Palestinians in Gaza fear the world has forgotten them as the war between the US, Israel and Iran engulfs the broader Middle East.
Six months after the ceasefire in Gaza began, many Palestinians are still living in incredibly difficult conditions.
Heavy and unseasonably late rains have continued to batter the strip well into April, inundating tent communities that are home to hundreds of thousands of people.
Israeli strikes against claimed Hamas targets have also continued in Gaza in recent weeks, despite the ceasefire, as the country’s military has attacked Iran and the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Several strikes have hit tent camps in Gaza or their surroundings.
In the Al-Sit Amira tent camp, south of Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, 46-year-old Rana Khdeir was trying to find a new place to stay after her fragile shelter was all but destroyed in an Israeli bombing.
“This is the biggest proof that the war is not over,”
she said.
Rana Khdeir’s fragile shelter was all but destroyed in an Israeli bombing. (ABC News)
Ms Khdeir and her family were originally from Beit Lahiya in Gaza’s north — an area that was all but levelled as the IDF sought to create a buffer zone along the border with Israel.
“We don’t know [what to do]. I will go and see a tent of one of my neighbours, and spend there the night with my husband and children, until God will make it easier,” she said.
“The most important thing we know is that they forgot us.”
An Israeli strike hit a nearby area while the ABC was there filming, injuring residents and destroying temporary shelters.
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Nearby, Fatima Hamdona, 55, was mending her tent after the heavy rain. Her family had been displaced from the Al Bureij camp in central Gaza.
“We have been soaked in water, and our mattresses are soaked, our clothes are soaked, our tent is soaked — we don’t have a tent to protect us,” she said.
Ms Hamdona’s husband was killed in the war, and her son was injured. He is currently receiving medical treatment outside Gaza.
“This is not a life. As you see, it seems that Gaza has been forgotten. No-one cares about us,”
she said.
Fatima Hamdona’s tent was damaged and inundated by heavy rain. (ABC News)
In the six months since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was agreed, 765 people have been killed in Israeli strikes and 2,140 injured.
Israel insists it is targeting Hamas militants, although many women, children and the elderly are among the dead.
Iran war worsens humanitarian conditions
Economist Mohammad Abu-Jiyab, editor of the Gaza newspaper Al-Iqtisadiya, said 90 per cent of Gaza’s population was living below the poverty line.
He said the war had led to the “destruction or crippling” of much of the strip’s economy, including more than 75 per cent of the agricultural sector.
“The Iranian war comes to add more complexity to this humanitarian reality in Gaza,”
he said.
“There is a decline … in the level of humanitarian aid, and also in the levels of commercial goods, and the rise in prices is noticeable in local markets in Gaza.”
Mohammad Abu-Jiyab says most of Gaza’s population is poor. (ABC News)
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only border crossing from Gaza that does not open into Israel, was closed for a fortnight at the start of the war with Iran.
It had been closed for nearly two years during the Gaza war, and was only reopened again a few weeks before the Iran war broke out.
Humanitarian agencies and health authorities argued that closing the crossing again put lives at risk, as people in need of medical evacuation from the strip could not pass through.
“We have in the Gaza Strip more than 20,000 sick and wounded that are in need of medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip,” said Khalil Dijran, a spokesperson for the territory’s health ministry.
“More than 1,500 of the sick and wounded have already died because of two years of waiting, and there are about 4,500 children that are in need for treatment outside the Gaza Strip.”
Khalil Dijran says the situation in the strip is dire. (ABC News)
While Rafah was closed for a fortnight, some medical evacuations were allowed through other crossings — specifically Kerem Shalom, which is controlled by Israel — and medical cases have now recommenced crossing through the border.
Dr Dijran feared the situation would only continue to deteriorate, and the need for medical treatment would increase — putting further pressure on a crumbling health system.
“The residents are living in poor conditions, especially as we are in the winter … the rain has polluted these tents, and the environment has become fertile for the spread of diseases and epidemics,” he said.
“Hospitals are suffering from very bad conditions in light of [a] major lack of medication … medical supplies and equipment.”
Israel denies aid difficulties
The agency within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responsible for coordinating services in Gaza, COGAT, has repeatedly rejected claims it has restricted aid, insisting sufficient supplies are entering the strip.
It said hundreds of trucks carrying food and other supplies had been entering, even while extra restrictions were put in place due to the war with Iran.
“It should be emphasised that throughout the [Gaza] ceasefire, significant quantities of humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, including food in volumes amounting to four times the estimated needs according to the UN’s methodology,” COGAT posted on X on March 30.
Tent cities cover large parts of Gaza’s coastline. (ABC News)
While almost all the supplies entered through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, COGAT said that deliveries were made through the Zikim crossing in the north after the ceasefire with Iran.
US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, established as part of the Gaza ceasefire process, has only met once since it was formed — and that was before the Iran war began.
In the middle of that conflict, the board’s representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, told the United Nations Security Council a plan had been laid out for how the ceasefire could progress — particularly the disarmament of Hamas.
But he warned the world must not be distracted.
“As tensions in the region escalate with Israeli and US operations against the regime in Iran and Israel’s operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, with continuing drone and rocket attacks by Iran and Gulf countries and global shipping and energy threatened by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we should not lose sight of the situation in Gaza,” he said in late March.
