Pallets of aid parachuted down, a desperate lifeline to the battered and hungry population of Gaza below.
Most residents of this coastal strip have been displaced from their homes, crammed into a fraction of the territory, struggling daily to find food, water, and medicine in makeshift tent camps. The homes, businesses, and neighborhoods that once defined their lives now lie in rubble, leaving little to return to, even if the war were to end tomorrow.
In the two years since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has unleashed immense military force on Gaza, resulting in widespread destruction unmatched in modern warfare. What remains is a fragmented and chaotic society. Family trees have been dismembered, with local health officials reporting over 67,000 killed—roughly one in every 34 Gazans.
Last month, a United Nations commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel refutes this claim, asserting its objective is to dismantle Hamas and secure the return of hostages taken in the group-led attack that claimed 1,200 lives.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators met in Egypt on Monday to discuss a potential exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Such an agreement could pave the way for a new plan, proposed by President Trump, to end the war after numerous failed attempts.
However, it remains uncertain who, if anyone, would govern the territory or fund the massive reconstruction efforts needed to restore life for Gaza’s people.
For now, most are simply too preoccupied with survival to contemplate what lies ahead.
“The thinking about life after the war comes only when the war ends,” stated Hamza Salem, a former gas station attendant who lost both legs during the conflict’s early, heavy Israeli bombardment.
Damaged Bodies, Upended Lives
Before the war, Mr. Salem resided in northern Gaza with his wife and four children, including his 5-year-old daughter, Rital, who loved making beaded bracelets and had just started kindergarten.
“Life was moving, praise God,” Mr. Salem recalled.
The war abruptly shattered their world.
An Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the conflict landed near Rital, severing her right arm above the wrist. Mr. Salem’s father, Abdel-Nasr Salem, was also injured in the attack. The Israeli military stated it targeted Hamas military infrastructure.
Three months later, after the family had fled to southern Gaza, another strike near Mr. Salem necessitated the amputation of both his legs above the knee.
Both have struggled immensely to access treatment amidst Gaza’s crumbling healthcare system.
Israeli forces have repeatedly evacuated, raided, and struck hospitals, alleging Hamas used them for cover. The World Health Organization reports that fewer than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functional.
As the war intensified, medical supplies dwindled, and essential treatments like cancer therapies and dialysis became scarce. When Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza this spring, widespread hunger took hold. In August, a consortium of global experts declared that over half a million people in Gaza were enduring a “man-made” famine, resulting in starvation, severe malnutrition, and death.
Experts warn that malnutrition and trauma can severely impede mental and physical development, suggesting that the war’s health consequences could ripple through an entire generation.
“There is an ever-present threat of illness and death which children are having to battle with every day,” explained Tess Ingram, UNICEF spokeswoman in Gaza. “This creates a level of toxic stress that is not just harmful, but potentially life-threatening long term.”
Israeli officials have downplayed the severity of hunger in the enclave, stating they actively facilitate aid entry into the territory, and have dismissed the famine report as “an outright lie.”
The Israeli military maintains that it exclusively targets military objectives and adheres to international law, accusing Hamas of constructing military infrastructure—including command centers, weapon caches, and combat tunnels—within densely populated civilian areas and booby-trapping roads and homes.
The World Health Organization reports that over a quarter of the 167,000 Gazans wounded have sustained “life-changing injuries,” with more than 5,000 losing limbs.
With Gaza’s borders sealed by Israel, residents cannot escape the relentless bombardment as refugees from other conflicts have. The wounded face extreme difficulty in seeking medical care abroad due to restrictive evacuation permissions.
Rital’s severed arm was lost in the chaotic aftermath of the strike and could not be reattached, Mr. Salem recounted. Due to hospital shortages, he resorted to buying anesthesia and other medications from nearby pharmacies.
The blast that injured Mr. Salem rendered him unconscious. He awoke ten days later to the devastating reality of having lost both his legs.
Inadequate sanitation led to an infection, he said, and he was discharged without medication, left to manage the intense pain alone.
In September, the family was forced to flee again after Israel launched a new assault on Gaza City. They trekked on foot to central Gaza, his father and sons struggling to push his wheelchair over damaged and sandy streets.
The Salem family is now seeking refuge at his sister’s house, but they possess few clothes, little money, and no tent for shelter if they are forced to move again.
“We have no other place to go,” he said.
Ravaged Communities
The United Nations estimates that nearly four out of five buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. As of last December, the U.N. reported over 50 million tons of rubble, a quantity so vast it would take 105 trucks 21 years to remove. In February, the World Bank assessed the physical damage in Gaza at $29.9 billion—1.8 times the annual economic output of Gaza and the West Bank.
These figures cannot fully convey the extent of what has been lost. When enough daily landmarks vanish—the local tomato shop, the cafe where friends met—the very fabric of life begins to unravel.
For Nidal Eissa, a 32-year-old father of three who owned a bridal shop in Gaza City, life revolved around the apartment building he shared with approximately 30 relatives. Satellite imagery now confirms it lies in ruins, along with the nearby orange grove, his local butcher shop, and the barbershop where he used to take his son. An interactive map details the transformation of Nidal Eissa’s neighborhood, showing the destruction from June 2023 to September 2025, including destroyed schools, tank tracks, a bulldozed orchard, and razed buildings.
His family’s building was a repository of cherished memories.
“I lived my best days and years in this home,” Mr. Eissa reflected.
The family celebrated significant milestones there, welcoming new babies with sweets, honoring brides and grooms with feasts, and mourning departed relatives with bitter coffee and dates.
His children attended nearby schools, and the family received medical care at a local clinic, all operated by the United Nations.
His bridal shop, White Angel, was just a short drive away.
Early in the war, amidst intense Israeli bombardment, a nearby truck strike damaged his shop. He managed to salvage some dresses and accessories, moving them to his apartment for safekeeping.
However, these goods were lost in August when Israel bombed his apartment building, according to Mr. Eissa and his cousin Walid Eissa. Both men stated that the Israeli military forewarned a neighbor, who alerted the family, allowing them to flee before the building was destroyed. The Israeli military confirmed the strike hit “a military target.”
Suddenly homeless, his extended family dispersed in search of shelter. Mr. Eissa, his wife, and children eventually found themselves in southern Gaza, living in a tent.
He harbors a fragile hope of rebuilding his life in a Gaza freed from Hamas’s rule.
“If the war ends with solutions and the ruling system changes, I will open a business and stay in my country,” he affirmed. “Most important is that they change the regime that dragged us into ruin and destruction.”
Childhoods Lost
Mahmoud Abu Shahma, 14, also resides in a crowded tent near the beach.
His mornings are spent waiting in line to fill jugs with water for drinking and bathing. He brews tea over a wood fire and eats bread sprinkled with spices, or whatever else he can scavenge to stave off hunger. The rest of his days are spent wandering the camp; he hasn’t attended school in over two years.
“No one has asked me to study,” he said. “If there was a school, I would go.”
His parents were both killed in the conflict, leaving him among the many thousands of orphans the war has created.
The conflict has obliterated conventional childhoods. Children have been wounded, killed, orphaned, and subjected to prolonged deprivation.
“You are creating extremely difficult conditions for mental, human and physical recovery,” said Tareq Emtairah, director general of Taawon, a Palestinian charity supporting orphans.
In April, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, part of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, reported that over 39,000 children had lost at least one parent in the war, with approximately 17,000 losing both.
Mahmoud Abu Shahma lives in one of seven tent camps in southern Gaza that collectively house over 4,000 children who have lost at least one parent. An additional 15,000 children rely on these camps for food, medical care, and other essential services, according to Mahmoud Kallakh, who manages the camps.
Aid workers observe that many children suffer from frequent nightmares or severe anxiety. Some have experienced such extreme mental or physical anguish that they have become mute.
“I cannot remember my school clearly,” said Mohammed Shafqa, an 8-year-old orphan living in a tent camp with his 4-year-old brother Ahmed. He attends lessons in a makeshift classroom but struggles to recognize letters. Another student, Rateel al-Najjar, 8, is happy to be studying again in an ad hoc school within her camp but noted the lack of chairs, crayons, notebooks, and pencils. She loves math and dreams of becoming an architect like her uncle, who was killed in the war.
The education system has collapsed, affecting even children whose families remain intact.
UNICEF estimates that over 700,000 children lack formal schooling, and nearly all schools require rehabilitation or reconstruction.
All universities are closed, many destroyed by Israeli forces who alleged Hamas operated within them.
Makeshift schools have emerged in displacement camps, where children gather under tarps and sit on the ground to learn.
Mayasem, an arts and culture organization, operates a school in southern Gaza offering classes in Arabic, English, math, and science.
Rateel al-Najjar, 8, expressed joy at being able to study again but highlighted the school’s need for basic supplies like chairs, crayons, notebooks, and pencils.
She loves math and aspires to be an architect, inspired by an uncle lost in the war.
Najla Abu Nahla, Mayasem’s executive manager, stated that the school prioritizes fun, sports, and music to support children’s mental well-being over strict academic achievement.
When classes conclude, she said, the children are reluctant to return to waiting in lines for food or fetching water.
“Here,” she said, “they can just feel like children.”
An Economy in Tatters
Before the war, Mona al-Ghalayini stood as a rare female figure who had ascended into Gaza’s business elite.
She co-owned a supermarket and managed both Big Bite, an eatery, and the upscale Roots Hotel, which graced Gaza City’s Mediterranean coast next to the marina.
Little of her once-flourishing ventures remains.
The supermarket?
“Burned and looted,” she stated by phone from Egypt, where she sought refuge early in the conflict.
Big Bite?
“Also gone.”
And the hotel?
“It needs to be completely restructured.”
Last year, she opened Jouzoor, a Palestinian restaurant, in Cairo. She contemplates returning to Gaza someday but insists it must first offer stability, running water, and electricity—what she calls “the components of life.”
She cannot predict when such a return might be possible.
“There is no clear vision for anything that you can build on,” said Ms. al-Ghalayini, 55. “The future is not clear for anyone.”
Pre-war Gaza was already impoverished, a condition worsened by a partial Israeli-Egyptian blockade designed to weaken Hamas. Yet, resourceful Gazans invested in shopping malls, restaurants, factories, and farms, which provided sustenance and employment for the population.
The war brought nearly all formal economic activity to a standstill, pushing unemployment to at least 80 percent, according to the World Bank.
The conflict has severely impacted Gazans’ ability to feed themselves, with over 70 percent of irrigation wells, greenhouses, and fishing boats either damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations. As of July, less than 2 percent of cropland remained undamaged and accessible to farmers.
The World Bank projects that the proportion of Gazans living in “multidimensional poverty”—lacking access to income, education, and essential services like electricity and clean water—will surge from 64 percent before the war to 98 percent.
The conflict has also decimated the finances of many entrepreneurial Gazans.
Hassan Shehada, 61, once employed over 200 workers in his business, sewing jeans, jackets, and other apparel, much of which was sold in Israel. He shared his story by phone from Gaza.
During the war, one of his workshops, containing 60 sewing machines, was destroyed. When his family fled Gaza City for central Gaza, they managed to take 20 sewing machines and other supplies, but electricity shortages have made them largely unusable. Unable to work or return home, he tries to keep track of former employees who have been killed.
Nevertheless, he holds onto hope for peace and believes that both Israelis and Gazans will eventually recognize their interwoven destinies.
“Israel can’t give up on us, and we can’t give up on Israel,” he asserted. “If there is no real peace built on solid foundations between us, nothing will work.”