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MSF Says Israel Is 'Asphyxiating' Gaza, With Palestinians Pushed Into 'Smaller and Smaller Area'
"The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map. It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing."
Oct 05, 2026
A year after a so-called "ceasefire" deal established the Israel Defense Forces' "yellow line" in Gaza, separating the IDF-controlled eastern part of Gaza from about 47% of the strip that was originally set aside for Palestinians, the Israeli military has crept westward, block by block—effectively "asphyxiating" Gaza's population of 2.1 million people, as one aid group said Monday.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known by its English name, Doctors Without Borders, said that the US-backed IDF now occupies about 65% of the Gaza Strip, "squeezing people into a smaller and smaller area" and leaving Palestinians uncertain about where the yellow line begins and ends as they are forced to repeatedly move.
"People risk being shot by Israeli forces when they approach it, and MSF teams continue to treat people with gunshot wounds sustained nearby," said the organization.
MSF released its statement on the shifting yellow line and the organization's struggles to provide medical aid for Palestinians days after the Danish Refugee Council reported on refugee camps near the boundary, where 80% of Palestinians interviewed by the DRC said they've faced water shortage and people reported rat and rodent infestations, continued food scarcity despite a ceasefire deal that required a ramp-up of humanitarian aid, and rapid spread of illnesses.
DRC accused Israel of "a policy of protracted displacement," which was supported by MSF's reporting Monday.
"The October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to end civilians' suffering," said DRC. "Nearly a year on, it exists largely in name only. Displacement in Gaza has not ended; it has changed shape."
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also warned last month about the IDF's gradual push westward through demolitions and the movement of military forces, noting that residents have continued living in neighborhoods adjacent to the yellow line, such as Al-Tuffah and Al Zaytoun in Gaza City, "because they have nowhere else to go."
"Where do we go? This is a question we’ve been asking ourselves for three years,” Safaa Mushtaha of Al-Tuffah told OCHA. “We accepted living near the yellow line, but it’s become unbearable.”
Ibtisam Malika, who also lives near the line, added that "every two to three months, we are forced to move and leave our belongings behind."
MSF described how families are being "pushed into overcrowded and unlivable conditions" and how the group's ability to deliver clean water has been impeded when there are attacks near the yellow line.
"The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map,” says Amande Bazerolle, head of emergency response for MSF in Gaza. “It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing, while cutting communities off from the infrastructure, healthcare, water, and other essentials they need to survive.”
The medical aid group treated more than 1,500 cases of chickenpox in June and July, and has treated more that 11,000 cases of skin disorders including scabies this year.
One official said a majority of Palestinians in Gaza have less than six liters of water per day for drinking, bathing, and other domestic uses, and Israeli restrictions on the delivery of many items—ones that authorities claim are "dual-use" and could be used by Hamas for military purposes—have left families and medical providers without essentials.
“We are treating gastroenteritis, acute respiratory infections, a lot of skin conditions, hepatitis, bacterial skin infections, scabies, and lice," said Dr. Murad Asaliyya, medical activities manager for MSF in Gaza. “At the same time, we are facing severe shortages in terms of medical supplies. Even the cream we need to treat scabies has been restricted by the Israeli authorities.”
Other crucial items that have been restricted by Israel include engine oil and spare parts, "crippling the infrastructure needed to keep hospitals, ambulances and water systems running," said MSF.
MSF emphasized that the area near the yellow line is hardly the only part of Gaza where Palestinians face continued Israeli attacks. In June and July, the group's medical teams treated more than 1,200 cases of "violent trauma" across the strip, "including blast injuries, burns, gunshot wounds, and injuries resulting from physical assault."
Since Israel began relentlessly attacking Gaza in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, the military offensive has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, with experts warning that the true death toll is likely far higher. About 80% of all structures across Gaza have been damaged, said MSF.
The group released its findings as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted in an interview about the IDF's encroachment on the territory that had been ostensibly set aside for Palestinians last year, saying the moving of the yellow line and the destruction of Gaza and its infrastructure "encourages migration" and that "a world will not be built there."
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:The Gaza Strip should never be rebuilt — a memorial to sin. That is also what will encourage migration from there the most. https://t.co/EnZCIPrs9x
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 5, 2026
“Destruction, displacement, and deprivation have become normalized—practices Israel is carrying out with impunity,” said Bazerolle. “Governments must act now to ensure Israel stops the destruction and killing, prevents ethnic cleansing, and stops denying Palestinians the means of survival.”
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Israel Blocking Hundreds of Wheelchairs for Injured Children From Entering Gaza
More than 11,000 children have severe life-changing injuries, including thousands who have had limbs amputated as a result of Israel's assault on Gaza.
Sep 21, 2026
Gaza has the world's largest concentration of child amputees thanks to Israel's genocidal war. Now, as Australian charities seek to deliver hundreds of wheelchairs to the children injured in the onslaught, Israel has reportedly been blocking them for more than a year and a half.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported last week that:
More than 900 wheelchairs, donated by two Australian charities to help injured children in Gaza, are stuck in warehouses in Jordan due to Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries into the war-ravaged strip.
Two shipments from New South Wales-based charity Kids on Wheels Alliance arrived in Jordan in February 2025, while a third, from Wheelchairs for Kids based in Western Australia, arrived in October 2025.
But instead of being delivered to children with severe mobility issues inside Gaza, they remain sitting in storage facilities managed by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO).
According to the report, JHCO submitted an application in February 2025 for the wheelchairs to be included in an aid convoy headed to Gaza, where more than 11,000 kids have been left with "severe, life-changing injuries, including permanent disabilities that require long-term care and rehabilitation," according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
That application was denied by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency responsible for aid coordination, because "medical equipment and medicines were not approved for inclusion in that convoy." The application has been marked as "pending" for the last 19 months, meaning that a new request cannot be sent.
An Israeli government source told ABC that Israel had not blocked the delivery of the wheelchairs. But COGAT did not answer specific questions from the network about what had happened to the shipment.
The agency said it had allowed the entry of thousands of wheelchairs "without any quantitative restrictions," as well as "approximately 22,000 tons of medical equipment and medicines" since the beginning of the ceasefire in October 2025.
One source told the outlet that the wheelchairs may have been held up under Israel's rules blocking possible "dual-use" items that authorities believe could serve a military purpose.
The wheelchairs have specialized features: they are adapted for rough terrain to help users navigate the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza and are adjustable to grow with the children who use them.
But as Dr. Abdullah Al-Balawi, a physician with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association who has watched the boxes pile up undelivered, explained, "they do not pose any threat."
The stalled wheelchairs are hardly the first medical or disability equipment to be blocked as a result of Israel's strict restrictions on humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Human rights groups have previously documented the use of dual-use restrictions to block wheelchair batteries, X-ray equipment, and materials used to manufacture prosthetic limbs.
It's not just medical supplies. Portable toilets have also been blocked, as have sleeping bags and tarps. These items are in high demand as around 90% of Palestinians living in Gaza remain displaced, with Israel's attacks having destroyed most of the buildings. According to a report from humanitarian organizations in April, bandages, diapers, shampoo, and tent poles have also been blocked.
Human Rights Watch has argued that the dual-use restrictions are unnecessarily broad and arbitrary, allowing certain items some days and rejecting them on others. The organization has called on Israel to remove the dual-use label on "medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes [and] hearing aids."
Amnesty International has described Israel's blocking of lifesaving medical and other forms of humanitarian assistance—including food, water and sanitation supplies, fuel, and shelter materials and equipment—as part of a pattern that amounts to genocide.
"The humanitarian aid must not stop," Al-Balawi said. "This is part of the stubbornness of the other side by not letting in this aid; the wheelchairs are only a part of it."
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They Told the World the War Was Over—Gaza Knows Better
A ceasefire cannot mean peace when people are still being killed, buried under rubble, and denied the basic conditions for rebuilding their lives.
Sep 09, 2026
When US President Donald Trump declared in October 2025 that “the war is over,” the statement quickly became part of the international language surrounding Gaza. Headlines shifted. Political leaders began speaking about a post-war phase. The world was encouraged to look forward—to reconstruction, diplomacy, and what might come next.
But from inside Gaza, the distinction between “war” and “peace” has never been so simple. A ceasefire may reduce the intensity of bombardment. It may change the language used by politicians and diplomats. But for Palestinians who remain surrounded by destruction, displacement, deprivation, and the remains of those who were killed, the war does not simply disappear because leaders declare a new phase.
On August 4, Gaza witnessed a devastating reminder of this reality. The remains of 112 Palestinians were buried in a mass funeral in Gaza City, more than two and a half years after they were killed in an Israeli strike on the Sabra neighborhood. The victims included 37 children. Rescue workers spent weeks searching through the ruins for their remains, working with almost no equipment and identifying bodies through fragments, clothing, family testimony, and whatever personal belongings could be recovered.
For the families, the violence did not end when the bombs stopped falling on that neighborhood. It continued in the rubble. And the 112 bodies were not an isolated tragedy. Gaza's Civil Defence has estimated that around 8,000 bodies remain beneath the rubble across the strip. Recovery teams say that removing them will require heavy equipment that is still desperately lacking. Without that equipment, the dead may remain trapped for years.
A ceasefire should be the beginning of ending the violence—not an excuse to redefine its consequences as peace.
This is what it means to tell Palestinians that the war is over. For many people outside Gaza, war is measured by explosions: the number of airstrikes, the intensity of fighting, or the number of military operations reported each day. For those of us living here, war is also measured in what remains after the explosions.
It is measured in the family searching for the body of a missing relative. It is measured in children growing up among destroyed schools. It is measured in homes that no longer exist, universities reduced to ruins, hospitals struggling to function, and displaced families who cannot return to places that once defined their lives. It is measured in the enormous task of removing the dead from beneath the rubble before their families can bury them.
The language of a “post-war” Gaza therefore risks becoming another form of erasure. It suggests that the violence belongs to the past, while the consequences are treated as a humanitarian problem waiting to be solved.
But Gaza cannot simply be rebuilt like a damaged road. A society has been shattered. Families have been separated and destroyed. Communities have disappeared. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost homes. Children have lost years of education. The physical destruction is accompanied by grief that cannot be captured by reconstruction statistics. And yet, international attention has increasingly moved elsewhere.
This is perhaps the most painful part. People around the world demonstrated for Gaza. Students occupied campuses. Human rights organizations documented violations. Workers and trade unions called for solidarity. Millions of ordinary people refused to accept the destruction of an entire population as normal.
But public sympathy does not automatically produce political action. Western governments can express concern while continuing to treat Gaza as a diplomatic file rather than a human emergency. Leaders can call for peace while failing to ensure that Palestinians have the conditions necessary to live with dignity. Statements can be issued, condolences offered, and conferences held—while the consequences of the destruction remain largely the responsibility of Palestinians themselves.
This is why the words “the war is over” matter. Words shape political reality. When a government, president, or media institution describes Gaza as post-war, audiences far from the strip may assume that the emergency has passed. Attention moves elsewhere. Political pressure decreases. The suffering becomes background noise.
But the people of Gaza cannot move on simply because the world has decided to. The 112 people buried in August had already waited nearly three years for a grave. Thousands more remain beneath the rubble. Their families are still waiting. And millions of Palestinians are still trying to understand what “peace” is supposed to mean when they have nowhere safe to return to and so little ability to rebuild what was destroyed.
A ceasefire should be the beginning of ending the violence—not an excuse to redefine its consequences as peace. If the international community truly wants to speak about a post-war Gaza, it must first confront what the war has left behind. That means guaranteeing sustained humanitarian access; enabling the removal and identification of those buried beneath the rubble; supporting the rebuilding of homes, schools, hospitals, and universities; and establishing meaningful accountability for violations of international law.
Most importantly, Palestinians must not be treated merely as recipients of humanitarian assistance. They must be recognized as people with rights, agency, and a future that belongs to them. The world may want to turn the page on Gaza. We cannot. We are still living in the pages that came before.
For those of us here, the war is not an entry in a history book. It is the rubble outside our doors, the empty chair at the family table, the child who cannot return to school, and the grave that took years to become possible. So when the world is told that the war is over, listen to Gaza.
Look beneath the rubble.
Count the graves.
And ask whether peace can truly be declared while thousands of the dead are still waiting to be found.
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Doctors Without Borders Says Trump Aid Cuts Fueling Humanitarian Catastrophe in Sudan
"War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response."
Sep 08, 2026
The renowned humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that the Trump administration's destruction of the US Agency for International Development has contributed to the collapse of the war-torn nation's healthcare system, forcing clinics to close and leaving millions of people without access to lifesaving treatment.
The organization, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the closure of USAID last year at the behest of President Donald Trump and the world's richest man, Elon Musk, left many healthcare providers in Sudan "unable to find alternative funding to continue providing services," leaving facilities with no option but to shut down in the midst of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
"War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response,” Muhammad Ibrahim, MSF's head of mission in Sudan, said in a statement on Tuesday. “MSF’s work in Sudan is privately funded. But when funding disappears from other health services, clinics close, patients have fewer places to go, and pressure shifts to the facilities that remain, including ours.”
MSF said its hospital in Um Rakuba, a refugee camp in eastern Sudan, is now "the only lifeline left" for locals and refugees.
"The cuts here go well beyond healthcare," emphasized Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF humanitarian affairs manager. "Food rations are shrinking and protection programs are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed.”
The dismantling of USAID by Musk's wrecking crew at the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency has already killed hundreds of thousands of people—most of them children—according to experts tracking the impacts on humanitarian aid around the world. Musk and the Trump administration have continued to deny that the aid cuts have killed any children.
A study published in The Lancet earlier this year estimated that the gutting of USAID—whose surviving programs were mostly transferred to the US State Department—could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by the end of the decade. The US Department of Agriculture took over USAID's Food for Peace program—and subsequently omitted Sudan from the list of countries that would receive shipments of US grain.
MSF said Tuesday that "just as health providers faced the impending removal of US support, many European governments also reduced their assistance to people in Sudan."
The results have been horrific. MSF said that "malaria and malnutrition cases are already rising despite limited rainfall, ahead of the peak of the rainy season—and we expect numbers to increase as the rain intensifies."
"In August, our teams admitted 191 children under five with severe malnutrition to our inpatient feeding center, and nearly 22% also tested positive for malaria," the group said Tuesday. "The UN reports that 825,000 children under five are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition and 19.5 million people faced crisis-level hunger earlier this year. Yet the UN’s $2.87 billion response plan is barely 41 per cent funded, and 37 per cent of Sudan’s health facilities are estimated to be completely out of service."
"As world leaders gather at the UN General Assembly, governments and institutional donors must protect funding for essential health services in Sudan and provide flexible transitional financing where facilities are at risk of closure," the organization pleaded.
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Amid Civil War, Sudan's Humanitarian Crisis Worsening Due to 'Lack of Action': UN Official
"Humanitarians are seizing every opportunity to reach those in need. But we need protection for civilians. We need de-escalation."
Aug 24, 2026
Over three years into a civil war in Sudan, the humanitarian crisis is getting worse in the African nation due to "a lack of action" by the international community, a United Nations leader told the UN Security Council on Monday.
The war between the government's Sudanese Armed Forces and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023. Now, "more than two-thirds of the people of Sudan are in desperate need of lifesaving support," said Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
"Humanitarians are seizing every opportunity to reach those in need. But we need protection for civilians. We need de-escalation," Fletcher stressed, detailing efforts to provide aid throughout the country. "Across Sudan, our teams navigate frontlines, drone attacks, insecurity, and bureaucratic red tape."
"I usually end these briefings with three asks: Uphold international humanitarian law, fund the response, and help end the conflict. But today I won't because this council has heard those asks again and again," he explained. "Instead, the ask is that we not have another meeting where the council simply describes the problem."
According to Fletcher: "Sudan does not suffer from a lack of analysis. It suffers from a lack of action. The people of Sudan need food, water, and medicine. Yet the world sends drones, weapons, and mercenaries. The people of Sudan need sustained, courageous diplomacy. Yet the world is too often indifferent and distracted. The people of Sudan need peace and dignity. Yet others use Sudan's land and people as pieces in a regional struggle for power, gold, and pride."
"This council is not powerless," he emphasized. "The international community is not powerless. The tragedy of Sudan is not that we do not know what to do. It is that we have not yet found the will to do it."
Fletcher also pointed to remarks to the Security Council from Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, who noted the deadly impact of drones and that the true death toll "is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands."
Roughly 13 million people have been displaced, making it hard to tally deaths, but "brutal mass killings and atrocities, abductions of women and girls, and mass rapes are recurring patterns," DiCarlo said, declaring that "the consequences of this conflict will be long-lasting and should shock us all."
The Security Council meeting came less than three weeks before a two-decade-old Darfur arms embargo is set to expire, absent a new agreement. The US envoy in attendance, Massad Boulos, called for broadening the embargo to cover all of Sudan.
"The United States has put forward a strong resolution that provides for four key things," he said, including "expanding the arms embargo across the entire territory of Sudan," applying the restrictions to all armed parties, making clear that it applies to drones, and strengthening surveillance of violations.
Earlier this month, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) led 20 senators in demanding that the Trump administration go beyond denouncing Sudan's paramilitary group and take "concrete action" to prevent more mass atrocities. They wrote that "these actions should include ceasing certain US arms sales to external actors that are fueling this war, including the United Arab Emirates, which continues to arm the RSF."
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IDF Condemned for Refusal to Probe Deadly Attacks on Doctors Without Borders, World Central Kitchen Staff
"This is not justice," said the healthcare charity. "Two years of silence, followed by closures that raise more questions than they answer, is unacceptable."
Aug 20, 2026
The international healthcare charity Médecins Sans Frontières on Thursday joined the humanitarian group World Central Kitchen in demanding that an "impartial investigative body" examine deadly Israeli attacks on its staffers in Gaza, following the Israeli military's announcement that it was closing the cases without opening a criminal investigation.
MSF, also known in English as Doctors Without Borders, noted that the decision by the Israeli military advocate general (MAG) did "not come as a surprise" and was "the predictable output of a military apparatus investigating itself."
The Israel Defense Forces and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, said the France-based organization, have proven themselves "unwilling to respond to the extent of violations that may amount to war crimes emerging from Gaza," with Israeli officials continuing to insist that the IDF has been targeting Hamas with its bombardment of Gaza—despite the fact that the death toll of more than 73,000 Palestinians includes at least 22,000 women and 20,000 children and that healthcare facilities, schools, and at least 92% of residential buildings have been destroyed or damaged in attacks.
In addition, said MSF, 15 staff members of the healthcare organization have been killed by Israeli forces since they began bombarding Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack in October 2023, including two who were killed in multiple attacks on an aid convoy in Gaza City in November 2023 and two who were killed in a strike on an MSF shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024.
"There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of civilians. And there is no internal military review that can substitute for genuine, independent, and impartial accountability."
MSF submitted those cases to the MAG for review, but along with an attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in April 2024, the military said there was no suspicion of criminal conduct in the assaults on MSF workers.
"This is not justice," said MSF. "Two years of silence, followed by closures that raise more questions than they answer, is unacceptable."
"MSF staff and their family members are dead. Their names are known," the group continued. "Their locations were shared. Their vehicles were identified. We have always maintained that all elements point to a clear responsibility of the Israeli army for the deadly attacks. And yet, those responsible for their deaths have declined to pursue any criminal investigation."
The decision by the MAG makes clear, said the group, that "there is no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians."
Following the MAG's announcement on Wednesday, World Central Kitchen issued a statement condemning Israel's "account of the deaths of our seven colleagues on April 1, 2024."
"We fundamentally disagree with their decision about criminal investigations into the IDF airstrikes that killed our team," said WCK. "There has never been any excuse or justification for the attacks, and there is nothing in this account that does so. The decision is inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive."
Israeli authorities did not issue a warning to WCK before it attacked the aid organization's convoy, which was traveling through what was supposed to be a deconflicted zone when it was struck.
"At the time of the lethal attacks, the IDF knew that our team in Gaza was unarmed and posing a threat to nobody. It had full visual clarity on our clearly marked humanitarian vehicles during the extended, multiple airstrikes. It knew our team’s movements, identities, and activities in advance," said WCK. "We continue to demand truth and justice for our team and their families. We continue to demand an independent commission to investigate the airstrikes because the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own conduct. And we continue to grieve the loss of our friends."
MSF stressed that Israel's decision to "close" the cases of the attacks "must be understood in their proper context: In Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Healthcare facilities have been destroyed. Humanitarian convoys have been struck. Journalists, medical personnel, UN personnel, and aid workers have been killed in numbers unprecedented in any recent conflict."
"MSF reaffirms what we have stated since the beginning of this violence: There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of civilians," said the group. "And there is no internal military review that can substitute for genuine, independent, and impartial accountability."
"To our colleagues we have lost," MSF added, "and to the countless civilians and humanitarian workers who have perished in Gaza: We will not let your deaths be filed away as procedural inevitabilities. You deserved protection. You deserve justice."
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94% of Palestinians in Gaza Need Shelter, Basic Aid to 'Live Safely and With Dignity'
Gaza is suffering from "a shelter crisis which runs far deeper than just physical damage."
Aug 20, 2026
It's been 10 months since a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but in addition to continued attacks on the exclave—in which more than 1,250 Palestinians have been killed since last October—households across Gaza are being endangered on a constant basis by "a shelter crisis which runs far deeper than just physical damage" to residential buildings, as the Norwegian Refugee Council said Thursday.
Ninety-four percent of the population—about 1.98 million people—are in need of shelter-related aid in order to "live safely and with dignity," said the group, "including fuel, energy, and essential household items."
The NRC and the International Organization for Migration lead the Palestine Shelter Cluster, which coordinates humanitarian aid focused on addressing shelter needs in Gaza and the West Bank. The organization's new report, "Exposed on All Sides," describes how funding shortfalls as well as Israel's continued restrictions on shelter materials have left the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza exposed to "serious health and safety risks."
The Shelter Cluster assessed nearly 2,000 household interviews conducted between June 14-28 in accessible areas in northern Gaza, Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis.
It categorized the households' severity of needs on a scale of 1-5, with conditions assessed as minimal, stressed, crisis, critical, or catastrophic. More than 4 in 5 households were facing critical or catastrophic conditions, with the families struggling the most described as living in conditions "so poor they were considered a risk to life." Just 12% of households were assessed as being in the least severe categories.
With Israel's bombardment of Gaza damaging or destroying approximately 92% of residential buildings, nearly two-thirds of families interviewed by the Shelter Cluster were living in tents or other makeshift shelters that were meant to be temporary.
"Ten months after the October 2025 ceasefire, most families have lived more than a year in shelters that were never designed for long-term accommodation."
More than half of those households had been living in the same tent for over a year, and more than half of the makeshift housing was in poor or very poor condition. More than 100,000 households are living in shelters with "major deterioration to flooring, walls, and frames," said NRC.
With fuel both unaffordable and difficult to obtain, daily tasks were challenging for the families assessed by the Shelter Cluster. Eighty-four percent of households said their solutions for heating their homes were mostly or entirely ineffective. Nearly 50% of households said they had been burning plastic, tires, garbage, or cardboard in order to prepare food.
"Their use for meal preparation presents serious health risks from toxic smoke and food contamination," reads the report.
Jehan Salim, national coordinator for the Shelter Cluster, emphasized that "a shelter is not adequate simply because it has four walls or a roof."
"Families need to be able to sleep, cook, wash, and keep their children safe inside it," said Salim. "Ten months after the October 2025 ceasefire, most families have lived more than a year in shelters that were never designed for long-term accommodation. The materials needed to repair homes, restore basic services, and provide improved shelters are still not entering Gaza at anything close to the scale required.”
Only 1 in 10 households received shelter materials or basic household assistance in the month prior to the survey, and the Shelter Cluster's partners in Gaza reported "very limited in-country stocks of tents, blankets, or mattresses" in June.
"The entry of shelter materials and equipment also remains constrained by strict and frequently changing entry restrictions. Long advance-notification requirements, repackaging rules, repeated submission processes, and unpredictable approvals can delay or prevent supplies from reaching Gaza, keeping available stocks low and limiting the quality and scale of the response," reads the report.
Israel's "dual-use" restrictions—which claim that everyday items for basic household needs could also be used for violent purposes by Hamas—have contributed to the chronically low supply of "fuel, solar energy equipment, construction and repair materials, heavy machinery, and debris-clearance equipment," said the Shelter Cluster.
"People remain in appalling conditions because Israeli restrictions are preventing even the most basic housing materials from entering Gaza," said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the NRC. "Without a rapid procurement of and access for materials, the coming winter will be catastrophic. Israel must lift its restrictions and allow for predictable entry of shelter materials."
The European Union, United Nations, and World Bank's Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) report earlier this year found that $26.3 billion was required in the first 18 months following the ceasefire deal to restore essential services, rebuild infrastructure, and support Gaza’s economic recovery. An estimated $71 billion will be needed over the next decade.
In May, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that its 2026 flash appeal for $4 billion was only 12% funded.
"Funding levels must be increased," said Egeland, "so that Palestinians families can get out of decaying temporary shelters and into something that provides more protection from the elements."
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Drone Attacks Drove Record-Breaking Violence Against Aid Workers in 2025: UN
A majority of aid workers who were killed last year died in attacks in Gaza, despite a ceasefire that was reached last October.
Aug 19, 2026
"The technology may change, but the laws of war do not," said the United Nations' top humanitarian official on Wednesday as the international community marked World Humanitarian Day—and a record number of violent attacks against aid workers in 2025, with the expanded use of drones partially driving the increased threat to workers' safety.
According to the Aid Worker Security Database and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 907 aid workers were killed, injured, or kidnapped last year.
Nearly 300 more were detained or arrested, said OCHA.
The number of humanitarians who were killed dropped slightly from the previous year, down to 350 from 387. But the death toll was the second highest ever recorded, and a majority of those killed—186—were attacked in Gaza, despite a "ceasefire" agreement that was reached last October.
More than two-thirds of those killed in Gaza were victims of aerial bombardment.
OCHA noted that "cheap and adaptable armed drones are putting lethal capabilities into more hands," with armies now able to wage more explosive attacks from afar and reach "deeper into towns and cities."
The prevalence of armed drones has been linked to 80% of civilian deaths in Sudan in the first four months of this year, while in Colombia, weaponized drone attacks quadrupled between 2024-25.
As the technology of war changes, said OCHA, "our humanity must not... Civilians, including humanitarians, must be protected."
One aid worker was killed in March in the Democratic Republic of Congo when a drone struck a residential building, while four humanitarian convoys were attacked by drones in a single week in May in Ukraine.
"Weaponized drones have become the new face of an old danger: the deliberate or reckless destruction of civilian life,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief.
“But just calling it out will not protect the next aid worker," Fletcher added. "States must uphold international humanitarian law and use every tool to protect civilians and our colleagues. And for those who break the rules, there must be real consequences."
So far in 2026, 82 aid workers have already been killed, while 322 have been injured and 235 have been kidnapped.
"On World Humanitarian Day, we honor humanitarian workers everywhere, and the courage and sacrifices they make every day to help others," said the global humanitarian group Oxfam. "We stand in solidarity with our staff and partners on the frontlines, often working at immense personal risk, and urge governments to uphold their obligations to protect them."
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‘Waiting to Die’: Gaza Cancer Patients Dying at More Than Double the Pre-War Rate as Israel Blocks Treatment
"I am dying. There isn't a feeling for me to even feel."
Aug 14, 2026
Israel is causing a wave of preventable cancer deaths in Gaza, leaving an estimated 17,000 people with no avenue for treatment.
As Reuters reported on Thursday, Israel has destroyed the only specialized cancer hospital in the strip and is preventing Palestinians from seeking treatment outside the exclave.
The result: Doctors say that cancer patients in Gaza are dying at between double and triple the rate they were before Israel began its genocidal war there. Israel's restrictions on aid entering Gaza have made chemotherapy and other forms of treatment inaccessible.
33-year-old Khuloud Abu Sahmoud, a mother of two with ovarian cancer who spoke with Reuters, has been waiting to exit Gaza for nearly a year to receive treatment.
According to Middle East Eye, she is one of at least 4,000 cancer patients in Gaza who have been issued medical referrals to leave the strip but who have been stuck waiting for final permission from Israeli authorities.
In the meantime, her cancer has metastasized to her lungs and bones.
"I am dying. There isn't a feeling for me to even feel," Sahmoud told Middle East Eye. "Every day my disease progresses."
She said that her fingernails have all fallen out and she has been left "just waiting to die."
"The border crossing for me is the only lifeline. The only vein for me to be saved, to receive treatment abroad," she said. "I haven't taken any treatment for three months. I'm living on painkillers."
She said she made her request to travel in October 2025 after a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas, which was supposed to allow for aid to flow freely into Gaza and for people to leave.
"There has been no response to any appeal so far," Sahmoud said. "We haven't received any calls."
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military authority responsible for administering civilian matters in Gaza, has denied that it is blocking Palestinians from receiving treatment, with a spokesperson stating that permission to travel is "wholly dependent on the receiving country's request.”
But the agency's own medical evacuation procedure requires that every patient leaving Gaza undergoes Israeli security screening and “will not be approved if there are security reasons that prevent their passage.”
Israel has also imposed strict numerical restrictions on the number of people allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing, the main exit point from the strip.
Palestinian health officials said only about 11,000 people in total—not just cancer patients—have been allowed to exit since the crossing reopened in February, an average of about 55-60 people per calendar day. This is fewer than half the number who were expected to leave following the ceasefire.
According to Reuters, "a further 20,000 patients, including 5,000 with cancer, are registered for treatment abroad but not yet permitted to leave."
All of the 36 hospitals and most primary healthcare facilities in Gaza have sustained damage from Israeli attacks, with only around half even partially functioning, according to the World Health Organization. As of the ceasefire, WHO reported that more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, have been killed.
"Since the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, among the most severely affected groups by this extermination are oncology and cancer patients," said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, which has been repeatedly raided, besieged, and damaged, and has just recently restarted oncology services.
Selmia said this is because of the restrictions on the entry of chemotherapy treatments and Israel's destruction of diagnostic equipment, including MRI facilities.
"This group is suffering immensely," he said. "Recently, we have been recording a significant number of deaths ranging from three to five daily because patients are not receiving the chemotherapy needed to save their lives."
The official death toll from Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023 sits at 73,389, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. But this only includes violent deaths from the war itself.
Independent analyses have suggested that the true death toll is much higher when factoring in those who have perished due to disease and starvation as a result of Israel's attacks on medical facilities, civilian infrastructure, and restrictions on aid.
Another cancer patient, Elham al-Skafi, said, "They stopped giving me chemotherapy because it is not available in Gaza."
"I come in to get nutritional fluids, just so I can stay on my feet, and blood transfusions," she said. "That is what is currently available. This is what I take."
She said she's had a transfer referral for over a year and a half now to leave the country for treatment.
"I am sitting and waiting," she said. "If the crossings were open, I would have left."
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At Least 1 Million Women and Girls Have Lost Aid Access After Global Cuts Led by Trump
"Every dollar withdrawn from women's organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school, and communities struggling to survive."
Jul 10, 2026
At least 1 million women and girls in conflict and disaster zones around the world have lost access to humanitarian aid as a result of massive funding cuts by the US under the Trump administration and other developed nations.
A report out on Friday from the United Nations Women's Program surveyed over 800 women's organizations across 52 countries, which provide emergency supplies, shelter to women fleeing violence, financial assistance to those in need, healthcare, mental health services, childcare, and treatment for sexual violence, among other support.
Sofia Calltorp, chief of humanitarian action for UN Women, described these organizations as "the muscle and lifeblood of the humanitarian response" in some of the world's most vulnerable war zones and disaster areas, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Yemen.
But according to the report, since January 2025, 90% of these groups say they cannot meet current needs, and 60% say they are reaching fewer women and girls than before.
Three-quarters of the groups say that as a result of the cuts they have been forced to reduce staff, and four in ten expect to close in the next 12 months.
At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump conducted a sweeping and abrupt purge of US humanitarian aid, which fell from $14.1 billion in 2024 to just $3.4 billion in 2025.
Immediately after taking office, he froze all foreign assistance. And under the leadership of the world's first trillionaire, Elon Musk, and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his administration suddenly canceled most funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), cutting development assistance by more than $40 billion, including over $10 billion in humanitarian assistance.
The US had previously provided 40% of all global humanitarian aid, and its stripping of funds was by far the most devastating. It was made worse when other nations, including France, Germany, and the UK, also cut billions as part of what is predicted to be a collective 28% reduction in aid from Group of 7 nations by the end of 2026, according to the Women's Refugee Commission.
As a report from Refugees International found, the Trump administration's cuts were especially targeted at programs that served women and girls around the world. They canceled 88% of maternal and child health funding, 94% of sexual and reproductive health funding, and 80% of gender-based violence prevention funding.
"Every dollar withdrawn from women's organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school, and communities struggling to survive," Calltorp said.
The effects on the women who benefit from these programs have been swift and brutal, especially as global conflicts become more widespread and deadly.
While cases of conflict-related sexual violence doubled in 2025, nearly two-thirds of the women's groups surveyed said that the number of safe spaces and gender-based violence services has been significantly reduced or completely eliminated in their communities.
"Behind these numbers are devastating consequences," the UN said in a statement. "A woman seeking refuge from violence might show up at the door of a shelter that has shut down; a pregnant woman may have to walk for hours to reach a health clinic; or a mother may be denied food for her children."
“If I had funding, I would have supported her… helped her heal and rebuild her life."
The report contains testimony from leaders of some of the organizations bearing the burden of the cuts. To protect them from harm, the report did not include their names or the organizations they worked for.
A representative from one women-led organization in Sudan told UN Women that the cuts have forced them to scale back their services and resources.
As a result, one 17-year-old survivor of sexual violence went untreated for four days. She became pregnant before later attempting suicide and died after six months.
“If I had funding, I would have supported her… helped her heal and rebuild her life," said a representative from the organization.
Nine out of 10 organizations said they'd seen increases in poverty among women they serve, 8 in 10 have seen increases in girls dropping out of school, and 7 in 10 have seen an increase in forced marriage.
“Due to a lack of outreach workers in one neighborhood, within a few months we observed a sharp rise in adolescent pregnancies," said the representative of one organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Another group in the DRC said that they were forced to put more than 1,500 women-led households on waiting lists for aid.
"The most affected groups are single mothers and their children, for whom postponing support has worsened food insecurity and malnutrition," the group said.
"The cuts to women’s organizations are happening at the same time we are seeing women’s rights being eroded—and these two things are so deeply connected," Calltorp said.
Nearly two-thirds of the organizations also said that their staff was working without pay so they could continue providing support to the women and girls who needed them despite the cuts.
"These sacrifices are a testament to their commitment, but the expectation cannot be that women absorb these costs," Calltorp said.
She called for "immediate action from donors and the humanitarian community to prioritize funding for women’s organizations," adding, "We will not and cannot allow them to become another casualty of war."
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