Entering the Gaza Strip is like navigate a sea of shops campaign. After decades of Israeli siege and blockade, the attacks of October 7, 2023 perpetrated by Hamas and the beginning of the Israeli offensive marked a new reality in which the Palestinian enclave has become a wasteland full of refugees.
From the entrance through Khan Yunis, to the south, the 20 minutes that pass along what was once a paved road show a sometimes desolate image. “The only thing you can see from that dirt road are tents.” On one side, a strip of improvised homes that reach to the sea; and on the other, “tents, tents and more tents that disappear into the horizon,” says Salwa (not her real name), a humanitarian worker who asks to remain anonymous.
According to a report published jointly by the World Bank, United Nations and the European Union (EU) on the damage and needs of the Palestinian enclave, more than 371,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged since Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahuordered the invasion. An almost absolute devastation – whose reconstruction is estimated in $71.4 billion over the next decade – to which hospitals and schools are added, and which leaves two million people completely dependent on humanitarian organizations.
Sanctions, threats and expulsion
NGOs, however, are tied hands. Tel Aviv does everything possible to control its work under threat of sanctions and restrictions. In fact, this Wednesday, the Supreme Court endorsed a expulsion order by which 37 NGOs operating in Gaza and the West Bank were forced to cease their activity. This resolution affects organizations from Spain, Holland, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, France, the United Kingdom and Canada, among which are Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Action against hunger y OXFAMwho refuse to give information about their Palestinian employees, whom Israel accuses of collaborating with Palestinian Islamist organizations.
A group of displaced Palestinians next to their tents located in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, south of the Gaza Strip. / HAITHAM IMAD / EFE
“People who work and live in Gaza find it difficult to speak because Israel has enormous intelligence capabilities. With drones flying 24 hours a day with artificial intelligence, facial recognition and a database thanks to which they know all the people who are there. Therefore, talking to any media puts them at risk,” explains Salwa, who, as a foreign worker, has prohibited to express any position against the “genocide” in Gaza and the aggressions in the West Bank.
The problem, he explains, “is that everything you want to send has to be approved by Israel,” whose restrictions, according to warn the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the WASH clusterled by UNICEF, have caused a chain of failures in essential serviceswhich remains even after the signing of the ceasefire proposed by the United States on October 10, 2025. “There are cases where it is impossible to do anything due to the lack of small equipment to perform operations on children; scanners or other things that Israel blocks,” he denounces.
Dual-use material
This is because Tel Aviv has a list of “dual-use” materials which, according to their standards, the Gazans can use for war. This is where medical equipment, generators, and the machinery necessary to rebuild infrastructure and remove debris come in. 68 million metric tons of debris registered by the UN, the World Bank and the EU, and which are the main reason why, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretzthere is still more than 8,000 corpses under the rubble.
In this context, it could be said that the truce has allowed NGOs to focus on the recovery of the enclave, but it has not eradicated the needs of the Gazan population. Neither Israeli Army violence which, according to the Gaza Health Ministry led by Hamassince the ceasefire has killed about 870 people.
Issues like the water sanitation and hygiene They are still very problematic. Much of the water used needs to be extracted with generators prohibited by Israel, so Palestinians have to go to the points set up by NGOs. And it is this situation that forces Fathi Eskafia Gazan humanitarian worker, to delay his conversation with EL PERIÓDICO. “Before this interview I was waiting for load the drums and take them to my family“he explains from his office in Gaza City, where he has moved to have a stable connection.
Fathi, who is not yet thirty, has spent the last two years dedicated to addressing urgent needs, coordinating aid distribution and supporting vulnerable families on the ground. But his work, he insists, “is not just about logistics,” it also has to do with being present and listening to the displaced. “People are thirsty for help because they have lost almost everything,” he asserts.
Recover childhood
Here, one of the priorities identified is the psychological support. Especially for those children who have lost their family, their homes and “they need someone to listen to them with dignity. “Even if Israel stopped the genocide now, the effects of its crimes will remain for generations”denounces when referring to the thousands of children who show signs of fear and anxiety, sleep disturbances, and behavioral setbacks.
Along these lines, Fathi, who admits that dealing with children is his favorite part of his job, emphasizes that, after three years of war, children “have lost access to school, safe spaces, play areas and all the normal routines of childhood.” But his biggest concern is “in the speed with which they have normalized fear”. “That is why we have specific projects for children and other groups such as the elderly. Because recovery is not only physical. It is also mental, social and psychologicalaffects.
But the most important thing, Fathi and Salwa agree, is that among that sea of stores there is a germ of activity, life and commerce that struggles to flourish. Shops, mobile charging stations and restaurants where the Gazan people enjoy the present. Where, as the young Palestinian summarizes, They are not looking for a miraclebut rrecover a normal life“.
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