Global focus on Iran leaves Gaza facing deepening humanitarian strain

In his makeshift tent in Gaza City, displaced Palestinian Jamal Abu Mohsen says the bombs are falling less often these days.

Since Israel launched its military campaign against Iran — which has since widened to Lebanon — the 33-year-old Palestinian has noticed a lull in the devastated Palestinian territory.

“Air strikes have become fewer,” Abu Mohsen told AFP from his tent in the north of Gaza.

But the quiet is only relative.

Despite a US-brokered ceasefire that has been in place since October 10, explosions still rock Gaza, Abu Mohsen said.

Blasts from house demolitions and artillery shelling continue to reverberate across the territory, alongside the constant hum of warplanes and reconnaissance drones overhead.

According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, Israeli forces killed one woman and injured another person in the Al‑Mawasi area on Saturday and wounded “several” people with live fire in the central Al‑Bureij refugee camp.

For Abu Mohsen and other Gazans, however, daily life has become even more difficult as border restrictions tightened again after the war with Iran began.

On Saturday, when the US-Israeli attacks on Iran started, Israel closed all entry points into the Palestinian territory for several days.

Although the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened on Tuesday, Gaza’s main gateway, the Rafah crossing on the Egypt border, remains shut.

“Israel is taking advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the war on Iran and increasing restrictions on Gaza,” Abu Mohsen said.

Want to live like human beings

In the southern coastal area of Al-Mawasi, 59-year-old Abdullah al-Astal said the reduction in air strikes had been overshadowed by growing shortages of basic supplies.

“It’s true that the Israeli bombardment has become much less, but Israel is preventing the entry of food aid and fuel,” Astal told AFP.

For him, global politics matters far less than the ability to live with dignity.

“Personally, I don’t care about slain Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei or anyone else,” he said. “I don’t support Iran, whether it supported Gaza or not.

“We want to live like human beings.”

Gaza relies almost entirely on aid trucks for food, medicine and fuel. When border crossings close — even briefly — local markets react immediately.

A source in Gaza’s crossings authority told AFP that “a small number of trucks” entered via Kerem Shalom on Wednesday, though officials were not formally notified of the crossing’s reopening.

Israeli authorities informed them that Rafah would remain closed until further notice, the source added.

The United Nations office of the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) reported that 500,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom on Tuesday.

Even so, the disruption had already driven up prices.

“What we saw is that immediately there was an increase in prices,” said Jonathan Crickx, spokesman for UNICEF.

“Most basic necessity items — like food and soap — saw their prices increase by 200 or 300 per cent," he said, adding that this highlights Gaza’s “extreme vulnerability and extreme dependency on outside aid".

Panic buying

Felipe Ribero, head of mission for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Palestinian territories, said residents rushed to buy essentials once Kerem Shalom reopened on Tuesday.

“There was hyperinflation in prices over a few days,” he said, noting that Gaza has limited storage capacity, meaning any interruption in supplies quickly leads to shortages.

At a displacement camp in Gaza City, retired teacher Safiya Hammouda described panic buying as soon as the Iran war began.

“From the first day of the Iran War, people were afraid and began buying anything in the market. Basic goods are available but have started to run out,” she said.

Although shelling has eased in recent days, she added that “Gaza is completely neglected”.

“They want to destroy Iran and turn it into a devastated country like Gaza, incapable of providing food and sustaining life,” she said, pointing to the extensive destruction in the territory, where the UN reported in October 2025 that 81 per cent of all structures had been damaged.

In a tent pitched inside a school compound, Mohammad al-Hilu said the price of some goods had doubled or more within days.

“I think the world will forget Gaza and no one will pay attention to our suffering,” he said.