The genocidal war in the Gaza Strip has not ended. The so-called peace plan has instead helped obscure the Zionist entity’s continuing crimes. The targeting of innocent civilians has become an almost daily occurrence; buildings continue to be demolished, and agricultural land bulldozed without pause, while the food blockade remains severe, as demonstrated by the daily images of starving children emerging from Gaza.
Although the American-Israeli wars against Iran and Lebanon have dominated the attention of global media outlets, the suffering of the Palestinian people, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, has remained present in news coverage and across social media. The human stories emerging from Palestine have reached levels of suffering that exceed what people can reasonably endure.
Nearly nine months have passed since the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh peace agreement, which was promoted by the United States as a comprehensive framework to end the war in Gaza and establish lasting foundations for peace and stability in the Middle East. It is therefore necessary to assess what this agreement has actually delivered for more than two million Palestinians trapped within a geographical area stripped of even the most basic conditions required for life and survival.
Gaza Has Been Left Behind
Beyond occasional reports of meetings, diplomatic discussions and efforts to implement the provisions of the agreement, its actual impact on the ground remains absent. This is not only because of the enormous scale of destruction, but also because Israel has failed to implement the agreement.
Rebuilding infrastructure and public services across Gaza’s cities undoubtedly requires financing mechanisms, implementation plans and extensive logistical arrangements. But does lifting the blockade and allowing the agreed number of relief and humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza require nine months?
A highly significant report issued recently by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics examines the impact of the genocidal war on the Sustainable Development Goals in the devastated territory. The report is more than a statistical assessment of Gaza’s development conditions from an international development perspective. It is a comprehensive record of the scale of Israeli destruction inflicted on Gaza and its people. More importantly, it highlights the enormous responsibilities facing the international community in assisting Gaza’s population and provides a basis for comparing those responsibilities with what is actually happening on the ground.
The report carries a striking title: “Gaza Strip Left Behind.”
The phrase captures Gaza’s current reality. The issue is no longer merely the deterioration of indicators associated with the Sustainable Development Goals. Gaza has effectively fallen outside the entire framework of development assessment and review. The genocidal war has not left a single development objective untouched or preserved any meaningful basis for hope.
Under the first goal, the elimination of poverty, the report summarises the situation starkly: twenty years of development were erased in 2024.
In the case of Gaza, which has been under blockade since 2007, development refers to managing whatever limited internal resources and capabilities remained available in order to prevent poverty from worsening further. Even before the genocidal war, poverty affected approximately 64 per cent of Gaza’s population.
Today, those people, together with the rest of Gaza’s surviving population, face hunger after 98.5 per cent of agricultural land was turned into barren areas unsuitable for cultivation. Approximately 1.6 million people across Gaza are experiencing severe food insecurity, including more than 100,000 children under the age of five suffering from acute malnutrition.
The Israeli killing machine, combined with hunger and the collapse of health conditions, has reduced life expectancy in Gaza from approximately 75.5 years before the assault to around 40.5 years within a single year, between October 2023 and September 2024.
Maternal mortality also increased dramatically. Before the assault, the rate stood at approximately 17.4 deaths per 100,000 births. In 2024, it rose to approximately 145 deaths per 100,000 births as mothers were unable to access adequate healthcare and most of Gaza’s hospitals were forced out of service.
By mid-May, approximately 36 hospitals were out of service, representing around 94 per cent of all hospitals in Gaza. This collapse occurred while the territory was dealing with approximately 173,000 wounded people, including around 42,000 people with severe, life-changing injuries.
Access to clean drinking water has also been nearly impossible throughout the years of the genocidal war. Some 725 wells have been taken out of service, while approximately 134 freshwater projects were directly targeted by Israel.
Gaza also remains in darkness. Occupation forces have destroyed approximately 80 per cent of the energy infrastructure, around 5,000 kilometres of electricity networks and more than 16,000 solar energy systems.
By April, 95 per cent of Gaza’s schools had sustained varying degrees of damage as a result of direct attacks by occupation forces. Approximately 284 schools were completely destroyed, depriving more than 700,000 students of general school education and around 88,000 students of university education.
Destroying Every Means of Survival
The assessment of economically focused development goals shows that the genocidal war has targeted every means of livelihood and every possibility of recovery.
As a direct result of this policy, Gaza is now experiencing severe economic stagnation and mass unemployment beyond previous expectations. The unemployment rate among people capable of working has exceeded 80 per cent, while approximately 88 per cent of commercial and industrial establishments have been partially or completely destroyed.
Preliminary data indicates that more than 32,000 businesses and facilities have been completely destroyed. As a result, Gaza’s gross domestic product fell by 84 per cent last year compared with 2023.
The report states unequivocally that the scale of damage to infrastructure, public services and technological systems has pushed Gaza centuries backwards.
Preliminary estimates indicate that damage to infrastructure had exceeded US$35 billion by April. In addition, 74 per cent of telecommunications and information technology assets have been completely destroyed.
In practical terms, two-thirds of Gaza’s economy has been reduced to ashes. Within two years, the Gaza Strip has gone from being a contributor to the Palestinian national economy to becoming an economic burden. Its share of the national economy collapsed from approximately 17 per cent to less than 5 per cent, while the entire population has been forced into dependence on emergency humanitarian assistance that remains severely limited.
Behind these enormous and alarming figures are the daily stories of approximately two million Palestinians struggling with hunger, thirst, disease, the loss of education and the absence of electricity. They live expecting death at any moment, whether through direct Israeli attacks on the remaining residential areas and tents, or through disease, food insecurity and contamination.
Nine months later, the peace agreement has not only failed to improve living conditions for Gaza’s people. It has failed even to slow the worsening of their suffering or stop the daily death toll.
