Yara M. Asi, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the School of Global Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida. She is also Co-Director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, Fellow at DAWN, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, and a 2020-21 U.S. Fulbright Scholar to the West Bank. Her work focuses on health, human rights and development in conflict-affected and fragile settings, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals as well as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Twitter: @Yara_M_Asi - Bluesky: @yara-asi.bsky.social
"A graveyard for thousands of children." "Hell on earth." "A death trap."
Over the past two years, humanitarian organizations have used these terms to describe conditions in Gaza. Coupled with countless hours of videos on social media, reports from local journalists and researchers, investigations by international journalists and scholars, drone footage and witness testimonies, the totality of such horrors portray a place where Israel has destroyed every aspect of life through violence and restriction.
Such horrific conditions—in what a growing number of legal scholars and human rights investigators recognize as genocide—generated significant grassroots and global condemnation while governments largely watched or, in some cases, enabled the devastation. Today, under a purported "post-ceasefire" phase, the plight of the people in Gaza has largely left the headlines. But "hell on earth" is not repaired by a ceasefire, let alone one so inherently flawed.
Indeed, it is first worth questioning what the term "ceasefire" means in the context of Gaza. According to U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel has killed at least 360 Palestinians since the beginning of the ceasefire on Oct. 11, including an estimated 67 children. Despite a significant decrease in Israeli attacks and increased stability conducive to retrieving bodies and attempting reconstruction, these killings are a reminder that the violence never truly "ceased."
But threats to life are not limited to violence in the traditional sense. For over two years, Israel has pummeled the already besieged Gaza Strip with thousands of tons of bombs, destroying most houses, schools, medical facilities and utilities. It tightened its siege on Gaza, limiting the entry of food, fuel, medicine and shelter. Other critical civilian infrastructure—especially schools and hospitals housing thousands of homeless families —were raided and besieged by Israeli forces. As expected, the humanitarian impact has been devastating, with ramifications that will be felt for generations.
Such destruction was apparently not enough. Israeli soldiers purposefully destroyed medical equipment, cutting cables and smashing screens in hospitals, and have widely vandalized and razed civilian infrastructure without remorse or consequence. Remaining medical centers have been unable to offer more than triage services, leaving patients with traumatic injuries and patients with other health conditions—including cancer, diabetes and heart disease—without desperately needed care.
For over two years, Israel has pummeled the already besieged Gaza Strip with thousands of tons of bombs, destroying most houses, schools, medical facilities and utilities.
- Yara M. Asi
Israel has killed at least 1,700 healthcare workers, including specialists with advanced training and experience, alongside at least 565 aid workers. Israeli forces detained hundreds of others during raids, with dozens remaining in Israeli captivity under conditions that survivors say is defined by torture and neglect. United Nations experts term this systematic destruction of Gaza's healthcare system as "medicide."
Further, while aid delivery has increased since the ceasefire, albeit not to levels as stipulated in the deal, it is nowhere near enough to sustain, let alone rebuild, the health system. Health supplies constitute less than 6% of the aid that has entered Gaza since the ceasefire began. With few remaining health facilities and a medical community that has largely been either killed, imprisoned or displaced—coupled with an inadequate flow of medical supplies—Palestinians will continue to die of otherwise treatable and manageable health conditions.
At least 16,500 patients in the Gaza Strip require urgent medical evacuations but are forced to wait for Israeli approvals and acceptance by a host country. While at least 70,000 Palestinians have been killed and 171,000 injured, those continuing to die today due to inadequate medical care are also victims of Israel's genocide—ceasefire or not.
The education system has been similarly brutalized, with more than 650,000 school-aged children out of school for more than two years. The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that Israel's operations damaged or destroyed at least 97% of schools, with nearly all requiring either full reconstruction or major rehabilitation before being suitable for use. Every university lies in ruins, as Israel—alongside bombing them—employed burning and controlled demolitions to structures that remained, effectively employing a policy of medieval pillaging to render the sites unusable.
Israel's operations have also killed, injured or displaced numerous professors and teachers. Similarly, many other institutions of culture, religion and heritage—including houses of worship, museums and libraries—are destroyed. As with the systematic destruction of the health sector, the totality of the attacks on education and culture in Gaza have been termed a campaign of "scholasticide" by experts. Thus far, no educational materials have been brought into Gaza since the start of the ceasefire, with absurd Israeli bans on items as simple as pencils.
Other critical civilian infrastructure in Gaza—especially food, water and electricity infrastructure—has also fared poorly amid the Israeli assault. Israel has bombed greenhouses, farms, livestock, food production facilities and markets. Similarly, it has intentionally targeted water wells, desalination plants and water pumps, alongside an estimated 80% of the Strip's electricity network and facilities. Critical infrastructure requiring electricity, including hospitals, remain heavily dependent on fuel to run the generators keeping them functional, although less than 1% of commodities entering Gaza since the ceasefire have included the valuable resource due to Israeli restrictions.
For over two years, Israel has pummeled the already besieged Gaza Strip with thousands of tons of bombs, destroying most houses, schools, medical facilities and utilities.
- Yara M. Asi
Food and water remain sparse, especially since Israel imposed tighter restrictions on humanitarian goods in spring 2025. As an inevitable result, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—the body utilized by humanitarians and the United Nations that assess global food security—declared famine in parts of Gaza over the summer. Hundreds of people have died of hunger and malnutrition, including at least 150 children, with survivors of starvation likely to face life-long health consequences.
With health, education and utility systems destroyed at such scale; ongoing Israeli control of the humanitarian response; Israel's seizure of more than half of Gaza's land; at least 61 million tons of rubble and debris requiring clearing; and an exhausted, traumatized, injured and displaced population that has lost many of the top professionals and experts that would be participating in any response or reconstruction efforts, it becomes apparent that the narrative promoted by the United States and others—that a regularly violated ceasefire and ongoing regime of deprivation is equivalent to peace—is nothing more than a false narrative.
In reality, while the bombing has slowed, much of what the ceasefire accomplished merely relegated Gaza to old news, much as how escalating violence and land seizure in the West Bank over the past few years has been largely ignored. The violence has not stopped—in just the past 6 weeks, Israel violated the ceasefire over 700 times—unlike the story around it. For many, that narrative has apparently been enough.
Some representatives of Arab governments have started to push back on the current status quo, with the Qatari Prime Minister arguing in early December 2025 that the ceasefire would not be complete until Israel completely withdraws from Gaza. Similarly, he said that phase one of the ceasefire would not end until the return of stability and the freedom of movement across Gaza.
With Israeli ministers continuing their racist statements and eliminationist policies, it is clear that there will be no genuine peace, or even meaningful efforts at reconstruction, before a genuine reckoning with the fact that the majority of Israelis, including the general public, do not believe Palestinians have a place in historic Palestine. Today's so-called "ceasefire" will not change that, no matter how hard Western leaders lie to themselves and the world amid the cries of Palestinians in Gaza deserving of better.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
