Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has pushed the enclave to the brink of humanitarian collapse. Entire neighborhoods lie in ruins, hospitals are cut off from fuel and medicine, and families are forced to uproot from their shelters time and again. A ceasefire that delivers a permanent cessation of the war has proved elusive.
The current crisis was triggered by an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 carried out by Palestinian militant group Hamas. The assault on multiple venues killed 1,195 people and saw more than 200 taken hostage, according to official figures provided by Israel. Two years on, 48 hostages remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip. Only 20 are thought to still be alive.
In response, Israel launched a military campaign it says is aimed at destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and securing the release of the hostages, while preventing future attacks on its territory.
The offensive has created the deadliest and most destructive conflict in the history of Gaza, where Hamas has been the de-facto governing authority since June 2007. More than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel has consistently maintained it is acting in accordance with international law and that it has the right to defend itself.
In Geneva – which has for decades been the centre of humanitarian law and international aid diplomacy – United Nations agencies were quick to warn that Gaza faced looming famine and widespread starvation.
International relief groups have denounced Israel’s repeated attacks on hospitals, workers providing humanitarian assistance, and civilians seeking help.
They continue to appeal for the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid.
The broad range of Geneva-based organisations working in Gaza include the International Committee of the Red Cross to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Here is a snapshot of some of the main actors and what they do:
The scale of violence in Gaza is such that accusations of genocide against Israel have reached the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
On September 16, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Navi Pillay, Human Rights Council Press conference (September 16, 2025)
Israel denies the charges but bars international journalists from entering Gaza to bear witness and conduct fact checking.
Humanitarian actors and local journalists carry that burden instead.
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs legal advisor Tal Becker speaking at the Palace of Peace in The Hague (January 12, 2024). He has been tasked with defending Israel at the International Criminal Court against South Africa’s allegation of genocide.
Accurate and rigorous reporting is essential in any conflict. It provides a lifeline for civilians, holds those who wage war to account, guides international response, and serves as a safeguard against collective amnesia.
From Geneva, this Swissinfo special report seeks to document the scale of Gaza’s humanitarian disaster.
This report draws on UN situation reports, inter-agency coordination updates, cross-checked humanitarian monitoring systems, and NGO reports.
Data, where available, is current through September 30, 2025.
This report includes Swissinfo coverage over the past two years with exclusive quotes and interviews with key figures working in and on Gaza.
Gaza has been referred to as “the world’s largest open-air prison”. The phrase points to the sweeping restrictions on movement, trade, and access to basic goods that Israel — with Egypt's cooperation — has enforced since tightening its blockade in 2007, after Hamas took control of the enclave.
For most of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, the result is life in a crowded territory they cannot leave freely. The current war has played out within these restrictions. When it began, about 73% of Palestinian households in Gaza were already dependent on humanitarian aid, primarily food assistance, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
By December 2023, the conflict had forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, according to the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons. Many sought refuge in the southern governorates of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah.
In its food security assessment at the time, the Rome-based UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported that half of displaced families said they went to bed hungry at least 10 of the previous 30 nights — a sharp increase from one-third of households in the previous survey carried out during a November truce.
No one in Gaza is safe from starvation.
WFP’s Executive Director Cindy McCain (December 2023)
Roll over the dots for more information
Israel has imposed a total blockade on aid entering Gaza twice during the course of the war – the first in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack for a few weeks and the second in 2025, from early March to May 19.
With the collapse of Gaza’s economy and basic services, the war has deepened dependence on humanitarian assistance, making aid deliveries more critical.
Swissinfo’s analysis shows that since the start of the war, Gaza has received enough food aid to meet basic needs only half of the time.
The territory needs around 60,000–62,000 metric tonnes (MT) of food aid each month to meet minimum daily caloric requirements, according to estimates from the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But in the 24-month period ending in September 2025, this threshold was only reached in 13 months.
Humanitarian agencies stress that steady, predictable, and sustained food aid flows – as opposed to intermittent deliveries – are essential to alleviate food insecurity and prevent famine.
Sporadic surges cannot replace regular monthly access, notably because malnutrition requires continuous treatment and the population in Gaza lacks storage or refrigeration capacity. Fresh products are also essential to ensure nutritional diversity.
Food aid entering Gaza each month since October 2023:
Volume in metric tonnes (MT)
Source: Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)
Prices of staple foods have soared in Gaza since the start of the war.
Average monthly prices of key commodities in Gaza:
Average monthly price (USD*) of 1 kg of a basket of basic commodities in Gaza and percentage change from period prior to October 2023 and August 2025.
Source: Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) via Humanitarian Data Exchange (OCHA-managed platform for humanitarian data)
In Gaza, unlike other conflict zones, residents have virtually no opportunity to grow food – only 1.5% of cropland is available for cultivation.
Land available for cultivation in the Gaza Strip as of 28 July 2025:
Source: FAO, United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT)
Until early 2025, humanitarian operations in Gaza relied on a UN-led aid system that supplied food, medicine, water, and shelter on a large scale. OCHA coordinated the effort, UNRWA carried out most of the deliveries, and agencies such as the WHO, WFP, and the UN children's agency UNICEF provided additional support.
This system collapsed after March 2025, when Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza, barred UN international staff from entry, and pushed alternative aid channels.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, was at the centre of this system, running schools, clinics, shelters, and food distribution for over 1.7 million people. In late January 2025, Israel banned the agency from operating, alleging infiltration by Hamas – a claim UNRWA rejects as unsubstantiated and lacking concrete evidence.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (February 23, 2024)
Other agencies had to step in and scale up. Space opened for new actors to emerge, operating under Israeli military security to deliver aid inside Gaza.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), backed by the US and Israel, was registered in Delaware in February this year and tasked with taking over the delivery of humanitarian assistance. It was formally launched in May but has been dogged by controversy since its inception.
UN officials, NGOs, and Palestinian groups accuse it of politicising and weaponising relief, stripping recipients of dignity, and creating aid distribution points that became death traps.
The GHF opened a branch in Geneva in February and its Swiss office provided it with an international face. But on July 2, the branch was dissolved by the Swiss authorities for failing to fulfill its legal requirements.
GHF's militarised aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip
At the end of May 2025, the GHF began operating four military-controlled food distribution sites in Gaza.
This new system, overseen by Israel, drastically reduced the number of aid distribution points from around 400 under the previous UN-coordinated response during the ceasefire, according to humanitarian organisations. The consequence has been a significant increase in starvation, UN figures show.
Control and restrictions across the Gaza Strip :
Source: OCHA (September 17, 2025)
GHF distribution sites trigger chaos, death, and injuries
Doctors in Gaza were the first to sound the alarm over bloodshed near aid distribution points administered by the GHF.
Between June 7 and July 24, 2025, MSF’s two health centres in southern Gaza — both located near GHF distribution sites — treated 1,380 injured people, including 174 with gunshot wounds, and dealt with 28 bodies brought in from the sites.
Calling the aid delivery system “orchestrated killing,” MSF stressed the figures represented only a fraction of the true toll. Staff said the centres “now place biweekly orders for body bags.”
According to the ICRC, its 60-bed field hospital in Rafah admitted 179 patients on June 1, mostly with gunshot or shrapnel wounds; 21 were declared dead on arrival. Survivors reported they had been trying to reach an aid distribution point.
Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarised zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres (June 27, 2025)
Source: MSF
On July 16, 20 Palestinians died when they were crushed by crowds at distribution site 3, commonly known as the “Khan Younis distribution site”.
The GHF blamed the incident on Hamas, depicting it as part of a broader pattern by the militant group to undermine the foundation’s operations.
There have been zero casualties at GHF sites other than two terrorist incidents. One when a Hamas-style grenade was thrown over a berm and injured two American workers. The send was a very tragic and unfortunate stampede that was fomented by Hamas and 19 people died.
Chapin Fay, GHF spokesperson (August 13, 2025)
UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan addressing journalists in Geneva (August 19, 2025)
On August 22, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the world’s leading authority on hunger, confirmed that Gaza governorate was suffering from famine.
Its report found that 514,000 people – nearly a quarter of Gaza’s governorate population – were already facing famine, with the figure expected to climb to 641,000 by the end of September. Israel has rejected the findings and called for the report to be withdrawn.
The IPC, which was set up in 2004, is backed by Britain, Canada, the European Union, and Germany, and unites 21 aid groups, UN agencies, and regional bodies. It has formally declared famine only four times: Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024.
Press briefing by Tom Fletcher, under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs in Geneva (August 22, 2025)
Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, World Food Programme (August 21, 2025)
As of September 30, Gaza has recorded 411 malnutrition-related deaths in 2025, including 108 children, according to the World Health Organization..
Women and children rely on small charity kitchens to feed thousands amid a daily struggle for survival. (Photo taken on September 7, 2025) Doaa Albaz / AFP
Palestinian men cook a charity meal in Khan Younis, as food shortages worsen due to the ongoing siege. (Photo taken on September 7, 2025) Doaa Albaz / AFP
Palestinians risk their lives, riding on a truck loaded with food and humanitarian aid as it moves along the so-called Morag Corridor near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo taken on August 4, 2025) Keystone / Mariam Dagga
A wounded Palestinian receives medical care in the emergency ward of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, after sustaining injuries while seeking humanitarian aid near the Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah. (Photo taken on July 24, 2025) AFP
“I walked 15 kilometers through danger just to feed my children. We had nothing left.” Samah Hamdan, a displaced mother receiving care at Mawasi PHCC, after risking her life for a handful of food. (Photo taken on June 19, 2025) Nour Alsaqqa / MSF
Hanan talks about Ashraf, her 17-year-old son: “He woke up wanting to have breakfast but there was nothing to eat, so he said I will go bring us something to eat. I told him it was too dangerous. He said he wanted to get something for his sisters. Thirty minutes later he called me crying for help after he got shot. This aid is soaked in blood.” (Photo taken on June 19, 2025) Nour Alsaqqa / MSF
Palestinians at the GHF distribution site in Netzarim put their lives at risk to get food. All four distribution sites operated by the GHF are located in areas under full Israeli military control and “secured” by private American armed contractors. Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, two MSF health centres treated 1,380 injured people from nearby GHF sites, including 174 people with gunshot wounds, and dealt with 28 dead bodies. MSF calls for an immediate cessation of the GHF distribution mechanism and urges states and private donors to refrain from funding what is essentially a death trap. Nour Alsaqqa / MSF
Starvation has been used as a savage weapon of war and constitutes crime under international law. Israel’s failed experiment with militarised, privatised aid delivery by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has inflicted severe food shortages and killed almost 1,400 people seeking food. This is a predictable result of disrupting effective, impartial humanitarian relief by trusted, experienced international actors.
UN experts including special rapporteurs, independents and working groups (August 7, 2025)
Critics view the GHF as part of Israel’s broader effort to dismantle the UN-led aid system in Gaza.
Richard Gowan, Director of UN and Multilateral Diplomacy, International Crisis Group (August 20, 2025)
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog speaking at Chatham House, London (September 10, 2025)
Data from Israel’s COGAT show that the volume of food aid entering Gaza rose in August 2025 and, to a lesser extent, in September. This followed a period of severely limited supplies in the immediate aftermath of the three-month blockade that ended in May.
Many supplies remain in short supply, notably shelter, which is in high demand. Since the beginning of the year, almost no cooking gas (LPG) has entered Gaza and water deliveries only resumed in August.
Aid deliveries to Gaza by type of supplies:
Monthly volume (metric tonnes) of aid entering Gaza by type of supplies, October 2023 - September 2025.
Source: COGAT
Before the October 2023 escalation of hostilities, health care in Gaza was already under strain, hampered by multiple restrictions and conditions imposed by Israel, according to MSF head of mission Leo Cans, who was stationed in Jerusalem and responsible for Gaza in 2023.
Import controls: The importation of medical supplies to Gaza was constrained by restrictions on shipments of goods with potential dual use, such as burn care equipment.
Electricity shortages: Power was available “only 12 hours per day on a good day,” limiting service reliability and leading to a dependence on generators, Cans said.
Limited movements: Palestinian colleagues were “prevented or forbidden” from travelling to Jerusalem for meetings “without any reason,” complicating joint planning. International staff could usually move around, locals often could not, Cans said.
Overall access was restricted but it was “possible to work”,
The hospitals in Gaza before the war were not up to the standards of European hospitals, but it was not very far. You had highly skilled and efficient healthcare workers. You had almost all the specialties. We tried to work as much as possible within those hospitals but then they got attacked.
Léo Cans, MSF head of mission for Gaza in 2023
Since the beginning of the war, attacks against hospitals in Gaza have killed hundreds of people, the vast majority of them (90%) patients or staff*.
Cumulative number of health facility attacks and victims in the occupied Palestinian territories since October 7, 2023:
*The exact number in either category is not known. Source: World Health Organization, Surveillance system for attacks in health care (SSA)
Almost a third of Gaza’s health facilities have been destroyed and none are fully functioning.
Status of Gaza's health facilities:
Functionality status of all health facilities reporting in the Gaza Strip. This includes 115 health centres, 35 hospitals and 12 field hospitals. Source: Health Resources and Services Availability Monitoring System (HeRAMS)
MSF from the very beginning said it is an attack on the health care system.
Léo Cans, MSF head of mission for Gaza in 2023
When they attack a hospital, when they kill a health care worker. They didn't only kill a surgeon. They kill all the patients that would have been saved by this surgeon.
Léo Cans, MSF head of mission for Gaza in 2023
Léo Cans, MSF head of mission for Gaza in 2023
Care in the crossfire
Cancer patients in the Gaza Strip can only receive treatment at the limited facilities in Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis city, as the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and Gaza-Europe Hospital are out of service due to Israeli attacks. (Photo taken on June 11, 2025) Doaa Albaz / AFP
A technician prepares artificial limbs at the Gaza City municipality-run Artificial Limbs and Polio Center where Palestinians, who lost limbs during the Israeli military offensive, receive physiotherapy sessions, in Gaza City. (Photo taken on March 17, 2025) Reuters / Dawoud Abu Alkas
Palestinian girl Silla Abu Aqleen, who lost her right leg during the Israeli military offensive, holds her artificial limb during a physiotherapy session at the Gaza City municipality-run Artificial Limbs and Polio Center, in Gaza City. (Photo taken on March 17, 2025) Reuters / Dawoud Abu Alkas
Al Shifa medical complex after a 14-day siege by Israeli forces on April 1, 2024. MSF
A wounded Palestinian receives treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, after being shot at by Israeli Forces near the US aid center in Rafah. (Photo taken on September 9, 2025) Keystone / Abed Rahim Khatib
Israel's ongoing closure of border crossings prevents the entry of essential medical equipment and fuel, severely disrupting treatment of dialysis patients at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on July 14, 2025. The shortage of dialysis machines, combined with a rising number of patients suffering from kidney failure, is deepening the healthcare crisis in the region. Moiz Sahli / AFP
75-year-old Palestinian Hasan Abu Seble suffers from severe malnutrition due to the ongoing Israeli blockade and lives with his family in a tent with limited resources in Gaza City. Seble's weight has dropped from 70 to 40 kilograms as a result of inadequate access to food and he has nearly lost his ability to walk. (Photo taken on August 15, 2025) Hani Alshaer / AFP
A view of Al Shifa Hospital morgue, which continues to serve hundreds of patients injured in Israeli attacks, despite critically low medical supplies due to the blockade, in Gaza City on July 3, 2025. Abo Alkas / AFP
Gaza City: Al-Ahli Al Arab , Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Al Quds, Al-Shifa, Al-Rantisi Pediatric (Gaza City), Indonesian hospital
North Gaza: Kamal Adwan
North Gaza: Kamal Adwan
Gaza City: Al-Shifa
Khan Younis: Al-Khair, Al-Amal, Nasser Hospital,
Der al-Balah: Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Gaza City - Al-Ahli Arab
Khan Younis - Nasser Hospital
Al-Mawasi - Kuwaiti Field Hospital, European Gaza Hospital
On August 25, 2025 Israel again struck Nasser Hospital, by then the last remaining partially functional hospital in southern Gaza.
The attacked killed at least 20 people, including five journalists.
Olga Cherevko, Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis (May 13, 2025)
Ismail Ramadan, emergency physician at Al-Shifa medical complex, Gaza City (September 14, 2025)
Nour Rafat Motrer, pediatrician at Al-Rantisi children's hospital in Gaza City (September 14, 2025)
Humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip is severely restricted, with aid groups able to operate in only about 12% of the territory, according to OCHA.
Aid agencies juggle delivering relief wherever they can with documenting a humanitarian crisis denounced by UN experts as a genocide – one that most of the international and local media cannot report on from the ground.
Humanitarian work in Gaza todays means navigating daunting logistics under lethal threat amid repeated population displacements.
From Gaza, OCHA's spokesperson Olga Cherevko gives Swissinfo a glimpse of the challenges aid workers face.
It is a very dynamic environment so things are constantly changing. One day a partner might close their office and then the next day it might open. So everything is re-evaluated on a daily or even hourly basis sometime... We have to coordinate every move with the Israeli authorities.
Olga Cherevko, OCHA spokesperson in Gaza
OCHA's spokesperson in Gaza, Olga Cherevko, Swissinfo interview (September 22, 2025)
The reality on the ground is that much of our assistance that enters is offloaded directly by either desperate people who are trying to feed their family or organised gangs or armed elements.
Olga Cherevko, OCHA spokesperson in Gaza
Israel has approved 39% of requested aid missions and denied 34% since March 18, when it launched a surprise attack on the Gaza Strip, ending a period of ceasefire with Hamas.
August marked a clear improvement in terms of access.
About one in five aid missions (17%) face impediments once they get underway. Although Israel's Coordination Liaison Administration (CLA) accepts the request, but movement is blocked or delayed on the ground resulting in missions being scrapped.
Humanitarian organisations cancel 10% of their requests due to logistical, operational or security issues.
Overview of aid mission outcomes in Gaza:
Humanitarian missions coordinated with the Israeli Liaison Administration (CLA), March 18 (end of ceasefire) – September, 2025. Source: OCHA
The main issue is still access, as well as the volume that is entering.There’s still a lot of things rejected – especially things like equipment and things that might be deemed dual use. For food, certain things are prohibited like peanut butter because it is considered a luxury item. Generators, solar batteries, cooking gas are still not entering. There is a huge issue with shelter items that were not allowed to enter for 5.5 months.
Olga Cherevko, OCHA spokesperson in Gaza
For those who have experienced severe malnutrition and months and months of deprivation... to reverse that damage takes a lot more than just throwing a bag of flour. You need specific nutrition, you need specific medical assistance. right now the biggest priority is to make sure that the most vulnerable groups are reached and prioritised.
Olga Cherevko, OCHA spokesperson in Gaza
The war is testing not just the resilience of Palestinians in Gaza and humanitarian workers trying to help them, but the very relevance of humanitarian law.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) protects civilians, the wounded and sick, prisoners of war, humanitarian or medical workers, as well as journalists who are not taking part in hostilities.
But these protections are not being upheld in Gaza.
The war has claimed the lives of:
- Over 66,000 Palestinians, according to data from Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health cited by OCHA
- Over 500 humanitarian workers, according to the Aid Worker Security Database
- Nearly 200 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Other organisations give higher death tolls, including Reporters Without Borders (220) and the Palestinian Syndicate for Journalists (250).
Karin Huster, nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (December 2024)
Women and children account for nearly half of the deaths in Gaza
Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), warring parties must take precautions to minimise harm to civilians, especially women and children.
At least 18,430 children – of which 953 are infants, 9,735 women, and 4,429 elderly have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The latest available figures show 66,148 fatalities in total as of September 30.
Cumulative number of fatalities in Gaza:
Note: The fatality breakdowns are those fully identified by the MoH in Gaza as of 31 July 2025, according to OCHA. The breakdown was not yet available for August and September 2025. Source: Ministry of Health (MoH) via OCHA
With foreign correspondents barred from Gaza and local journalists working under deprivation, displacement and constant danger, independent coverage of the crisis remains severely limited.
This vacuum has left humanitarian agencies not only scrambling to deliver aid but also serving as some of the few witnesses able to document and communicate conditions on the ground.
Their situation reports, press briefings and social media updates often substitute for direct press access, shaping much of what the outside world knows about the humanitarian consequences of the war.
In Geneva, Swissinfo has been following the Gaza crisis through the lens of the UN and the voices of humanitarian workers on the ground.
Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director of Save the Children in Gaza (July 18, 2025)
Humanitarian operations in Gaza face extreme risks, with 2025 already the deadliest year for aid workers in the territory since the war began.
Aid workers killed, wounded, or detained in Gaza:
Source: The Aid Worker Security Database
Gaza has become the world’s deadliest conflict zone for aid workers:
Note: Cumulative number of aid workers killed in the most dangerous conflict zones, 1997-2025 (as of September 30) Source: The Aid Worker Security Database
The Gaza war has also become the deadliest conflict ever recorded for UN personnel. Most humanitarian casualties in Gaza are UNRWA staff.
Breakdown of aid workers killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, by affiliation:
Note: Swiss flag denotes Geneva-based organisations Source: The Aid Worker Security Database, OCHA and MSF (as of September 17, 2025)
While international humanitarian workers have helped explain Gaza to the West, Palestinian journalists have been crucial in documenting events on the ground.
At least 197 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The death toll of 82 in 2024 made it the deadliest year for journalists and media workers since records began in 1992.
Journalists and media workers killed since 2006:
Note: 2025 data as of end-August Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed. We join with more than 150 other media outlets across the world, to condemn these crimes. And we call on the Israeli authorities to allow independent access for the international press in the Gaza Strip.
Reporters Without Borders
Israel launched a ground offensive in Gaza City on September 15, sending tanks and troops into key neighborhoods.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled south, while those remaining face bombardment and shortages of food, water and medicine.
Aid groups warned of mass displacement, rising casualties, and a deepening of the humanitarian crisis.
The consequences are catastrophic. Thousands and thousands of people have moved from the north to the south in the past month. This has created a huge strain on the services that are barely available in the south.
OCHA's spokesperson in Gaza, Olga Cherevko (September 22, 2025)
OCHA's spokesperson in Gaza, Olga Cherevko (September 22, 2025)
UNICEF communications manager Tess Ingram speaking in Al-Mawasi, Gaza Strip (September 9, 2025)
International pressure to halt the war is intensifying.
On September 12, the UN General Assembly passed the “New York Declaration” backing a two-state solution to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with 142 votes in favour, 10 against, and 43 abstentions.
The two-state solution envisions a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based largely on the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The declaration calls for a “viable” state alongside Israel, an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, Hamas’s disarmament and an end to the humanitarian crisis.
The UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra and Monaco in September recognised Palestine, joining more than 140 countries worldwide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the recognition of Palestine “an absurd prize for terrorism”. And vowed to never let it happen.
In a surprise diplomatic breakthrough, US President Donald Trump announced on October 9 that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a long-awaited ceasefire and hostage release deal. The phased agreement also envisions the unimpeded flow of aid to Gaza.
“The United Nations will support the full implementation of the agreement and will scale up the delivery of sustained and principled humanitarian relief, and we will advance recovery and reconstruction efforts in Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
He urged all parties “to seize this momentous opportunity to establish a credible political path forward towards ending the occupation, recognizing the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, and achieving a two-state solution that enables Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security".
Many experts point out that the odds of a “viable” Palestinian state appear slim when Gaza lies in ruins and Israeli settlement expansion continues in the West Bank.
The current war in Gaza generated more debris than the combined total from the most destructive conflicts in recent years. Ukraine, Europe's second largest country that’s been under attack from Russia since 2022, has accrued less than an eighth of the debris piled up in Gaza since October 2023.
War-generated debris by conflict:
Note: Total volume (metric tonnes) of conflict-related debris.
The figures above cover very different scales: about 360 km² for Gaza, roughly 300 km² for Aleppo and Homs combined, nearly 1,900 km² across seven districts in Lebanon, and more than 600,000 km² across all of Ukraine.
Source: UNOSAT Gaza Strip preliminary debris quantification (Gaza), Action on Armed Violence (Syria), UN-Habitat (Lebanon) and Rubryka (Ukraine)
The vast amount of debris in Gaza poses significant risks to human health and the environment, according to the Gaza Debris Management Framework, a UN-led strategic plan for managing the territory’s war debris.
It “is unprecedented not only in terms of its quantity, but equally in terms of the extent of damage to the housing stock; its geographic spread and spatial density across almost the entire territory; the rate at which debris is being generated; and the expected high levels of explosive ordnance contamination coupled with the risk of asbestos particularly in the refugee camps”, a report published by the framework in January noted.
UNOSAT identified a total of nearly 193,000 damaged buildings in the Gaza Strip, corresponding to nearly 80% of all buildings in the territory.
Damaged or destroyed buildings:
Source: UNOSAT
UN figures show 436,000 homes in the Gaza Strip — 92% of the total —have been destroyed or damaged.
Tents are scarce and there is little space left to pitch them in southern Gaza.
1.4 million people need shelter items.
Nearly 3,500 km of roads in Gaza – 77% of the network – have been damaged. A third, over 1,500 km, have been completely destroyed (UNOSAT).
About 70% of Gaza’s water and sanitation sites are inside Israeli militarized zones, leaving them largely out of civilian reach.
More than 90% of schools in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged
Education also pays a heavy price for war. More than 90% of schools in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged and 63 university buildings have been destroyed.
Nearly 92% of schools would require full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to be functional again, according to the UN Palestine Education Cluster.
Status of all 564 school buildings as of September 8, 2025
Source: UN Palestine Education Cluster
Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza Governorate on December 17, 2020
Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza Governorate on April 14, 2025
Text: Dominique Soguel
Infographics and maps: Kai Reusser
Data analysis and graphics: Pauline Turuban
Video editor: Michele Andina
Photo editor: Helen James
Project editors: Dominique Soguel, Virginie Mangin and Nerys Avery