After more than 80 days into the so-called ceasefire agreement, signed in October 2025, Israel continues to kill and injure Palestinians across the Gaza Strip while bombing, shelling and destroying areas across the vague yellow line – a line which is constantly moving further westwards.
Israel is also still preventing the entry of shelters and basic supplies during brutal storms and freezing temperatures, while tents are flooded and partially-destroyed buildings collapse on top of people.
At least three Palestinians were injured when Israeli soldiers targeted the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, with witnesses saying the attack happened in an area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn under the purported ceasefire agreement.
Israel carried out an air raid on the eastern areas of al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, as well as artillery shelling east of Rafah and in eastern parts of Gaza City.
The Gaza government media office stated on 28 December that Israel has committed 969 violations of the ceasefire agreement in the past 80 days, resulting in 418 Palestinians killed and more than 1,100 wounded.
Such violations include nearly 300 direct shooting incidents against civilians, 54 military incursions into residential areas, 455 bombings and targeted attacks on Palestinians, and more than 160 bombings of homes, institutions and other civilian buildings.
“The Gaza Strip is facing a slow death, as the occupation continues to evade its obligations under the agreement and humanitarian protocols,” the media office stated.
“It has failed to deliver even the minimum agreed-upon amounts of aid,” it said, adding that Israel’s ongoing refusal to let in the necessary quantities of food, medicine, water and fuel is deepening the catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Only 42 percent of the expected humanitarian aid has been allowed in, while only 10 percent of the needed fuel trucks have entered, leaving hospitals, bakeries and water and sanitation facilities unable to operate.
The media office reiterated its previous warnings about the deepening, deliberate crisis for Palestinians during the winter months as Israel prevents the entry of prefabricated caravans and shelter materials, which remain just kilometers away on the other side of the crossings.
“We emphasize that the continuation of these violations constitutes a dangerous circumvention of the ceasefire and an attempt to impose a humanitarian equation based on subjugation, starvation and extortion,” the media office stated, adding that it holds Israel “fully responsible for the ongoing deterioration of the humanitarian situation and for the lives lost and property destroyed during a period when a complete and sustainable ceasefire is supposed to be in place.”
Blockade as a tool of genocide
“The illegal Israeli blockade and ban on the entry of temporary housing units have effectively eliminated all options for thousands of families, forcing them to remain in destroyed or severely damaged homes that have become time bombs liable to collapse at any moment,” said Euro-Med Human Rights monitor this week.
The human rights group stated that “Israel is using the blockade as a tool of genocide and the creation of deadly living conditions by blocking reconstruction and repair, preventing the entry of materials and equipment needed to clear rubble and restore homes, water and sanitation systems and electricity networks, and by obstructing humanitarian response efforts and undermining relief agencies’ ability to provide even minimal protection.”
As a result, Euro-Med added, “civilians are forced to choose between remaining in dilapidated buildings on the verge of collapse or sheltering in fragile tents that offer no protection from winter cold or rain.”
Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense, said that a recent storm, coupled with Israel’s deprivation of basic shelter materials, killed at least two more Palestinians this week, including a woman who was killed when a weakened wall collapsed on top of her, and a 7-year-old child who fell into a water well and drowned during heavy rainfall.
“We are living in a catastrophic reality created by this genocide on Gaza, where there is no infrastructure, no safe areas, [and] no areas suitable for living,” Basal stated.
He said Palestinians have known neither rest nor safety since the start of the genocide, and that without the restoration of basic services and life-sustaining infrastructure, more people will die in the days ahead.
In another statement, Basal said on Monday that at least 18 buildings have completely collapsed, resulting in significant human and material losses, and more than 110 residential buildings have partially collapsed, posing a direct threat to the lives of thousands of residents living inside or near them.
The civil defense spokesperson emphasized that “tents have proven completely ineffective in the Gaza Strip, offering no protection from the cold or rain, and are no longer a viable humanitarian solution under these harsh conditions.”
Reporter Bader Tabash recorded footage of seawater flooding a tent camp in al-Mawasi Khan Younis on Sunday, submerging shelters and destroying what little belongings families have left.
Tabash recorded another video of the flooding, highlighted by the social media collective Translating Falasteen, which added, “For thousands forced to live meters from the shoreline after being expelled from their homes, the sea has become another threat, exposing how displacement sites offer no protection from weather, flooding, or basic risks to life. Still, the US and the Israeli occupation continue to block all forms of shelter from entering the Strip.”
Gaza’s civil defense says that 25 Palestinians, including six children, have died due to the extreme cold and lack of proper shelters, including building collapses, since the start of the winter season.
On Monday, a 2-month-old baby, Arkan Firas Musleh, was the latest infant to die as a result of the extreme cold, Al Jazeera reported.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health also announced the death of a Palestinian man when a building collapsed onto a tent in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City on Monday.
Children still face severe malnutrition
Four out of every five children in Gaza will enter the new year still facing crisis levels of hunger, despite the agreement by Israeli authorities two months ago to allow more aid in, including food, according to the international charity Save the Children, following the recent release of new data on hunger and malnutrition.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises, published a new report warning that 1.6 million people in Gaza – 77 percent of the population, including about 800,000 children – will continue facing acute food insecurity into 2026, especially since Israel continues to prevent the entry of dairy, meat, eggs, fish and fresh produce into Gaza markets.
Ahmad Alhendawi, a regional director for Save the Children, stated that “as the year draws to a close and some people start to sit back, do not be fooled into thinking the suffering in Gaza is over. Far from it.”
He added that hunger and malnutrition can cause multiple physical harms to children’s growing bodies.
“But the impacts are not just short term,” Alhendawi said. “We know from experience that for any community, widespread malnutrition has lifelong consequences for people – from underweight newborns and stunted growth in early childhood to reduced learning and earning potential later in life – perpetuating cycles of poverty. As well as inflicting harm on individuals, these are consequences that threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society for generations to come.”
Alhendawi added that “Gaza cannot become a dumping ground for the worst of humanity. These are ordinary children and families who just want to pick up their lives after years of horror. But day after day, a safe and healthy future gets further out of reach.”
Hospitals out of fuel
Because of Israel’s blockade on fuel, medical staff at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza reported that electricity was out for at least two days this week, forcing all departments to shut down, putting patients at serious risk.
Journalist Anwar Abo Sliyhe, reporting from the darkened hospital, recorded himself on 27 December saying that the crisis left the intensive care unit, the radiology department, operating rooms, and emergency reception out of service.
He said that the hospital’s director, Dr. Raafat al-Majdalawi, highlighted the crisis particularly for pregnant women as Al-Awda is the only medical facility in central Gaza that can provide maternity and delivery services.
It has been one year since the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was abducted by Israeli forces from the facility, and since, subjected to systematic torture inside Israeli detention camps.
He was taken hostage after the army besieged and bombed the hospital, targeted and killed his child, shot him with a quadcopter drone while he was attending to patients, and destroyed the hospital over and over again.
Since his abduction on 27 December 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya has been held in Israeli torture prisons under the designation of unlawful combatant, a draconian classification that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial.
In October, as we reported at the time, Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer confirmed that an Israeli court rubber-stamped the extension of his arbitrary detention for six months, or until April 2026. He has been systematically beaten, tortured, denied medical attention and has been subjected to deliberate starvation, resulting in major weight loss, according to his legal team.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s family has been regularly posting updates on his plight and his deteriorating health condition. This week, marking one year of the doctor’s brutal captivity, his family posted a statement to social media.
“A full year of injustice has passed. Today, we ask for nothing but his freedom. Please share his story to keep his voice alive,” Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s family stated.
Abu Obeida confirmed assassinated
On Monday, the Qassam Brigades officially announced that their longtime spokesperson, Huthaifa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlout, who used the nom du guerre Abu Obeida, had been killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli attack on his home in August. One son, Ibrahim, is reportedly the only one who survived.
A new spokesperson, who adopted the same moniker of Abu Obeida, made the announcement on Monday.
Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and resilience across Gaza and around the world.
Despite 27 months of an ongoing genocide, the graduating class of a new cadre of doctors stood together in celebration after passing their board exams, in front of one of the burned-out buildings of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, last week.
Doctor Jamal Salha posted a video from the ceremony.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that these doctors are part of the The Shield of Humanity Cohort, and stated, “Despite the genocide … you are the cure.”
Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).
Originally published in Electronic Intifada
Original source: in