

The people of Gaza endure a life without perspective

By The Immigrant Times

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, attacks by Israeli forces damaged or destroyed more than 90 per cent of residential buildings in Gaza. In early spring 2026, around 170,000 households, equivalent to nearly one million people, live in tents. Another 5,000 households sleep outdoors, while 52,000 households reside in overcrowded shelters. (Source: Unicef); (Photos: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/AP; UNRWA, Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photos)

Almost two million people have been displaced

June 2026: On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led militants crossed from Gaza into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel responded with a military campaign that would, over two years, reshape the Gaza Strip more profoundly than anything in the territory's modern history.

A fragile ceasefire, brokered by the United States, ended full-scale military operations in October 2025 and resulted in the return of the remaining hostages. Since then, the world's focus has shifted to the US-Israeli attack on Iran and the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, then to the diplomacy surrounding the two conflicts. Gaza has faded from the front pages.

The suffering of the people of Gaza has not diminished. Gaza's Health Ministry reported this week (19 June 2026) that Israeli operations have killed 1,005 Palestinians since the ceasefire was agreed, with nearly daily strikes, as well as shelling and gunfire along the boundary dividing Gaza into Israeli and Palestinian-controlled zones. The total death toll from the war has now surpassed 73,000. More than 173,000 people have been wounded. 

Progress on reconstruction, Israeli troop withdrawals, and the formation of a new Palestinian government have been postponed due to the deadlock over disarming Hamas.

Meanwhile, approximately 1.9 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, and over 60 per cent of the population has lost their homes. For most residents of Gaza, the end of large-scale fighting has not meant the end of war's consequences. It has meant living permanently with those consequences, with little certainty about when, or if, conditions will ever improve. 

A land in ruins

The extent of physical destruction in Gaza is hard to express with numbers alone, but the statistics are essential. A joint Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment published in April 2026 by the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Bank found that more than 371,000 housing units had been destroyed or damaged, the vast majority of Gaza's residential stock.

About 92 per cent of housing has been affected. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble. Many buildings still standing are structurally unsafe. Over 60 per cent of the population remains homeless.

Total physical infrastructure damage is estimated at US$35.2 billion, with the housing sector accounting for the largest share. Economic losses bring the total to US$57.9 billion.

Recovery and reconstruction are estimated to cost $71.4 billion over the next decade, including $26.3 billion needed in the first eighteen months to simply restore essential services and rebuild vital infrastructure. Separately, the assessment concluded that Gaza's human development has been delayed by 77 years.

Healthcare has been devastated along with housing. Just over half of Gaza's hospitals remain partially operational, together with around 58 per cent of primary healthcare centres. Not a single facility is functioning at full capacity.

In Gaza, with a population of over two million, there are no operational MRI machines. Medicines, surgical supplies, and laboratory equipment face ongoing entry restrictions, with many items classified by Israeli authorities as dual-use and being denied entry. Patients requiring specialised treatment encounter long delays or are evacuated abroad for medical care. 

Education has been significantly affected. Over 97 per cent of schools have been damaged or destroyed, leaving more than 637,000 children without access to schooling and potentially delaying their education by five years. Before the war, Palestinians in Gaza boasted some of the highest literacy rates in the world.

UNICEF's Back to Learning programme currently reaches about 135,400 children in makeshift learning spaces, mainly tents or renovated rooms in damaged buildings, and aims to extend to 336,000 children by the end of 2026. This means most school-age children still lack access to formal education.

Water and sanitation infrastructure have been similarly affected. OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) estimates that 98 per cent of the water in Gaza is unsafe for human consumption, and nearly 90 per cent of the territory's water infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Families depend on trucked deliveries, private vendors or community distribution points. As a result, securing safe water for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene has become a daily task that requires time, money, and energy that many families lack.

The life of Palestinians in wartime Gaza

Israel now controls 64 per cent of Gaza's territory, up from the 53 per cent envisaged under the ceasefire deal. The so-called ‘Yellow Line’ dividing the Israeli-controlled zone from the rest of Gaza is largely unmarked on the ground. It continues to expand.

As recently as June 2026, Israeli forces placed yellow cement blocks in eastern Gaza City, signalling a further push westward, forcing dozens of families to flee. The practical consequence for the population is that more than two million people are concentrated into a significantly smaller area than before the war.

Overcrowding is evident in nearly every aspect of daily life. Displaced families live in tent camps, partially destroyed apartment blocks, and makeshift shelters. Multiple families share single rooms, with minimal privacy. Access to sanitation is inconsistent. At 80 per cent of displacement sites, rodents and pests are regularly seen. Half of all residents in displacement sites suffer from skin diseases.

Food insecurity is severe across the entire region. The most recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification assessment revealed that approximately 1.6 million people, which is 77 per cent of the population, are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. This includes hundreds of thousands in the most critical categories, characterised by starvation and a serious risk of death.

At least 132,000 children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, including over 41,000 severe cases at increased risk of death. Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women need an urgent nutritional response.

Famine was officially confirmed in Gaza Governorate in August 2025. The ceasefire and enhanced aid access temporarily lifted the territory from that threshold in the following months, but the progress remains delicate. Humanitarian agencies warn that without sustained, significantly expanded food, healthcare, and livelihood assistance, famine conditions could quickly return.

The Gaza economy shrank by 83 per cent in 2024. The total decline since October 2023 is about 84 per cent. Most businesses remain closed or have been destroyed. Large-scale employment for reconstruction has not appeared. For the vast majority of households, humanitarian aid is the main source of food and income.

Mental health is an increasing yet under-reported crisis. Humanitarian organisations report severe and widespread psychological distress caused by bereavement, repeated displacement, insecurity, and the breakdown of normal life.

UNRWA's social work teams have provided psychological first aid and psychosocial support to over 260,000 displaced people since the start of the war, including more than 34,000 with disabilities. These figures only account for those reached by one organisation. The actual scale of need exceeds any organisation's ability to meet it. 

The helpers

International humanitarian aid has prevented the worst outcomes in Gaza from worsening, which is a low standard but a meaningful one. The UN agencies present on the ground include UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), which supports Palestinian refugees; the World Food Programme, which distributes food aid; UNICEF (United Nations Children's Emergency Fund), which works in education, child welfare, water, and nutrition; and WHO (World Health Organisation), which coordinates healthcare and medical supply chains. OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) manages the overall humanitarian response.

UNRWA's position has been complicated by legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in late 2025 that prohibits the agency from operating in Israeli territory, cuts off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA facilities, and grants the Israeli government the authority to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem, including UNRWA's headquarters. The agency continues to operate inside Gaza but has been prevented by Israeli authorities from bringing humanitarian personnel and aid directly into the territory since March 2025.

International NGOs, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, and several others, provide healthcare, emergency relief, and logistical support. Regional governments have contributed funding and supplies. Egypt and Jordan facilitate aid deliveries at the borders. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have supplied financial assistance. The United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom remain among the largest sources of humanitarian funding.

The ‘Board of Peace’, a transitional administrative body established under a November 2025 UN Security Council resolution and initially proposed by the Trump administration, has been formally set up with a mandate to coordinate funding for Gaza's redevelopment until the Palestinian Authority is ready to take over governance. Its practical effect on daily life in Gaza has so far been minimal.

Access remains one of the greatest constraints on the humanitarian response. Between 20 and 26 February 2026, the UN coordinated 55 humanitarian missions with Israeli authorities inside Gaza.

Seven were refused outright; a further 15 were approved but encountered obstacles, including significant delays. Medical supplies continue to face complex entry procedures. Aid organisations have consistently reported that current delivery volumes, although higher than during the peak of the war, still fall well short of what is needed. 

Funding remains a significant structural issue. By late January 2026, member states had allocated around $211 million of the $4 billion requested in the 2026 Flash Appeal, which is five per cent of the total.

Pope Leo laments the bureaucracy hindering aid

The agonising gridlock around the Gaza crisis reveals a deep moral imbalance in our global priorities, a reality Pope Leo XIV sharply described as the “progressive bureaucratisation of solidarity.” Discussing the systemic barriers to international relief, the Pontiff lamented a world where life-saving humanitarian efforts are hindered by endless bureaucratic checkpoints, strategic calculations, and political bargaining chips.

In this model, when access to essentials like food and medicine is strictly controlled by geopolitical or economic interests, the most vulnerable are reduced to commodities, risking complete invisibility in a system that measures human lives only by "quantifiable value."

This institutional paralysis becomes even more tragic when contrasted with the seamlessness of global conflict. As the Pope pointed out in May 2026, while aid and development projects face endless bottlenecks, the machinery of war experiences no such friction: "Conflicts are ‘fed’ more readily than people are nourished." Concluding his appeal, he called on world leaders to upend these upside-down moral priorities, reminding them that the inherent dignity of a starving population must always override the cold machinery of bureaucracy and war.

Sources: Gaza Health Ministry; UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); World Health Organization; UNICEF; UNRWA; World Food Programme; Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC); Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (EU/UN/World Bank, April 2026); Al Jazeera; NPR; Associated Press; Press Office of the Holy See (Vatican).

 Terminology: This article uses "displaced persons" and "internally displaced" for Palestinians who have been forced from their homes but remain within Gaza. "Humanitarian assistance" covers food, medical, shelter and cash-transfer support provided by UN agencies, international NGOs and bilateral donors.

Further reading from The Immigrant Times: Migrant workers and the Middle East War || A private organisation offers escape from Gaza || Gaza refugees are not welcome || Gaza utopian reconstruction plan ||

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