Palestinians face hunger, cold and loss amid ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza

Since a US-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect last month, Israel has continued its deadly attacks across Gaza, killing at least 236 Palestinians and wounding more than 600 others, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

In the past 24 hours alone, hospitals in Gaza reported the deaths of three more people and recovered three additional bodies from beneath collapsed buildings. Another person succumbed to injuries sustained in earlier attacks, the ministry said on Sunday.

Among the latest victims was a Palestinian man killed by an Israeli drone strike in northern Gaza’s Shujayea neighbourhood. The Israeli military said he had crossed the “yellow line” marking the ceasefire boundary and approached its troops, without offering evidence.

In a statement, the army claimed the man “advanced toward troops in the northern Gaza Strip, posing an immediate threat”, prompting an air strike “to remove the threat”.

Gaza’s Health Ministry also reported that since the truce began, the bodies of 500 Palestinians have been retrieved from under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings – victims of Israel’s two-year genocidal war and ongoing bombardment that left much of the enclave in ruins.

Separately on Sunday evening, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said on X that three bodies of deceased Israeli captives have been received in Israel via the Red Cross.

As per the terms of the ceasefire, Israel must now return the bodies of 45 dead Palestinian prisoners, 15 for each Israeli captive returned.

Accusations of US disinformation

Tensions deepened after the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) accused Hamas of looting an aid truck in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, without providing evidence. The claim followed the release of drone footage allegedly showing “suspected Hamas elements” commandeering humanitarian supplies.

Gaza’s Government Media Office dismissed the allegations, accusing Washington of spreading disinformation to smear Palestinian authorities.

“This accusation is completely false and fabricated from its very foundation, and comes within the framework of a systematic media disinformation campaign aimed at distorting the image of the Palestinian police forces,” the media office said.

It added that Gaza’s police “are carrying out their national and humanitarian duty in securing aid and protecting relief convoys”, despite Israel’s continued interference.

“The police system is making every effort to control matters despite continued Israeli meddling in the internal arena, with several objectives, including engineering starvation by obstructing the delivery of aid,” the statement added.

Health crisis worsens

Hospitals in Gaza, already crippled by months of war and blockade, remain overwhelmed. More than 16,500 patients in need of specialised treatment remain trapped inside the besieged enclave, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

A recent United Nations update showed that by September, Egypt had taken in the largest number of Palestinian evacuees for medical care – nearly 4,000 people. The United Arab Emirates received 1,450 patients, Qatar received 970, and Turkiye took in 437.

In Europe, Italy treated 201 Palestinian patients – the highest among European states – but thousands more, including 3,800 children, are still waiting for urgent medical evacuation abroad.

A study published in The Lancet medical journal this week underscored the human toll of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The report found that Gaza has lost more than a staggering three million years of human life since the start of the conflict in October 2023.

Researchers Sammy Zahran of Colorado State University and Ghassan Abu Sittah of the American University of Beirut analysed data from 60,199 recorded deaths between October 2023 and July 2025. Each death, they calculated, represented an average of 51 years of life lost – the majority being civilians.

More than one million of those life-years were lost among children under the age of 15. The authors noted that their estimates were conservative and excluded deaths caused by starvation, lack of medicine, and the collapse of infrastructure under Israel’s siege.

Race against winter

With winter approaching, Gaza’s displaced families are scrambling to rebuild any form of shelter amid Israel’s restrictions on building materials, media’s Ibrahim Al Khalili reported from Gaza City.

In Gaza’s largest urban centre, the focus of Israeli carpeting bombing from August to October this year, 42-year-old Khalid al-Dahdouh, a father of five, has turned to traditional methods to erect a small mud shelter for his family, using bricks salvaged from the rubble.

“We tried to rebuild because winter is coming,” al-Dahdouh told media. “We managed to lay just a few rows of bricks – we don’t have tents or anything else. So, we built a primitive structure out of mud since there’s no cement. As you can see, it protects us from the cold, insects, and rain – unlike the tents.”

“We’re just trying to survive the cold and the hunger. Ceasefire or not, Gaza is still under attack,” al-Dahdouh said.

Inspired by him, his relative, Saif al-Bayek, attempted a similar effort but ran out of usable materials before finishing.

“The whole neighbourhood is in ruins,” al-Bayek said. “We made the shelter out of mud using traditional methods, using whatever stones we could salvage, since there weren’t enough to build a full room. Because of this, the structure is uneven, and the roof is full of gaps – if it rains heavily, water will come through.”

“There are severe challenges to reconstruction efforts. Many families are forced to rely on primitive building methods because they have no other choice,” Alessandro Mrakic, the UN Development Programme’s representative in Gaza, told media.

With hundreds of thousands of people still displaced, aid agencies warn that the situation could deteriorate further as temperatures drop.

While the ceasefire has halted large-scale bombardments, Palestinians in Gaza say their suffering continues – through hunger, homelessness, and the constant fear that Israel’s war could reignite at any moment.