Ceasefire Gaza: Israel Maintains Grip on The Ruined Strip

CrossFireArabia
Features
February 8, 2025

Despite the declaration of a ceasefire on 19 January 2025, Israel continues to commit genocide in the Gaza Strip by denying Palestinians the basic necessities for survival and imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.

Israel is not content with the mass killings and devastation it inflicted on Gaza over the past 15 months. Now, it is enforcing measures to effectively kill the population through an illegal, total siege that blocks the flow of basic supplies and humanitarian aid, prevents the repair of essential infrastructure, and denies services indispensable for survival.

Israel is fully aware of the catastrophic impact of its unlawful actions on Palestinians in Gaza, including the severe and lasting consequences for marginalized communities and people with critical medical conditions. Yet, in the absence of meaningful international pressure to end its ongoing crimes, these violations continue unabated.

Although the mass killings in Gaza have halted since the ceasefire, Israeli occupation forces continue to kill Palestinians without legal grounds, using false justifications.

Euro-Med Monitor has documented the killing of at least 110 Palestinians since the ceasefire, with an average of about six deaths per day. These victims include both new fatalities, killed directly by the IOF, and individuals who succumbed to their prior injuries after Israel denied the right to travel abroad for treatment. Additionally, 901 Palestinians have been injured since the ceasefire, averaging 47 injuries per day.

Thousands remain missing beneath the rubble, yet recovery efforts are still hampered by Israel’s deliberate delays in allowing the necessary equipment into the enclave. Recovery operations are currently being carried out with manual tools or basic equipment that is not suitable for dealing with thousands of tonnes of rubble. As of right now, 571 dead bodies have been recovered in the Strip, at a rate of 30 per day.

Since the ceasefire, only a handful of injured and ill Palestinians from Gaza have been permitted to travel abroad for treatment, leaving thousands at risk of death due to Israel’s ongoing denial of their right to receive treatment.

In addition to ensuring a severe shortage of specialised medical personnel, generators, fuel, and oxygen stations, Israel has obstructed the rehabilitation of destroyed hospitals and blocked the entry of medical supplies, medications, and equipment.

Further, in addition to blocking equipment needed for maintenance and restoration, the ongoing and illegal restrictions by Israel are preventing the entry of temporary shelters, tents, and basic supplies for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose homes it has destroyed. This has worsened their suffering under harsh weather conditions, as there are no adequate shelters available because Israel demolished most of the homes and shelters in the Strip.

Israel is deliberately obstructing the restoration of essential infrastructure, including water and sewage systems, endangering civilian lives and worsening environmental and health crises.

Israel also imposes strict restrictions on essential food production supplies, threatening large-scale famine in Gaza. Food stocks are depleting, and residents are unable to farm, fish, or secure food for their families. Through these measures, Israel seeks to make the Palestinian population entirely dependent on its decisions regarding humanitarian aid, which has become the remaining primary source of food for the people of Gaza.

The conditions imposed by Israel deliberately create living circumstances aimed to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza, particularly when considered in the context of the widespread poverty, destruction, hunger, malnutrition, and the health and environmental disasters resulting from Israeli military actions since October 2023.

These actions violate Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law, including its duties as an occupying power to provide for the basic needs of the population. They also violate the rulings of the International Court of Justice, which require Israel to take prompt, decisive action to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid and urgent basic services to alleviate the dire circumstances that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face.

According to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which forbids imposing living conditions on a group with the intent to destroy it in whole or in part, Israel’s policy is nothing more than a consecration of the crime of genocide. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has not fundamentally changed its behaviour and policy to undo the devastating conditions it has imposed on the Palestinians in Gaza. Instead, Israel has continued to create conditions that are likely to ultimately result in the physical destruction of the Palestinian people, given the effects of its actions on all facets of their lives and the length of time they have endured these conditions.

In addition to taking effective measures to protect Palestinians from plans for forced displacement and slow killing, immediate international action is required to stop the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip and to appropriately address the immediate needs of the population. As a critical part of ensuring their survival and dignity, adequate temporary housing must be provided to the Strip’s residents.

The entry and access of humanitarian aid should be guaranteed, along with the removal of any restrictions or blockades preventing the civilian population from receiving relief, hospital services, and access to water and education. The consideration of the needs of women, children, and members of the most vulnerable groups must also be guaranteed, as well as the prompt reconstruction of Gaza’s basic infrastructure; provision of social and psychological support to address the devastating psychological effects of the conflict, particularly on children and attack survivors; and the imposition of genuine pressure to lift the blockade imposed on the Strip so that the Palestinian people can reclaim their lives and human dignity.

The international community and the United Nations must act urgently to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing crimes against Palestinians. This includes enforcing effective sanctions, halting all military, financial, and political support, and immediately suspending all arms sales, transfers, and purchases, including export licenses and military aid. Israel must be held accountable at all levels, both domestically and internationally. Additionally, the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister must be executed without delay and brought before international justice.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Features

In The Grip of Starvation: Israel Will Not Let Gaza Rest!

CrossFireArabia
June 2, 2026

Gaza Government Media Office Advisor Taysir Muhaysin warned of a gradual return to famine in the Gaza Strip as a result of continued Israeli policies restricting aid entry and other basic necessities.

He told the Sanad News Agency the amount of aid entering Gaza by truck does not exceed 27% of that stipulated in the last ceasefire agreement.

Muhaysin stated the Israeli policy of reducing aid is not limited to food and humanitarian supplies, but extends to fuel, including diesel, gasoline, and cooking gas, which is an essential commodity for Palestinian families to manage their daily lives and prepare whatever food they can find under the difficult living conditions.

Government institutions in the Strip continue to perform their duties at the minimum level possible, given the available resources and the exceptional circumstances Gaza is experiencing, whilst Muhaysin denying an administrative vacuum in the enclave.

He affirmed that Gaza government institutions continue to function and maintain a minimum level of stability and essential services essential to the population.

The Media Office Advisor indicated different government bodies expressed their full readiness to hand over their administrative and executive responsibilities to the “technocratic committee” as soon as it arrives in the Strip to begin its work, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement signed in 10 October, 2025. He stressed however, there are real obstacles as procedure and conditions is imposed by the Israel occupation that prevent this.

A Complex Humanitarian Crisis…

Muhaysin warned the living conditions in Gaza are really a “complex humanitarian crisis” affecting all aspects of life.

“Hundreds of thousands of citizens are still living in tents amidst the spread of epidemics and diseases,” whilst pointing to the decline in the capabilities of the health system and municipal services in addition to the severe shortage of food and essential shelter supplies.

The health sector faces increasing risks due to the ongoing shortage of fuel and medical supplies. Muhaysin noted the administration of the Al-Aqsa Hospital were forced to shutdown about 50% of its power generators, and this threatens the lives of patients, especially kidney patients, premature infants, and those in operating rooms and intensive care units.

“What Gaza is witnessing today represents an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, caused by the decisions and measures imposed by the Israeli occupation, which has led to an unprecedented deterioration in living, health, and humanitarian conditions.”

He pointed out that the technocratic committee that is yet to enter the Gaza Strip needs to assuming its responsibilities across the entire enclave, and this needs to happen with the concurrent withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from the areas they reoccupied in Gaza and the commencement of international forces operations tasked with monitoring and security separation under the terms of the ceasefire.

Muhaysin accuses the Israeli occupation of attempting to impose new realities on the ground through excluding areas east of what is known as the “yellow line” from the committee’s administrative responsibility. He said these go against the principles agreed upon in the proposals put forward to end the ongoing crisis.

He concluded by saying the occupation continues to impose its own vision on the future of the Gaza Strip by repeatedly introducing new conditions and ideas, contradicting the fundamental understandings and initiatives discussed over the past months. This, he asserted, obstructs any genuine efforts to alleviate the suffering of the population and end the escalating humanitarian crisis.

The specter of famine is returning to haunt the Gaza Strip, and is coinciding with the tightening of military measures at the crossings controlled by the Israeli occupation. Such prevents the entry of humanitarian and relief aid, and allows militias affiliated with the occupation to steal the incoming aid.

At the end of May, the Palestinian Council of Ministers warned of the severity of UN reports that indicate that about 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, nearly 77% of the population, face the immediate threat of famine due to declining humanitarian funding and reduced aid flow.

In a previous statement to Sanad News Agency, Ali al-Hayek, head of the Palestinian Businessmen Association, warned of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that famine indicators are becoming increasingly apparent amid the continued decline in humanitarian aid and the curtailment of relief organizations’ operations. He noted the Gaza situation “threatens the onset of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”

This article is based on an extended interview by Advisor Taysir Muhaysin published in Arabic by the Sanad News Agency and republished crossfirearabia.com

Features

Jordan 2007! Elections and Hiccups: Looking Backwards

CrossFireArabia
May 20, 2026

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written more than 18 years again in October 2007 for the 7iber.com online portal and is reprinted her

Its election time! As a good non-totalitarian democrat I love the elections, when they happen that is. What I really love about the elections is the time leading up to their finale when voters go up to the polling stations and vote. Although I’ve never voted in my life, I’ve always carefully watched election campaigns, right from start to finish. They are exciting days, of banners hoisted, constituency meets, mini-rallies and all the rest of it.

Prospective candidates, some running for the very first time and of which we are expected to know and vote for, hoist their banners across streets and roundabouts, screaming at the electorate to vote for them because they are the best candidates.

This is the 15th elections for the 15th Lower House, and parliament in Jordan has consistently been in session since 1989, after a long absence of parliamentary life in the country. I am proud to say I covered the 1993 elections, the 1997 ones, and just about missed the 2003 elections because of being away from Jordan.

In all these years, the excitement never faded. Islamic Action Front candidates continuously stood under the IAF banner, but this was never the case with the other political parties, such as the nationalists, the leftists, the middle-of-the-roaders and the tribalists. Although a lot of parties came on the scene after 1993, like Al Ahad, Al Yaqatha and Al Risala and still many others, for some reason or another, many of their candidates preferred to stand as independents arguing they are known for their own independent political personalities rather than as representatives of their parties.

Is this a wrong attitude? Well, maybe. However, once some of them were elected to the Lower House of Parliament, they revealed their true political colors and supposedly argued on party-political lines. Ironically, most of the electorate never knew what those lines were when the MP was just a candidate running for a seat. Many of these parliamentarians argued that they stood a better chance of getting into parliament as individuals rather than under the banner of their political parties. This is due to the belief that such organizations were still seen as relatively new and unknown, despite the fact that many, including leftists, Arab nationalists and Baathists parties, had existed in the 1960s and 1970s, but many of which were effectively banned.

They may of course have been right in their assumptions as political parties were just made legal in the early 1990s, and have thus needed time to be nurtured. As independents, the negative connotations of belonging to political parties would wither away among the electorates who needed to get used to voting for candidates on party political platforms. But the problem with running on independent tickets is that it actually perpetuated individualism, parochialism and depended on the appeal to family, kinship and tribal relations. In past Jordanian parliamentary elections, and even today, the tribal bloc vote has been very important in deciding who wins and who loses.

The effect of this frustrates the process of developing political parties, which, except for the Islamic Action Front, remains weak, ineffective and are no more than talking shop. They have even been used by established politicians to further their own individual political ends and causes. This stands contrary to the need for building modern, strong political parties designed to make democracy and the democratic experiment effective.

Realizing that there is a lot to say about the tribal vote, sometimes political candidates, even Islamists, have been known to appeal to kinship and family relationships as a means of getting into parliament. Once they do, they start the usual game of political party meandering under the parliamentary dome.

That may also be why election banners and slogans on roads are no more than hackneyed, clichéd phrases emptied from their political content. They are read for what they are: brief formulaic statements, lacking the resonance of strong, vibrant agendas and political manifestos that promise change and development, as is the case with elections in more mature democracies around the world.

Political parties in Europe, for instance, are big machines with national and local clout. Everyone, especially the main personalities, know who they are, what they stand for, and what they hope to do once they form the government, or become the party in the majority. In this part of the world, the political culture, machinations and value systems are different and have to be treated differently.

However, in the final analysis, a political party is a political party in which ever part of the world it belongs to; sharing little differences with its counterparts. That’s why such parties have to be strong, come out of their closed shops and enclosures, and appeal to the masses; become broad-based with clout in order to be listened to by decision-makers.

In all fairness however, we have to be gentle with our political parties by understanding the history and the context of where they came from. It took political parties in the western world, centuries to develop and become the national institutions they are today.
They emerged through political struggles and a great deal of pushing and shoving.

But does that mean we have to take that long? Not necessarily, the element of transition from one era to another can take place quickly, but it has to be supported by the state and government. There has to be a political will for democracy, where parties are nurtured rather than left alone.

Jordan is doing well despite different hiccups, but the Arab world in general has to pull itself by the bootstraps if it is to enter into a meaningful political era where representation, democracy and political pluralism is seen as healthy for a society. Our problem now is to move faster in order to catch up with the rest of the world, and develop politically.

In the meantime, let’s for a minute stop and enjoy the political actions of the electoral campaign.

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Ceasefire Gaza: Israel Maintains Grip on The Ruined Strip

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