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oxfam
100 Days Into 'Ceasefire,' Israel Still Deliberately Depriving Gazans of Water, Other Essential Aid: Oxfam
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," said one water utility official.
Jan 14, 2026
Along with continuing its killing of Palestinians in Gaza and its destruction of civilian infrastructure more than three months after a "ceasefire" deal was reached, the Israeli government is violating the agreement by continuing to block humanitarian aid from entering the exclave—making it impossible for aid groups to ensure people there have adequate water as extreme weather makes the problem even worse.
As 100 days since the ceasefire agreement were marked Wednesday, international aid group Oxfam described the work it's been doing to try to restore water wells and other crucial infrastructure, but warned that Israel's decision to block 37 humanitarian organizations—including two Oxfam chapters—has made it difficult to provide Palestinians with a sustainable water supply.
As aid flows have continued to be restricted by Israel, Oxfam workers have been working "around the clock with experts from local partner organizations, to restore vital water wells—even sifting through rubble to salvage and repurpose damaged materials, including sheet metal," the group said.
They've managed to restore wells in Gaza City and Khan Younis and are now providing at least 156,000 residents with water, but parts of Gaza "remain inaccessible and construction costs have also doubled, due to the lack of materials being allowed in," said Oxfam.
“We did not just re-open these wells," said Wassem Mushtaha, Gaza response lead for Oxfam. "We have been solving a moving puzzle under the siege and restrictions to make the wells operational—salvaging parts, repurposing equipment, and paying inflated prices to get critical components, all while trying to keep our teams safe."
Mushtaha emphasized that Oxfam has over $2 million worth of "aid and water and sanitation equipment ready to enter Gaza," but Israeli authorities have repeatedly refused to allow the materials to enter since March 2025.
Oxfam has managed to reach more than 1.3 million people in Gaza with assistance since October 2023, when Israel began bombarding the exclave and blocking humanitarian relief in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, but 1.1 million people are still in "urgent need of assistance in the harsh winter conditions," which have included freezing temperatures and intense polar winds in recent days.
That storm killed at least seven children, and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder emphasized Wednesday that they died because the "man-made shortage" of food and medicine had left them defenseless against the conditions.
“We are talking about layers upon layers of rejection [of aid],” Elder told Al Jazeera.
A recent survey by Oxfam found that despite the ceasefire agreement, 87% of people in Khan Younis and Gaza City still had no access to basic essentials and 89% were depending on unsustainable water trucking "to get just the bare minimum level of water needed to survive."
A Palestinian refugee named Nahla told the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East that "water decides everything. How much we drink, how we cook, how we clean our children."
More than 80% of water networks, pumping stations, main lines, tanks, and wells have been destroyed, and of Gaza's three water desalination plants, just one is operational.
Damage to sewer systems has caused overflow which is compounded by flooding, raising the risk of the spread of diseases. Eighty-four percent of households reported members of their families had suffered from outbreaks of disease in recent weeks.
"Yet basic equipment like water pumps, sandbags, and construction materials such as timber and plywood needed to reinforce shelters and drainage are delayed or rejected under 'dual-use' restrictions and bureaucratic clearance processes," Oxfam said, with Israeli authorities claiming the materials can't enter Gaza because they could feasibly be used as weapons.
Monther Shoblaq, director general of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, one of Oxfam's partners, commended the group's staff for "going to such lengths to bring water access to those who need it so desperately," and noted that "the equipment needed is just across the border, blocked from entry."
"Agencies are having to resort to salvaging materials from the rubble of bombed water infrastructure and the remains of people’s homes, repurposing parts, and paying inflated prices," said Shoblaq. "This is the direct result of Israeli restrictions, last-resort measures forced by siege conditions."
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," Shoblaq added. "Water deprivation is just one of the many human rights violations Israel has undertaken with impunity. Oxfam and other organizations who have operated in Gaza for decades must be allowed to respond at the scale."
More than 440 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the so-called "ceasefire" began, and more than 2,500 residential buildings have been destroyed.
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Gaza No Longer Officially Facing Famine—But 1.6 Million Palestinians Still in 'Man-Made Hunger Crisis'
"To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job," said the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Dec 19, 2025
While the global initiative that tracks hunger crises concluded Friday that the Gaza Strip is no longer facing "famine," the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report echoed warnings from United Nations leaders and humanitarian groups that "the situation remains critical" for Palestinians who have endured over two years of an Israeli assault and blockade.
Famine was declared in August, sparking a worldwide outrage over what one research group called "genocidal starvation." The new IPC report—released after an October ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel—says that "following a significant reduction in conflict, a proposed peace plan, and improved access for both humanitarian and commercial food deliveries, food security conditions have improved in the Gaza Strip."
However, the report also notes that between mid-October and the end of November, "around 1.6 million people (77% of the population analyzed) faced high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above)," including "more than half a million people in emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 100,000 people in catastrophe (IPC Phase 5)."
Those conditions—over three-quarters of Gaza's population at risk of famine—are expected to continue through April. In other words, as Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), put it, "Gaza remains in a man-made hunger crisis."
The latest IPC report "underscores how fragile the gains have been since the ceasefire began in October," he said on social media. "To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job. UNRWA has food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for the entire population waiting to enter the Gaza Strip."
As the Associated Press reported Friday, while Israeli government agencies rejected the IPC findings, humanitarian leaders and Palestinians have highlighted all that the people of Gaza continue to endure because of Israel's war on the strip:
"This is not a debate about truck numbers or calories on paper. It's about whether people can actually access food, clean water, shelter, and healthcare safely and consistently. Right now, they cannot," said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
People must be able to rebuild their homes, grow food, and recover, and the conditions for that are still being denied, she said.
Even with more products in the markets, Palestinians say they can't afford it. "There is food and meat, but no one has money," said Hany al-Shamali, who was displaced from Gaza City. "How can we live?"
Earlier this week, the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which brings together heads of UN entities and over 200 nongovernmental organizations, urged the international community to "take immediate and concrete actions to press the Israeli authorities to lift all impediments," including a new registration process for NGOs, that continue to undermine lifesaving operations, "or risk the collapse of the humanitarian response, particularly in the Gaza Strip."
The team emphasized that "humanitarian access is not optional, conditional, or political. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, particularly in Gaza, where Israel has failed to ensure that the population is adequately supplied. Israeli authorities must allow and facilitate rapid, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief. They must immediately reverse policies that obstruct humanitarian operations and ensure that humanitarian organizations are able to operate without compromising humanitarian principles. Lifesaving assistance must be allowed to reach Palestinians without further delay."
Israel has killed at least 70,669 Palestinians in the strip and wounded 171,165 others since launching its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday. Experts have warned that the true death toll is likely far higher.
Winter storms are exacerbating already dire conditions in Gaza, including by damaging and destroying shelters of displaced people. Oxfam's humanitarian director, Marta Valdes García, said Friday that "with 1.6 million people found to be facing acute food insecurity... we are incredibly concerned that winter is already bringing flooding and more misery to thousands of hungry people with little or no money, who are now exposed in terrible living conditions."
Multiple infants have died of hypothermia in recent days, including a 14-day-old named Mohammed, whose family is living in a tent after being displaced from their home in the east of Khan Younis. His mother, Eman Abu al-Khair, told Al Jazeera that "I can still hear his tiny cries in my ears... I sleep and drift off, unable to believe that his crying and waking me at night will never happen again."
"His body was cold as ice. His hands and feet were frozen, his face stiff and yellowish, and he was barely breathing... I woke my husband immediately so we could take him to the hospital, but he couldn't find any means of transportation to get us there," the 34-year-old recalled. "As soon as daylight broke, we rushed with an animal-drawn cart towards the hospital... But unfortunately, we arrived too late. His condition was already critical."
Another 29-day-old baby, Saeed Eseid Abdeen, was declared dead at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Thursday, according to Drop Site News and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
A fourth child has frozen to death in Gaza in just 10 days—two of them babies—as Israel continues blocking tents and winter shelter aid, despite UN supplies pre-positioned at the border that could immediately shelter more than 1.3 million displaced Palestinians.
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) December 18, 2025 at 7:41 PM
"Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival," Bilal Abu Saada, nursing team supervisor at Nasser Hospital, said in a statement from MSF. "Babies are arriving to the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs: Even our best efforts are not enough. They say the war has ended, but people are still having to fight for their lives."
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'Horrible Scenes' in Gaza as Winter Storm Compounds Vicious Impacts of Israel's Genocidal Blockade
"This suffering is being manufactured by policy, not weather," said a humanitarian aid coordinator for Oxfam.
Dec 16, 2025
Makeshift tents billowing furiously in the wind. Children wading through ankle-high water. A young boy futilely beating back an oncoming wave with nothing but a broom.
These are just a few of the scenes that came out of Gaza in recent days as its population of nearly 2 million people was beset by heavy rainfall and punishing winds from Storm Byron, which hit late last week.
According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem, more than 1.3 million Palestinians in the territory are without proper shelter following more than two years of relentless Israeli bombing, which destroyed or damaged over 90% of housing units.
"The conditions are catastrophic, I must say," Jonathan Crickx, the chief of communication for the UN Children's Fund, told PBS News. "I've been in many, many tents in the past two days, and the tents are completely flooded. I met with tens of children. Their clothes are wet, the mattresses in the tents are completely soaked. And those children, they are cold."
At least three children, including two infants and a 9-year-old, died from hypothermia or cold exposure within a 24-hour period. Another five were crushed after a house sheltering displaced civilians collapsed due to the storm. As of Friday, at least 14 people were reported dead from the storm, and several more are injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security.
"Civilians are now wading through sewage, mud, and debris, with no proper shelter," said Bushra Khalidi, the policy lead for Oxfam in the occupied Palestinian territories. "This is not a failure of preparedness or capacity; it's the direct result of the systematic obstruction of aid."
"The Israeli authorities continue to block the entry of basic shelter materials, fuel, and water infrastructure, leaving people exposed to entirely preventable harm," Khalidi continued. "When access is denied, storms become deadly. This suffering is being manufactured by policy, not weather."
Under the terms of the "ceasefire" agreement signed between Israel and Hamas in October, Israel was required to allow more than 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day. But according to UN data published earlier this month, just 113 trucks per day on average have been allowed to enter the strip, less than a fifth of the agreed-upon amount.
The Rafah crossing, the largest entry point for aid, still remains almost totally closed after being opened briefly during the first week of the ceasefire. Israel said earlier this month that it may soon reopen the crossing, but only to allow for the exit of Palestinians.
"Without question, the Israelis and their persistent bureaucracy have prevented us from bringing in the necessary shelter that would provide adequate dwellings for the people living in Gaza," said Chris McIntosh, Oxfam's humanitarian response adviser in the territory.
In the crowded coastal area of al-Mawasi, he said, some residents have been left with little to protect themselves from the elements but blankets and flimsy tarpaulin.
"Obviously, a blanket is not going to do much against torrential downpours and winds that are at nearly gale force," he said. "The Israelis have not permitted these tents to enter the Gaza Strip, not for many months... The population is bracing for a very, very tragic situation right now."
Official estimates put the death toll in Gaza at more than 70,600 since October 7, 2023, including more than 300 who have been killed during the ceasefire period across hundreds of attacks by Israel in violation of the agreement. But other independent studies, which take indirect effects of the genocide, like malnutrition and disease, into account, place the death toll much higher.
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