The reality in Gaza.
For over 28 months, the Israeli military has not only murdered Palestinians en masse, but also systematically destroyed and restricted Palestinians’ access to their homes, to clean water, food, medical care, schools, Internet, fuel, and electricity. These are all tactics of genocide: destroying the conditions required for life.
Despite the so-called “ceasefire,” the Israeli government is continuing to use the creation of unlivable conditions as a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Right now, the reality for millions of Palestinians in Gaza is one of decimated homes and unlivable conditions, trapped between a militarized border and open gunfire.
Mass displacement in their own homeland
More than 1.3 million Palestinians are still internally displaced within Gaza, blocked from returning home either because their homes were destroyed by Israeli and U.S.-made bombs, like 93% of Gaza’s residential infrastructure, or because of the ongoing Israeli occupation of large portions of Gaza. Permanent rebuilding is made essentially impossible under the Israeli military’s ongoing restriction of critical supplies — not only nutritious food and basic medical goods, but also building materials to reconstruct destroyed homes and villages.
As a result, more than half of the Palestinians in Gaza are living in non-permanent tents in IDP (internally displaced person) camps. These unsafe living conditions have made winter weather and storms in Gaza deadly: tents are consistently flooding and collapsing in what the UN calls a “catastrophic” situation. These conditions have killed at least 39 people so far, including children freezing to death and killed by collapsing infrastructure.
The bombs and bullets haven’t stopped
Even as Palestinians confront unlivable conditions, Israel continues to attack Gaza. An al-Jazeera analysis found on Monday that the Israeli military has so far carried out attacks on Gaza on 119 out of 137 days of the ceasefire. In total, at least 612 people in Gaza have been killed by the Israeli military since the ceasefire was declared, including at least 190 children, and more than one thousand have been wounded.
In particular, the area around the Israeli-designated “yellow line” has become a death trap for Palestinians. The ceasefire deal stipulated the withdrawal of Israeli forces east of a “yellow line” dividing Gaza — barring Palestinians whose homes are on the other side of the line from returning to them. The Israeli military immediately began shooting any Palestinian who crossed the line, whether knowingly or not, including children searching for firewood. It also continues to bomb the area, despite the makeshift homes and schools that the “yellow line” runs through.
The physical dividing line, previously unmarked, is now represented only by yellow blocks on the ground, and satellite imagery has shown Israeli forces moving those blocks inward, expanding their de facto area of control. These encroachments force more Palestinians to either flee their homes or risk continuing to live in a free-fire zone.
Unable to leave, unable to return
Palestinians are trapped inside of Gaza, crowded into less than half of the already historically dense region, forced to live in deadly conditions, and barred from returning to or reconstructing their homes. But they’re also unable to leave, even in the most dire circumstances, despite the Israeli state claiming that it “reopened” the Rafah crossing early this month. The Israeli military fully controls the crucial entry point at the southern border between Gaza and Egypt, and has kept the crossing closed for nearly two years after invading Rafah in May 2024, refusing to allow even critical humanitarian supplies to enter as Gaza faced famine conditions last year.
With the partial reopening of the Rafah crossing, the Israeli state determines which Palestinians can leave and or re-enter, a system clearly designed to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. And it immediately began heavily restricting every entry and exit through the crossing. At least 22,000 Palestinians are currently in dire need of medical evacuations, a list made longer by Israel’s mass destruction of Gaza’s hospitals. But the Israeli government has not even met the ceasefire deal’s already-insufficient quota of 50 medical evacuations per day. In the 3 weeks since reopening, the Israeli government has only allowed around two hundred patients to be evacuated.
On Sunday, a two-year-old on the medical transfer list died waiting to be evacuated. He was on the medical evacuation list for 14 months, nearly half his short life — but still was not given permission to exit through the crossing. Of the 22,000 on the medical evacuation list, 1 in 5 are children. Stories like this have become common: since the Israeli military closed the Rafah border in 2024, 1,268 people have died in Gaza while waiting for medical transfer.
Reentry is severely restricted, and Palestinians attempting to return to Gaza and reunite with their families have been subjected to brutal, hours-long interrogations by Israeli authorities at the border. Even the few people allowed to medically evacuate Gaza must confront the possibility that Israeli authorities will not allow them to return home — yet another mechanism of ethnic cleansing.
Creating unlivable conditions for Palestinians, forcing them into smaller and smaller areas, restricting their mobility, and mass debilitation and killing of entire families and communities: These are the genocidal tactics through which Israel continues to carry out its project of ethnic cleansing every single day.
Tell Congress: Free Leqaa from ICE detention!
Palestinian Columbia University student Leqaa Kordia has been held in horrible conditions in ICE detention for 11 months, most recently having to be hospitalized following a seizure. She has never been charged with anything — but is being punished for speaking against Israel’s genocide against her family in Gaza.
Use this tool from our partners to email your members of Congress now and demand they call for Leqaa’s immediate release.
From Minneapolis to Gaza, Purge Palantir!
Palantir, the tech giant which powers ICE surveillance and kidnappings as well as the Israeli military’s genocide, has been expanding its contracts in communities across the US. Palantir has local contracts everywhere—and community cut-the-contract campaigns to “purge Palantir” are popping up just as quickly.
Join JVP and our partners on March 5 for a workshop to learn more about local divestment and boycott campaigns targeting Palantir contracts across the country.
Tell Congress: Call it a genocide.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has introduced historic legislation to recognize the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
During the supposed ceasefire, the Israeli military has continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Email Congress now and demand they recognize Israel’s genocide in Gaza, end U.S. complicity in these atrocities, and demand accountability.
What we’re reading: Investigating the massacre of aid workers in Gaza.
In March 2025, Israeli soldiers massacred 15 Palestinian medical aid workers and first responders, firing nearly 1,000 bullets at the rescue workers. The Israeli military consistently changed its story about these atrocities, including Israeli forces’ execution of multiple aid workers at point-blank range, the crushing of their vehicles, and the burial of their bodies in a mass grave.
A new investigation by Earshot and Forensic Architecture, reported in Drop Site, breaks down the horrific massacre minute-by-minute.
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