Gaza ceasefire 'exists in name only' as Israeli attacks persist

More than 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations working in the occupied Palestinian territory said that the US-brokered "truce" reached in October 2025 "exists in name only."

"A year on, the pattern is unmistakable. Families are still being killed. Children are still dying of preventable illness. Gaza is still littered with unexploded ordnance. Homes lie in rubble that cannot be cleared, and aid cannot reach the people who so desperately need it," the joint statement released on 9 October read.

More than 1,400 people in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since the "ceasefire" was announced, making for "at least one casualty every 90 minutes," the Islamic Relief organization estimated.

“There is no ceasefire in reality," an aid worker in Gaza said. "They target displacement camps and crowded areas, so there is still a lot of fear. We are scared to even leave our homes, and of the noise of the drones above us. Even our homes themselves are unsafe. It’s hard to think you could be next. The killing is non-stop and we cannot live our lives normally.”  

The testimonies rack up and up: "It is all lies. Every day there's a shooting. Every day there is killing and death lurking around," a Palestinian father told BBC News. "We are literally still dying," another told NPR. "The Trump plan changed nothing," another said to Le Monde (paywall).

Gaza's health system is shattered, crisis-level hunger persists, options of safe shelter are limited, and entry of aid is still severely restricted, the groups warned.

"This is not what a ceasefire was meant to deliver."

The groups called on the international community to take action so that "the killing and deprivation [is] not normalized under the cover of a ceasefire agreement."

Welcome to the latest in Conflict Journal's Gaza Notes. Please sign up to receive this in your email inbox.

The third year anniversary of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—that began after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israeli soil in October 2023—was also this week and there's a lot of strong coverage worth taking a look at:

• An amputee mother, civil defense worker, and a four-year old student are profiled in this feature by The National News.
• 15 girls posed for a selfie before October 2023, and Al Jazeera found them all three years later.
• NPR spoke with three American doctors who worked in the Palestinian territory about how their patients are doing.
• A journalist from Gaza wrote about how many of her colleagues are "still living the headlines" in a piece for The Key.
• Wall Street Journal in a video report revealed (paywall) new Israeli military bases built along the "Yellow Line" in Gaza, shrinking Palestinian territory.
• "Palestinians are still waiting for the 'day after' to arrive," a former advisor to Palestinian leadership said in a piece (paywall).

In Gaza

At least eight people were killed, and others injured by reported Israeli gunfire near the Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij refugee camps on 9 October.

At least seven people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza City on 8 October, the territory's civil defense rescue organization said.

Israel's military claims it killed (paywall) three militants aligned with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as part of those strikes.

Among those killed in recent days is the nephew of Al Jazeera's Gaza office director Wael Dahdouh, who has already seen several family members killed.

“There is not much else to say in these moments; one really is conflicted on what to say. [...] Just now, I received a message that informed me that my nephew has been killed in Deir al-Balah in the center of Gaza,” he said on Al Jazeera Arabic, the New Arab reported.

Israel also issued forced eviction orders for parts of Gaza City and southern Gaza.

Basically all of Gaza's population of two million people need urgent shelter assistance, the UN migration agency said in a new warning ahead of "a fourth winter without adequate protection from rain, flooding, and cold."

International Organization for Migration's director general Amy Pope said there are 8,600 emergency shelter kits outside Gaza that have been repeatedly rejected by Israeli authorities. So, people are "living in war-damaged buildings" that may not be safe.

"Shelter materials must enter quickly, predictably and at the scale required," Pope urged.

In Israel

Israel continues to "deny the recovery of Gaza's healthcare system and conditions sustaining life" despite the "ceasefire," Physicians for Human Rights in Israel said in a new report (PDF).

The organization last year ruled Israel is committing genocide with its actions targeting health care services "inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian population." PHRI declared on 8 October that that genocide "persists" today.

And in wider Palestine

The Palestinian legislative election scheduled for 28 November will be postponed, the Palestinian Authority said in a letter to France, Reuters reported, due to deteriorating conditions in its occupied territories.

"Holding them under the current circumstances faces fundamental obstacles affecting their ​inclusiveness, freedom of participation and the integrity of the electoral process," the letter read.

Palestinians have not voted in an legislative or presidential election since at least 2006. "Israel, which controls whether ballot boxes or election observers can enter Gaza, has also shown little readiness to facilitate the voting," the NY Times said.

And globally

Pro-Palestine activists planned a solidarity "march for Palestine" in dozens of countries, including across the US, for 10 October.

A senior US official anonymously told the Washington Post that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has done a number of things to aggravate the situation" in peace for Gaza.

A US charity called Gaza Children Village has plans to use AI to monitor classrooms for "hateful" or "inciting" speech, the Associated Press reported, raising ethical concerns about Palestinian education, privacy, and free speech.

The World Medical Association is facing a petition by some of its members to suspend the Israeli chapter for failure to "uphold core medical ethical standards" in Gaza and Palestine.

Other reading

• 24 of the 40 hostages—taken by Hamas-led groups—were killed by Israeli military actions in Gaza, CNN found in an investigation. 16 were killed by their captors, and five by wounds or lack of care.
• An Israeli politician asserted that "Hamas is Gaza and Gaza is Hamas," including even "babies born prematurely," and called for the forced mass eviction of Palestinians in Gaza—a such action illegal under international law.
• Navi Pillay, who led the UN investigation that found Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on international law.
• Democratic US senator Jon Ossoff said at a political debate that Israel's forces have violated international humanitarian law in Gaza.
• "Now I know the only difference between life and death may have been an AI algorithm," a Palestinian wrote about the new NAZA documentary.
• The NY Times found how a US diplomat "suppressed and altered reports critical of Israel," including the deadly Gaza Humanitarian Foundation-run food distribution sites in 2025.