Instead of lasting stability, Israel’s military has expanded its control to roughly 70% of the territory, squeezing more than 2 million Palestinians near the sea’s edge, with no international peacekeeping force in Gaza as promised and no reconstruction a year later.
Throughout the ceasefire, Israel has continued targeting Hamas, with military operations killing more than 1,400 Palestinians over the past year. Nearly 500 of those killed were women and children, according to figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry cited by npr.org. While the bombings have not stopped entirely, they have slowed down during the ceasefire, giving civilians a temporary reprieve from active combat. Just over a month into the ceasefire, on Nov. 20, 2025, a Palestinian mother mourned her son killed in an Israeli airstrike at Al-Shifa Hospital, where the bodies of multiple people including children were covered in shrouds at the morgue after airstrikes targeted homes and tents.
Humanitarian Conditions and Aid Constraints
The slowing of the offensive has allowed the population to recover slightly from what U.N.-backed experts declared a famine in the north of the territory last year. More food is now entering the strip, reversing widespread starvation and bringing fresh produce back to local streets, though access remains fragile.
Despite these hurdles, community initiatives have attempted to address severe psychological trauma among children, utilizing virtual reality headsets through programs like TechMed Gaza in Al-Zuweida on Dec. 10, 2025. Meanwhile, families continue to cope with daily casualties, unexploded ordnance hazards—such as 12-year-old Joud Al-Angar and his younger cousin being wounded at Al-Shifa Hospital on Oct. 23, 2025, by shrapnel from an Israeli munition they found in the rubble thinking it was coal to help cook dinner—and the grim task of retrieving bodies from underკო rubble in heavily damaged areas such as Beit Lahia. Additional hardships include winter conditions where approximately 1.5 million people rely on makeshift tents offering little protection from winter cold after Israeli airstrikes destroyed nearly all buildings in the war, leaving families like Raed el-Ghazawi and his five children standing in a tent in Gaza City on Dec. 11, 2025, describing it as freezing cold and damp from winter rainstorms. Amid these conditions, Palestinian Christian children decorated a Christmas tree inside the Holy Family Church in Gaza City on Dec. 17, 2025, for the first time since the beginning of the war.
Military Expansion and Ongoing Clashes
As the ceasefire entered its second year, territorial boundaries continued to shift on the ground. The Israeli military has marked its expanding control zones with physical barriers, such as yellow blocks placed in areas like Bureij, barring Palestinians from entry.
Yet, with displaced families crowded into temporary shelters and large swaths of the territory remaining under military restrictions, the underlying conflict remains unresolved as the diplomatic framework enters its second year without reconstruction or stabilization guarantees.
