The story continues from Part 3 – – –
While demanding disarmament, US plans military base near Gaza
Meanwhile, Washington plans to establish a military base near Gaza’s border to host international troops overseeing the ceasefire and post-war security arrangements, stripping Palestinians of sovereignty and advancing foreign control over Gaza.
The facility, expected to cost around $500 million and accommodate several thousand soldiers, would mark a major shift in Israel’s long-standing opposition to foreign involvement in occupied territories, and underscore the depth of US control over Gaza’s future governance.
The United States is preparing to establish a military base in what appears to be a new phase of direct interference in the besieged Palestinian territory. This comes as Washington calls for the demilitarization of Gaza.
“The establishment of an American base on Israeli soil shows just how determined Washington is to be in charge here “one source said, reflecting the deepening role the US seeks to play in Gaza.
Washington’s claim of mediating peace in Gaza collapses under the weight of its actions. As the chief financier and arms supplier of the Israeli genocidal campaign, the US not only ordered mass destruction but now seeks to entrench its control through military bases and political engineering, proving its role as a direct participant, not a neutral mediator, in the ongoing occupation.
US ‘New Gaza’ plan draws Arab fury
Arab states and mediators have reportedly rejected the plan, refusing to deploy forces or endorse any arrangement that cements Israeli control.
Hamas, PIJ reject UN resolution for not meeting Palestinian demands
Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject the UN Security Council resolution on Gaza, saying it imposes international trusteeship, undermines Palestinian sovereignty, and seeks to fulfill the occupation’s goals under a new framework.
Hamas, which remains in control in Gaza, denounced the resolution, arguing that the ISF’s mandate to disarm militant groups in the enclave “strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”
Aid and crossings are a right, not a bargaining chip. Regarding humanitarian aid and the opening of crossings, Hamas underlined that these are “fundamental rights of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” and must not be conditioned or politicized through the mandate of foreign forces. Nearly one million bottles of infant formula, 1.6 million syringes, and solar-powered refrigerators for vaccines remain blocked under Israeli ‘dual-use’.
US plot for Gaza in shambles amid continued popular support for Hamas
Support for Hamas continues and grows in Gaza following the ceasefire, as its role in restoring security and resisting the Israeli occupation challenges Trump’s disarmament plan.
The Palestinian Resistance movement, Hamas, has seen a notable rise in popular support across Gaza following the latest ceasefire.
A key driver of increased support has been the restoration of security. In the aftermath of the ceasefire, Hamas fighters swiftly returned to the streets as internal security and police forces. Their presence curbed lawlessness, restored public order, and reinforced their role as a pillar of resistance and governance.
The overwhelming sentiment in Gaza has favored the stability brought about by the Resistance group’s return to policing duties. Many Palestinians credit the Resistance with safeguarding daily life in the face of external aggression and internal instability caused by the Israeli intentional attacks on civil servants and the arming and supporting of local gangs.
In this context, Hazem Sarour, a 22-year-old businessman in Gaza City, stated, “We witnessed a collapse, thieves, thugs, and lawlessness. That’s why people support them.”
This return to order, paired with continued support and allegiance to the armed resistance against the Israeli occupation, has allowed Hamas to maintain trust among the people of Gaza, extending its influence both as a Resistance force and as a governing body. The increasing support for Hamas complicates attempts to disarm the Resistance to open up the way for Israeli publicly announced ethnic cleansing plans, under the guise of a promised but not guaranteed withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces and their replacement with a foreign force.
But the people of Gaza are far from embracing such conditions. According to the same poll, 70% rejected the idea of disarming the Resistance.
Resistance upheld the deal – Tel Aviv broke it
The pause-and-dominate strategy
The ceasefire, brokered under the guise of relief, was engineered by Tel Aviv and Washington as a tool to impose its will not just on Gaza, but on the broader terms of war and peace in the region.
Western powers have long used negotiations as to affirm their dominance. The language of international law, the architecture of diplomacy, and even the vocabulary of humanitarianism are all routinely weaponized to serve the interests of imperialism.
Behind the public statements and procedural delays was a deeper design intended to convert the pause into a pivot, and to reframe Gaza’s future in a way that sidelined Palestinians entirely. The ceasefire process itself became a tool of dominance, shaped by the very powers whose military and political machinery had driven Gaza to catastrophe.
The central question, then, is not why the second phase is delayed. It is: who is delaying it, to what end, and within what political architecture is this process being managed?
A senior Hamas official lays out a straightforward but damning account: the resistance fully honored its obligations in the first phase, including the release of all living captives in a single batch, and the continued handover of bodies despite logistical complexities.
On the other side, there was no such commitment. Daily violations of the ceasefire, the relentless destruction of infrastructure, and the targeted killing of civilians represent a continuation of Israel’s well-established pattern of delay and evasion under the guise of “security considerations.”
This is the context in which the second phase now hangs. And here, it’s the resistance’s position that upends the dominant narrative.
The resistance has not signed off on any post-conflict political arrangements. The only agreement signed was the first phase. Everything else, including discussions on governance and security in Gaza, was deferred to a future intra-Palestinian consensus. Disarmament is not on the table. It will only be discussed once the occupation ends.
That truth collapses the myth – widely circulated in Israeli media – which the resistance has implicitly agreed on phase two. It has not. It has held the line that any political future for Gaza must be decided collectively by Palestinians, not imposed by foreign powers.
Trusteeship by another name
Against this backdrop, the recent UN Security Council (UNSC) decision to establish a “”Trusteeship to administer Gaza is one of the most dangerous developments so far.
Remember, the UN itself is a 100 % Rockefeller entity. Nelson bought the land where the UN sits in 1945 for $8 m. Rockefeller architects and money built it. To this day, the UN banks with a Rockefeller bank – Chase Manhattan (now known as JP Morgan Chase). Add this to the fact that the Gaza genocide is a 100 % Rockefeller move, with Israel acting as the subcontractor. Since both the UN and the genocide have a common author, there can be no justice for the Palestinians.
For Hamas, the resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which the people and their factions reject. It also imposes a mechanism to achieve the occupation’s objectives, which it failed to accomplish through its brutal genocide.
The term “mandate” is all too familiar in the context of foreign involvement in the affairs of their colonies. In this sense, it is comparable to the Mandate for Palestine.
The post-WW1 mandates awarded land to the Rothschild’s (Britain and France) in formerly Ottoman areas were predicated on the inherently colonialist assumption that the peoples of those regions somehow weren’t ‘ready’ for self-governance.
Almost a hundred years later, global powers are once again taking charge of Palestinian territory for what is described as a “transitional” period. But, this time, the territory is falling under Rockefeller control.
The so-called “conditional approval” cited by Washington and Tel Aviv is little more than media spin. The actual implementation of the second phase remains impossible because Israel wants it stripped of costs, politics, Palestinian rights, and any actual withdrawal.
Israel now ties progress on the second phase to three issues: the return of bodies, tunnel networks, and what it calls “residual threats. “In other words, these are attempts to impose the terms of a victor after a battlefield defeat. Tel Aviv is trying to extract political concessions through talks that it failed to achieve through force.
Re-carving Gaza
One of the most dangerous of these attempts is the imposition of the so-called “Yellow Line “ , a geographical partition that would effectively divide Gaza into east and west, and later, north and south, turning a temporary military arrangement into a permanent political rupture.
The so-called security buffer forms part of Israel’s ongoing campaign to carve up Palestinian geography – separating Gaza from the occupied West Bank, isolating occupied East Jerusalem, and now bisecting Gaza itself.
The resistance will not accept any redrawing of borders, military or political. There is no Gaza without Palestine, and no Palestine without Gaza. Any attempt to translate battlefield lines into permanent borders is simply a new version of the “New Gaza” project – a plan to sever the strip from its national context and transform it into a demilitarized, aid-dependent zone.
Equally alarming is the shifting mandate of the “International Security Force” (ISF). What was initially framed as a monitoring mission to oversee a ceasefire has now morphed, under US proposals, into a full-fledged administrative entity. From monitoring withdrawal, to administering Gaza, to exercising authority, to imposing a new political order, the security force aims to strip the resistance of any role and impose a political order that serves the 2 families.
Both Hamas and the PIJ have categorically rejected this proposal – not as a tactical stance, but as a principled position: any foreign force not approved by a Palestinian consensus is an occupying force, regardless of the flag it flies.
Even key Arab states have voiced recognizing that this plan is little more than a reboot of Washington’s old trusteeship model. It reduces the Palestinian cause to a humanitarian problem and obscures the core issue of national liberation.
So why is Israel obstructing the second phase?
Israel is obstructing the second phase for four core reasons.
First, because advancing to the next phase would amount to acknowledging the end of its war. Within Israel, the consensus is clear: the military campaign has not delivered. Formalizing a second phase would confirm that failure, so the political and military leadership prefers to keep the process in limbo – buying time in hopes of regaining lost leverage.
Second, because Washington plays both sides. While publicly pressuring Tel Aviv to comply, it simultaneously allows the Israeli military to redefine the terms. This duplicity creates a gray zone that Tel Aviv exploits to its advantage.
Third, because the Israeli government perceives any withdrawal as capitulation. Progress on the ceasefire threatens to fracture the ruling coalition, exposing the government to domestic collapse.
And fourth, because Tel Aviv is attempting to extract in negotiation what it failed to impose by force. It demands resistance disarmament without compromise, tunnel destruction without combat, foreign oversight without responsibility, and the permanent detachment of Gaza from the occupied West Bank – while dressing it all up as a ceasefire.
The US, having orchestrated the ceasefire, now faces a dilemma. It wants the war to end to avoid regional collapse and repair its global standing. But it cannot force Israel into full withdrawal without triggering political backlash at home and further destabilizing the region.
The result is a controlled freeze. The goal is not to end the war, but to contain it – keeping it within limits that protect US interests without jeopardizing its regional strategy. This marks a shift from “total war” to slow-motion warfare governed by international political decisions, not airstrikes or invasions.
A Palestinian vision for phase two
In this vacuum, the resistance has laid out its own vision for the second phase.
First, Gaza is not a separate entity. It is inseparable from the national Palestinian fabric. No future exists for Gaza outside the context of Palestinian unity. Second, any international force must be limited to border monitoring. It cannot govern, manage, or police Palestinian society. Third, Gaza’s and civil governance should be led by a Palestinian technocratic committee, formed through national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic states.
However, this vision is not compatible with the American plan. It is its antidote.
So, was the second phase delayed – or obstructed?
The answer leans toward the latter. Deliberately, strategically, and in full coordination between Tel Aviv and Washington. The second phase, far from mere negotiations, will shape the future of Gaza, the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA), the resistance, and the regional order.
That is why Israel and its allies are stalling. They want to ensure that when the second phase begins, it does not return the resistance to a position of initiative, nor collapse the Israeli government.
Netanyahu has been brought –kicking and screaming- to the table by Trump, and Hamas negotiators have said, correctly, that Israel cannot be trusted, and that their hope for success depends upon the U.S. President’s ability to enforce the agreement.
They seek to block any path toward Palestinian unity around an independent national administration. They want to prevent the reopening of a viable statehood track, to maintain the separation between Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and to preserve their grip over the crossings, the reconstruction agenda, and the broader political narrative.
The second phase will only begin when Tel Aviv is certain it will not trigger a new wave of Palestinian liberation.
And so, we return to the core contradiction: the resistance has fulfilled its obligations; the occupation has fulfilled none. In this gap between full compliance and full evasion, one of the most consequential chapters in the Palestinian struggle is unfolding.
The Palestinian state: Recognition without sovereignty
Even if every European country were to recognize Palestine, it would amount to little more than symbolism without enforcement. There would be no defined borders for the state, no control over its own territory, and no halt to the settlement expansion or annexation policies pursued by the occupation state.
Tel Aviv rejects the premise entirely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that any future Palestinian state would be “a platform to destroy Israel,” and that sovereign security control must remain with Israel. He has repeatedly ruled out a return to the conditions that existed prior to 7 October.
The reality is that 68 percent of the West Bank, classified as Area C, remains under full Israeli control. More than 750,000 settlers are embedded across that territory, under the full protection of the occupation army. How can a state exist on occupied, fragmented land, under constant siege, and without sovereignty?
Yet despite this, Netanyahu’s far-right government is doubling down – pushing for full annexation of the occupied West Bank, eyeing new territorial footholds in Sinai, southern Syria, even while maintaining military positions in south Lebanon.
Israel’s global brand may be eroding, but its strategic project is advancing.
If Israel is expanding and entrenching, while the Palestinian movement scales back demands and regional states normalize ties, what exactly has been achieved?
Resistance factions that once rejected Tel Aviv’s existence now propose statehood on its terms. European recognition comes with no teeth. Settlements grow. Displacement continues. This is not liberation. It is the burial of the dream under the guise of diplomacy.
The interim solution will become the final arrangement. The Palestinian “state” becomes a diplomatic euphemism – an empty structure praised in speeches, but denied on the ground.
The GAZA CMCC
The US plan is to insert itself in Gaza, in order to control future developments favorable to New York’s energy plan for the region. Us trust in Israel is a t its lowest level. There is no trust in the Zionists. Thus, the CMCC was created in October to oversee the ceasefire, coordinate humanitarian assistance, and end the war.
CMCC was tasked to expand aid, ‘Israel’ continues to limit it, even though it was tasked with supporting an expanded flow of essential supplies into Gaza, a key element of the ceasefire agreement. But “Israel” has repeatedly restricted or halted deliveries of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, and a complete siege earlier this year pushed parts of the enclave into famine.
When the CMCC began operating, the IDF began restricting entry to the US military. Two months into the ceasefire, however, Washington’s influence remains limited: “Israel” still controls Gaza’s perimeter and ultimately decides what crosses into the territory.
Among those assigned to the CMCC were American logistics specialists accustomed to responding to natural disasters. They arrived intent on increasing aid flows, only to find that Israeli restrictions on permitted goods posed greater obstacles than the physical challenges on the ground. Several dozen personnel departed within weeks.
Diplomats say the discussions held at the CMCC have nonetheless played a critical role in pushing “Israel” to revise its lists of items barred or restricted as “dual use” goods; “Israel” argues that most of the aid could be repurposed for military activity. The items include basic humanitarian necessities such as tent poles and chemicals required for water purification.
The CMCC brings together military planners from the US, “Israel”, and several allied states, including the UK and Abu Dhabi, diplomats based in “Israel” and the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as humanitarian organizations working inside Gaza, have also been invited to participate in and planning for the territory’s future.
Palestinians are entirely absent from the CMCC itself. No representatives from Palestinian civilian groups, humanitarian organizations, or the Palestinian Authority are stationed at the center or invited to take part in its deliberations. According to individuals involved in or briefed on the talks, attempts to include Palestinian voices through video calls were repeatedly interrupted or cut off by Israeli officials.
US military planning documents also avoid any reference to “Palestine” or “Palestinians”, instead describing the population solely as “Gazans”.
The CMCC operates from a multistory building in the industrial zone of Kiryat Gat, an unremarkable settlement roughly 20km from the Gaza border. The facility previously housed the CIA’s Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose food distribution centers later became death traps for hundreds of Palestinians. In the basement, piles of branded goods from the now-defunct organization still sit untouched.
US blocks European diplomats from Gaza coordination center under Israeli pressure
The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) is the US-run hub overseeing Gaza operations and that was initially open to international representatives when it launched. Access began to tighten in recent weeks, starting when the head of the Netherlands mission to the PA was prevented from returning to the center after two earlier visits.
The US has blocked senior European envoys accredited to the Palestinian Authority (PA) from entering the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat outside the Gaza border under Israeli pressure, on 11 December.
European officials said the US Embassy in Jerusalem recently began requiring written requests for access. One state filed the requested submission but received no formal reply. Its envoy was eventually told by US officials that Israel had requested the prohibition. The US was not satisfied with the policy.
Israel’s influence over the center “has grown” since then. Multiple diplomats argued that their PA-focused envoys should be present inside the CMCC because they hold detailed knowledge of Palestinian society and because the center contains no Palestinian representation.
Israeli operatives have been spying on internal disputes over both open and covert recordings of sensitive conversations revealed. The scope of the intelligence gathering inside the (CMCC) became a point of serious tension in recent weeks, prompting the base’s commander, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, warning that “recording has to stop here”. Staff members and visiting officials from other countries have also voiced alarm about Israeli monitoring inside the facility. Several were advised not to share sensitive information in the building due to fears it could be collected and misused.
One of the first aims of this CMCC was to complete the destruction of any structures still standing. This move is in line with the original US plan to evict the people from Gaza, in order that the process of “consolidating the gas fields of the Eastern Med into one entity, under Rockefeller control.
The Israeli military has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire deal was reached last month, according to new satellite images – the latest of which was captured on 8 November.
The images show that the Israeli army has wiped out entire neighborhoods in less than a month, mainly through demolitions. The destruction of buildings in Gaza by the Israeli military has been continuing on a huge scale. Many of the demolished buildings did not appear to have sustained damage before their destruction, for example, near Rafah, Khan Yunis, and parts of Gaza City.
The agreement Trump made included this point; “all terror infrastructure, including tunnels, is to be dismantled throughout Gaza.” These demolitions would continue to pose a problem until Israel withdraws from Gaza, and could jeopardize the ceasefire. Yet the US plan allows Israel to maintain a strong military presence in the strip until the resistance is completely disarmed.
Ultimately, the sense that Israel is stalling its withdrawal and looking to create new permanent facts on the ground, as it has in the West Bank, will become an increasingly greater threat to the maintenance of the ceasefire.
Winter Hardship
The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly under continued Israeli restrictions. UNRWA warned today that nine out of ten Palestinians in Gaza are now experiencing some form of malnutrition, as “Israel” blocks hundreds of types of aid from entering the enclave and continues to prevent the use of the Zikim crossing in the north. It described the crisis as “entirely preventable,” citing deliberate Israeli obstruction of medical supplies, hygiene kits, and shelter materials. UNICEF similarly reported that nearly one million bottles of infant formula, 1.6 million syringes, and solar-powered refrigerators for vaccines remain blocked under Israeli ‘dual-use’ classifications.
With more than 900,000 displaced Palestinians sheltering in fragile tents in the coastal zone as winter storms approach, humanitarian agencies warn that the Strip is approaching a major catastrophe. Relief efforts remain critically hampered by the continued blockade, the collapse of basic infrastructure, and ongoing Israeli attacks despite the declared ceasefire, leaving millions of Palestinians vulnerable to hunger, disease, and exposure.
The need for reconstruction is urgent, with more than 80% of structures in Gaza damaged or destroyed in the war, including almost all schools and hospitals, according to UN data.
More than a month into the ceasefire, Israel continues to limit aid shipments into Gaza, including barring basic items, such as tent poles, that it classifies as “dual use” because it says they have the potential to be used for military purposes.
Nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are waiting for emergency shelter items and hundreds of thousands more are living in tents without access to basic services such as clean water. Almost all the population – more than 2 million people – are crowded into the red zone, a strip along the coast that covers less than half of Gaza’s surface area.
On the ground in Gaza: It’s impossible to imagine people still living here – yet some do
Not so long ago, Shujaiya, in the north of Gaza, was a bustling town of around 100,000 people, proud of a history dating back 850 years. Now, it is a wasteland, a patchwork of dust and misery. Welcome to Shujayia , in the north. Not so long ago, this was a bustling town of around 100,000 people, proud of a history dating back 850 years. Now, it is a wasteland, a patchwork of dust and misery.
Israel cracks down on aid groups in Gaza amid severe winter crisis
Trump issued new orders to Netanyahu to speed up the conditions for expelling the Gazans. The main weapon for this is to starve out the population. Israel quickly acted to please its master, just in time for the sub-contractor –Israel- to report back to its master- Washington- , and we see that Bibi never left Trump’s side during the New Year celebrations at Mar a Largo in Florida.
“Israel” revoked licenses for 39 humanitarian organizations in Gaza, prompting international warnings over aid shortages, winter hardship, and worsening revoked civilian suffering.
The decision, announced Tuesday the 30th December, follows the introduction of stricter registration procedures requiring organizations to provide detailed staff information. Israeli authorities claim the rules are necessary to address security and transparency concerns.
The announcement comes as Gaza faces worsening humanitarian conditions, with severe storms in recent days destroying thousands of tents and deepening an already critical crisis across the enclave.
For the first time in its history,. The NGO – Doctors Without Borders- was banned to operate in Gaza by Israel.
Undoubtedly, these Zionists have zero moral boundaries; there is no limits to the levels of evil and barbarity that this genocidal death cult indulges in. Finally, the world is moving out of its brain-washed state, and are able to wake up to this reality.
Foreign ministers from 10 countries issued a joint statement on Tuesday they described as a “renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation” in Gaza, warning that conditions had reached a “catastrophic” level. “As winter draws in, civilians in Gaza are facing appalling conditions with heavy rainfall and temperatures dropping,” the ministers of Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland said in a joint statement released by the UK’s Foreign Office on Tuesday.
The ministers highlighted severe gaps in shelter, healthcare, and sanitation across Gaza. The statement added that “1.3 million people still require urgent shelter support. More than half of health facilities are only partially functional and face shortages of essential medical equipment and supplies. The total collapse of sanitation infrastructure has left 740,000 people vulnerable to toxic flooding.”
“Israel” has blocked hundreds of items from entering Gaza, claiming that they could be repurposed by Hamas for tunnel reconstruction or military use. Aid agencies say the restrictions include essential medical and shelter supplies.
“Bureaucratic customs processes and extensive screenings are causing delays, while commercial cargo is being allowed in more freely,- The target of 4,200 trucks per week, including an allocation of 250 UN trucks per day, should be a floor not a ceiling. These targets should be lifted so we can be sure the vital supplies are getting in at the vast scale needed. “.
However, “Israel” continues to bombard Gaza, killing more Palestinians, while the enclave remains under a total blockade, leaving with children among the most vulnerable.
Legislation passed in “Israel” on Monday will compel utility companies, telecom providers, and banks to cut services to UNRWA. Previous laws had already barred the agency from operating inside “Israel” and ended all official government contact.
Israel does not allow news organizations to report independently from Gaza. In November, it took a group of journalists, including Sky News, into the area of the Strip occupied by Israeli forces.
The brief visit was highly controlled and offered no access to Palestinians, or other areas of Gaza. Military censorship laws in Israel mean that military personnel were shown all our material before publication.
Controlling aid flows & blood money
A group of Palestinian companies has maintained an Israeli-backed monopoly over the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip since the start of the genocidal war, making large sums of money in the process. This system was established years prior to the genocide in Gaza. At the time, the company charged up to $5,000 for each truck of aid that entered the strip.
At the start of the war, Argany’s Sons of Sinai firm was the only one equipped with the infrastructure capable of managing the storage and transportation of humanitarian aid.
Last year, Egypt-based Palestinian businessmen met with Sinai businessman Ibrahim Argany and expressed discontent with the aid mechanism for Gaza among Palestinian traders and citizens – which “created a state of monopoly and a lack of competition that contributed to price increases.
The report reveals discussions held in the meeting last year between Argany and the Palestinian businessmen.
Discussions focused on the monopoly held by the five companies – specifically over the import of goods through the Rafah border crossing. The import of these goods took place in cooperation with Argany’s Sons of Sinai Company, in exchange for “extortionate fees collected by several parties.”
The process became known as “goods coordination,” the report goes on to say.
Argany noted that the approval of these five Palestinian firms “came at the behest of Israel, and that he will work to amend and expand the list of [company] names with the official entities that coordinate with the Israeli side.”
“Since Palestinian traders receive huge sums from this trade (due to monopoly) and profit from it, why can’t Sons of Sinai profit as well??!!!,” Argany added, defending his position on the price increases.
The report says that the profits made from the “goods coordination” process are huge.
Behind this monopoly scheme stands a network of businessmen who profit from the widespread starvation and destitution that Palestinians in Gaza suffer. From his side, Argany controls what is known as the ‘Egyptian line,’ while others control the ‘Israeli line.’ Both sides have reaped staggering profits under this complicated system that has undergone several changes in the past two years but remains under complete Israeli control.
When aid deliveries resumed at the start of the genocide, international aid groups and donor states relied on Sons of Sinai to deliver supplies into Gaza.
However, no amount of aid passing through this system was even close enough to meeting the needs of the people. All the commercial goods that entered the strip in the first few months of the war – after they were green lit in January 2024 – came from Egypt.
The five Palestinian companies – which hold Israeli permits – communicated their requests for goods to Sons of Sinai, which then handled everything related to the procurement, shipping, and transport of the goods and arranged their entry through the crossings.
The five firms charged Gaza traders up to $25,000 for each aid truck. Per truck, Sons of Sinai was earning up to $13,000.
Only 13,511 trucks out of the 36,000 trucks supposed to enter Gaza have actually done so during the 60-day period. An average of only 226 fuel and aid trucks have entered Gaza per day, out of the 500 required in the ceasefire deal – constituting just 10 percent of the agreed-upon amount.
By the start of last month, Tel Aviv had only allowed in 28 percent of the aid that was meant to enter the strip as part of the agreement. This includes essential equipment urgently needed for rubble removal operations.
Gaza’s mass suffering spirals as Israeli blockade starves winter aid
Gaza faces an imminent humanitarian collapse as winter storms pound overcrowded displacement camps, while continued Israeli restrictions block critical shelter and aid.
Gaza’s Government Media Office warned early December, that the Strip is on the brink of a full-scale humanitarian collapse, with 1.5 million displaced Palestinians trapped in makeshift camps that were never built to withstand the intensifying storm battering the Strip.
Director Ismail al-Thawabta described scenes of mass suffering and total abandonment, saying that hundreds of thousands of families are struggling to survive “in worn-out tents shredded by genocide and relentless weather.” He stressed that conditions are deteriorating “at a terrifying pace” as freezing temperatures, heavy rains, and flooding sweep across Gaza, turning displacement sites into uninhabitable swamps.
Despite an announced ceasefire more than two months ago, al-Thawabta said the blockade continues to suffocate the territory. Gaza urgently requires 300,000 new tents, yet Israeli restrictions have allowed only 20,000 to enter, an amount he called “absurdly insufficient” for a population living entirely outdoors. Previous storms have already “flooded tens of thousands of tents and turned the camps into vast pools of mud and contaminated water,” leaving families exposed to hypothermia, disease, and sewage overflow.
The scale of destruction is staggering: over 22,000 tents have been completely destroyed, stripping families of tarpaulins, insulation, blankets, and any form of shelter. Emergency structures have collapsed, temporary water networks have failed, and rainwater is mixing with sewage, raising the threat of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
Adding to the desperation, at least 10 mobile medical points are offline, crucial supplies remain blocked. Displaced Palestinians have lost the bare minimum of life’s necessities,” al-Thawabta warned, saying people are left defenseless against the cold, the wind, and the unending downpour, a situation he described as “engineered vulnerability” resulting from the continued siege.
UNRWA issued its own sharp warning, saying that winter rains in Gaza are “bringing new hardships,” with flooded streets and soaked tents “making already dire living conditions even more dangerous.” The agency stressed that “cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of warning that disease outbreaks could spread rapidly through the densely packed camps.
The story continues in Part 5 – – –
