Who Pays for the Power Above
Israeli fire killed five people in Gaza within the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday, and another person died of wounds sustained earlier. An additional eight people were wounded, the ministry said. Medics said some of the casualties remain under the rubble and on the roads because ambulances and Gaza's Civil Defense emergency medical service are unable to evacuate them. Later on Monday, local reports said an Israeli helicopter fired toward tents in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two people, including a six-year-old girl, and wounding 17 others.
The report said most casualties are children, and that the attack took place in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza, formerly known as the humanitarian zone. The ministry said Israel has killed 904 people in Gaza since the cease-fire and hostage release deal took effect on October 11, and wounded a further 2,713 people. Gaza's Health Ministry also said it had retrieved the remains of 777 people from buildings destroyed before the cease-fire.
Bodies in the Rubble, Aid on Hold
Gazan health authorities estimate that between six and 10 people a day die in the territory because they cannot be evacuated to hospitals outside the enclave. Roughly 1.4 million Gazans are still considered displaced in the wake of the war that began after Hamas' October 7 massacre, and approximately 800,000 of them are still living in tents. Those numbers sit underneath the language of cease-fire and release deals, while the daily reality remains one of displacement, blocked evacuation, and emergency services unable to reach people in time.
Medics said the inability to evacuate casualties leaves people stranded under debris and on roads. The machinery of rescue is present in name, but not in capacity, and the people at the bottom of the hierarchy absorb the cost. The report said the attack in Mawasi hit an area once labeled a humanitarian zone, another reminder of how official designations do not stop the violence when power decides otherwise.
What the Authorities Call Caution
In a statement last week, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said Israel has exercised caution regarding dual-use material but has offered humanitarian organizations alternatives enabling them to address humanitarian needs without giving Hamas the opportunity "to make cynical use of the aid to strengthen itself." The statement said approval was granted to bring in medical equipment for the Red Cross field hospital, including emergency equipment and generators for ongoing operation of the hospital.
That is the language of managed suffering: aid filtered through the gatekeepers, humanitarian need acknowledged only within the limits set by the apparatus. The Red Cross field hospital was allowed medical equipment, emergency equipment and generators, but only after the terms were set from above. The people in Gaza remain dependent on permissions, approvals, and the shifting calculations of those controlling the flow of material.
Rebuilding as a Right, Not a Bargain
In a separate opinion piece, Tania Hary wrote that rebuilding civilian life in Gaza is an obligation to a people that has endured more than two years of destruction, not a reward. Hary said conditioning Gaza's rebuilding on Hamas disarmament isn't realpolitik; it's a moral failure, and the international community is complicit.
That critique lands against the backdrop of the same hierarchy that keeps aid conditional and reconstruction hostage to political demands. The article places the burden of survival on a population already displaced, wounded, and unable to reach hospitals, while the institutions above debate what conditions should be attached to rebuilding. The result is a system where civilians are made to wait for permission to live, recover, and rebuild while the powerful frame the terms as prudence.
The facts in the report show a territory where people are still being killed, wounded, and left without evacuation, while humanitarian access and reconstruction remain subject to decisions made far above the people enduring the destruction.