Ceasefire fails to ease Gaza’s suffering amid ongoing Israeli attacks
Over 80 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure lies in ruins as residents endure precarious living conditions and limited aid.
Sitting inside his tent in Gaza City, Mahmoud Abdel Aal voices deep frustration and anxiety, saying life in the Palestinian enclave has seen no meaningful improvement since the United States-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect.
“There is no difference between war and ceasefire, or between the first and second phases of the agreement. Strikes are still happening every day,” Abdel Aal told AFP. “People are living in constant fear and frustration because nothing has changed.”
Israeli attacks have continued across Gaza, with at least 463 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began in October last year. Following Wednesday’s announcement of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, more than 14 people were reportedly killed, according to Gaza’s civil defense authorities.
Against a backdrop of flattened buildings and rain-soaked displacement camps, Palestinians describe a pervasive sense of bitterness and despair. Although the intensity of Israeli strikes has declined since the ceasefire, daily bombardments persist.
On Friday, an AFP photographer captured members of the Houli family navigating piles of debris after an air strike killed five of their relatives in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.
For most residents, daily life remains extremely fragile. The United Nations estimates that more than 80 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Water and electricity systems have collapsed, waste management has ceased, and hospitals are operating at minimal capacity—if at all. Education has been reduced to sporadic initiatives. UNICEF reports that every child in Gaza now requires psychological support after more than two years of genocidal war.
“We miss real life,” said Nivine Ahmad, a 47-year-old displaced woman living in a camp in the southern al-Mawasi area, as she longs to return to her home in Gaza City.
“I imagined living with my family in a prefabricated shelter, with electricity and running water, instead of our destroyed home,” she said. “Only then will I feel that the war has truly ended.”
Until that day comes, she appealed to the international community to empathize with Palestinians’ suffering. “All we have left is hope and patience,” she said.
