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humanitarian aid
With Aid Blocked and 'At Least 2 Children a Day' Killed or Maimed, NGOs Say Trump's Gaza Ceasefire Is Failing
"This is not peace for children in Gaza," said one humanitarian leader. "The ceasefire agreement has not translated into meaningful protection for children or created conditions for recovery."
Apr 09, 2026
Five leading humanitarian organizations that have spent two-and-a-half years advocating for Palestinians suffering under Israel's US-backed onslaught in Gaza released an analysis Thursday of the conditions on the ground six months into a so-called "ceasefire," and their message was clear: the Trump administration's 20-point peace plan is "failing" to end the devastation of the exclave.
The Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International, and Save the Children led the assessment that's detailed in the groups' "Humanitarian Scorecard," released exactly six months after the truce was called.
As Common Dreams has reported, Israeli strikes in Gaza did not halt after the ceasefire agreement was reached in October, and at least 700 Palestinians have been killed in the past six months, including more than 180 children.
“At least two children a day have been killed or injured in the six months since the ceasefire for Gaza was agreed,” said Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing. "This is not peace for children in Gaza. The ceasefire agreement has not translated into meaningful protection for children or created conditions for recovery."
Alarmingly, despite the continuation of Israeli attacks, the groups found that the category of "ceasefire and civilian protection" was the area in which the truce agreement has been closest to success. The scorecard rated civilian protection two points out of four and said it is currently in a "fragile" but not "failing" state. While attacks have continued, the groups said, "sustained bombardment" has halted.
The other three areas the scorecard rated—humanitarian aid access, reconstruction and economic development, and freedom of movement of return—are all "failing" to be implemented under the ceasefire deal that President Donald Trump said would begin a "new day" in Gaza.
Israel and the "Board of Peace" Trump established have especially failed to ensure access to humanitarian aid, with the scorecard rating that category zero out of 10 points.
There are still fewer than 100 aid trucks delivering aid each day to a population that was almost entirely cut off from relief for two years, causing more than 360 people, including at least 130 children, to starve to death before the ceasefire deal was reached. The 20-point peace plan had indicated there should be at least 600 aid trucks entering Gaza daily and that border crossings would be reopened, but the Rafah and Jordan crossings are still "effectively closed," and only a Kerem Shalom crossing is open for aid.
"Even [the ceasefire's] humanitarian provisions—the most straightforward to implement—remain obstructed," said Ashing. "We are ready to scale up and support the people of Gaza, but we must be allowed to do our jobs.”
Israel is still restricting deliveries of what it calls "dual-use" materials that the Israeli government claims could be used as weapons; the list of banned items has included scissors in medical kits, anesthetics, shelter supplies, cancer medicines, and maternity kits. Fuel is also still "severely restricted," the scorecard reads.
“Six months into the so-called ceasefire in Gaza, we are seeing a continuation of the designed deprivation that we saw throughout the hostilities,” said Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk. “Palestinians are experiencing severe malnutrition and preventable deaths every day because many cannot reliably access basic food or services. Both the terms of the ceasefire deal and the core tenets of international humanitarian law require that humanitarian goods enter Gaza, and that humanitarians can do their jobs to save lives. The deal signed last year rightly committed to this—it is time to deliver on those commitments.”
With Israel allowing "only a handful of traders to import supplies and goods" and requiring "exorbitant 'coordination fees' for every truck," families in Gaza are also facing "exceedingly high prices on vital goods and supplies," the scorecard reads. Food items are anywhere from 3% to 233% more expensive than they were before Israel began attacking Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
The 20-point plan also pledged to redevelop Gaza "for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough," with "a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza" being created by a panel of experts "who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” A special economic zone (SEZ) with preferred tariff and access rates would also be established.
Six months later, the SEZ has yet to be created, and no formal development plan has been convened, the humanitarian groups found.
The World Bank created a new Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) called the Gaza Reconstruction and Development (GRAD) fund in coordination with the Board of Peace, but its role is only as a limited trustee, with no responsibility for how funds are spent," reads the scorecard.
The category of freedom of movement was rated one out of six points, with credit given for the fact that some Palestinians have been able to reenter Gaza with the limited reopening of the Rafah crossing in recent weeks.
Other than that, "most of the population" is still displaced after 90% of Gaza residents were forced to flee their homes, and most are unable to leave or return to Gaza. Returns are not permitted at all beyond the Yellow Line marking the Israeli "buffer zone" established by the ceasefire, and there is also a "major backlog of people" awaiting medical evacuations, with some people dying while they wait for care.
“Six months into the ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza are still facing a daily struggle to survive. President Trump promised to lead an extraordinary recovery and declared a ‘new day’ for Gaza. Instead, his plan for peace is stalling and his attention has turned away from the crisis,” said Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman.
"Palestinians are still experiencing more of the same: going to bed hungry in flooded tents, facing long lines for clean water, and succumbing to diseases and injuries without a healthcare system or basic medical supplies," said Maxman. "All while the government of Israel drops bombs and cuts off vital, lifesaving assistance with US support. We cannot look away—Palestinians in Gaza need our support and pressure on our leaders to deliver on the promise of peace now more than ever.”
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What I Saw in Cuba? Resilience
What I witnessed over those days was not the Cuba of Western propaganda. It was a country enduring a 66-year siege, and a people who, against all odds, continue to build, create, and care for one another.
Mar 28, 2026
I traveled to Cuba this month. As a Cuban American, that sentence carries the weight of longing born of an estrangement from my roots. For much of my life, Cuba existed as a distant story, a place I knew only through descriptions from my father.
I was there as part of an international solidarity convoy; over 500 representatives from more than 30 countries, united by a simple conviction: No country has the right to strangle another simply because it chose a different path. I cannot stand by while the island of my family’s heritage is suffocated.
What I witnessed over those days was not the Cuba of Western propaganda. It was a country enduring a 66-year siege, and a people who, against all odds, continue to build, create, and care for one another.
A Public Health System Under Siege
One of the most profound visits was to a neighborhood polyclinic in Havana. These clinics are the backbone of Cuba’s public health system. Doctors live on the second floor, above where they work. They know every patient in their community by name. They treat physical and psychological health alike, and they embody a model of care that prioritizes people over profit.
I saw a people who are already free—free to define their own destiny, even under the weight of a siege designed to break them.
But the doctors I met face heartbreaking constraints. They are highly trained professionals who know exactly what their patients need, and they know those treatments exist. Due to the US embargo, they cannot access them. Imagine living every day with the skill to heal and being blocked by a political and economic siege.
We brought what we could: 6,300 pounds of medical supplies delivered by our delegation, including neonatal equipment, analgesics, catheters, and other critical materials, valued at $433,000 and more still in unquantifiable amounts stuffed into carry-on and personal bags, sacrificing space for our own clothing and toiletries. Cuban doctors told us about nights when the power goes out, and medical students rush to respirators, manually pumping air for hours until electricity is restored. They save lives with their bare hands.
Community and Creativity in the Face of Scarcity
Everywhere we went, I saw people organizing to survive. In a central Havana neighborhood, we helped refurbish a crumbling playground. We brought paint and new swings. A local man who maintains the park offered to take the swings down each night so they wouldn’t be taken, then put them back up each morning for the children. That kind of mutual care was everywhere.
We met an artist named Lázaro, who collects garbage and old newspapers to create recycled art. He teaches neighborhood kids to do the same. His studio walls are covered in vibrant works that double as expressions of resistance and creativity.
On another day, we set up a table outside Lázaro’s studio with construction paper, markers, and glue. Children from the neighborhood gathered to write letters to pen pals in Singapore. I translated letters from English to Spanish, helping each child respond in Spanish and illustrate their replies. Parents played drums and danced while the kids painted and wrote. It was a profound moment of cross-border connection—kids building relationships through art and translation, across continents, across the blockade.
For Cuban Americans, there is something like a spiritual cost that is paid for quietly going along with the status quo in the face of the many injustices we have grown up with for decades, which seem to us to have intensified in these recent years. But the children I saw in Havana had their spirit intact.
The Human Cost of the Embargo
The blockade is not an abstraction. Poverty is real. I gave what I could, but as individuals, we cannot meet that scale of need brought upon by a systemic crisis created by US policy.
I came back with a deeper sense of what solidarity looks like: showing up, listening, sharing what we can, and staying connected to the work.
Rolling blackouts on the island are the result of a strategy of siege warfare intensified in January. Cuba has gone months without fuel imports due to sanctions and naval pressure aimed at stopping oil shipments to the island. Power plants cannot run consistently. Hospitals cannot perform necessary surgeries. Water pumping infrastructure fails. This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made violence; it is a silent war.
And yet, the Cuban people do not wait for rescue. They organize. They adapt. They invent.
Solidarity and a Call to Action
As a Cuban American, I have heard all my life that Cuba is a country ruled by capricious autocrats. That the Cuban people are waiting to be liberated. That their strangulation is meant to help them. But standing on that island, talking to doctors and artists and children and families, I saw something else entirely. I saw a people who are already free—free to define their own destiny, even under the weight of a siege designed to break them.
Cuba is open to dialogue and investment with respect for its sovereignty. But the US continues to enforce a policy that even much of the world condemns. Year after year, the United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to end the embargo. Year after year, the US ignores it.
I came back with a deeper sense of what solidarity looks like: showing up, listening, sharing what we can, and staying connected to the work. But solidarity cannot end after a single delegation. We need to break the siege. We need to end this decades-long economic warfare.
Cubans have a right to self-governance. They have a right to medicine, to electricity, to water, to dignity. My father chose to leave Cuba in the face of poverty brought on by a cruel sanctions regime. I chose to return for the same reason.
Let Cuba live.
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Aid Group Warns US-Israeli War on Iran Has Unleashed ‘Triple Emergency’ With Devastating Consequences for Millions
“With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world,” said one advocate.
Mar 20, 2026
The US-Israeli war against Iran has unleashed a "triple emergency" that is draining the global humanitarian aid system of resources and putting millions of the world's most vulnerable people at even greater risk, according to a dire warning issued Friday by the International Rescue Committee.
The war has already resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of millions of people in Iran and Lebanon. But the IRC says that the ripple effects of the war are beginning to spread to conflict zones across the world.
The conflict has caused many nations in the region to partially or fully close their airspace, leaving critical cargo stranded.
Meanwhile, Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks has disrupted the flow of more than 20% of the world’s oil exports, sharply raising transport costs and straining budgets that could go toward lifesaving aid.
“Medical aid is highly dependent on international transport,” said Willem Zuidema, Save the Children’s global supply chain director. “The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, combined with spiking cost for insurance and fuel, is directly impacting patients in our health facilities, at the worst time possible.”
IRC said $130,000 worth of pharmaceutical aid intended for its humanitarian response to the conflict in Sudan has been left stranded in Dubai due to the strait's closure.
According to Save the Children, this delay has put 90 primary healthcare facilities across Sudan at risk of running low on supplies.
More than 400,000 children, the group estimated, could be affected by the inability to receive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, pain and fever medications, and other treatments.
The group said it has been forced to deliver the aid using the much more costly method of transporting it across Jeddah, where it will be carried by sea freight to Sudan, which the group said could add as much as $1,000-2,000 per container.
The same is true of humanitarian zones in Afghanistan and Yemen, where treatments for thousands of children must now be delivered by air or by land, dramatically raising the costs.
The closure of the strait has also forced many vessels carrying aid to find alternative routes. IRC said its shipping partners have been forced to reroute their operations to instead travel around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding up to a month for ocean freight deliveries to war zones on the continent.
"What we are seeing is the war in Iran unleashing a triple emergency," said David Milliband, the president and CEO of IRC.
"First, a surge in humanitarian need, with Lebanon now the most visible humanitarian scar and one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world, with over one million people forced from their homes in weeks," he said.
"Second, a global economic shock, as disruptions to food, fuel, and fertilizer markets, putting up to 30% of fertilizer trade at risk, threatens more than 300 million people already facing acute food insecurity," said Milliband, and "third, a system under strain, with more than 60 conflicts stretching diplomatic attention and funding to a breaking point, pushing crises like Sudan and Gaza further down the list of priorities."
Milliband marveled at the priorities of the powers prosecuting the war. He pointed to a recent estimate from the Pentagon that the first six days of the war alone cost $11.3 billion, noting that "just $4 billion is enough to pay for treatment for every acutely malnourished child in the world."
Zuidema said that the "grave ripple effects" caused by the war are exacerbated by the fact that "governments are cutting vital foreign aid budgets."
He called on all parties to the war to cease hostilities and to adhere to their obligations under international law, including allowing the free flow of humanitarian aid.
“There should be no barriers to lifesaving supplies: Exemptions should be put in place to allow humanitarian supplies, fertilizer, and food to be able to move through the Strait of Hormuz,” Zuidema said. “With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world.”
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