"This is not a ceasefire": Gaza continues to be suffocated six months on

Six months since the fragile and ineffective ceasefire was implemented in Gaza on 10 October 2025, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is raising the alarm on continued violent attacks by Israeli forces and the ever-expanding military control of the Strip.

At the same time, the living conditions of Palestinians remain dire. This is against the backdrop of a continuous and deliberate pattern of obstruction of aid by Israel, which is translating into entirely preventable deaths.

MSF’s medical teams are witnessing firsthand that, while the intensity of the conflict has decreased, the reality in Gaza remains catastrophic.

• As of 8 April, at least 733 people have been killed, and 1,913 have been injured since the ceasefire on 10 October, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
   
• MSF teams have responded to multiple mass casualty incidents monthly, treating at least 244 patients for injuries caused by Israeli attacks, including many children. 
   
• Since the ceasefire, MSF teams have done over 40,000 dressings for patients with wounds from violent trauma, including gunshots, blasts or other kinds of weapons. 
   
• Since 10 October 2025, medical teams have treated over 15,000 trauma cases in MSF’s two field hospitals alone, both from recent injuries and wounds requiring long-term care. 
   
• In MSF’s clinic in Gaza City alone, over 18,000 dressings were done, with over 60 percent for trauma wounds.  

“Six months on, the ceasefire has failed to end the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, with Israeli authorities continuing to impose conditions intended to destroy conditions of life," says Claire San Filippo, Emergency Manager for MSF.

"Despite the reduction of the intensity of violence, Israeli attacks are continuous, and the situation remains catastrophic. People’s needs are massive, yet the Israeli authorities have continued to systematically restrict the entry of humanitarian aid."

 “All the elderly people in our family have unfortunately passed away during this catastrophic war,” says Rami Abu Anza, an MSF nurse in Gaza.

“They all had chronic diseases, and they suffered due to the unavailability of these medications, in addition to the living conditions and the collapse of the healthcare system.”

“We suffered a lot to get treatment,” says Mohammed Abo Zaina, a 69-year-old NCD patient with MSF.

“We can’t find blood pressure medication, nor diabetes medication, nor heart medication. We suffered mentally and physically. And we are elderly people. We are very, very exhausted. Nothing is available. No living, no dignified life, no shelter, no livelihood.”

The yellow line

In Gaza, approximately 90 percent of people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, and live in tents or makeshift shelters, and the situation has not significantly improved since the ceasefire.

At the MSF-supported primary healthcare centres at Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar, near Khan Younis, between October 2025 and March 2026, the most prevalent health conditions are directly linked to dire living conditions and overcrowding. This includes upper respiratory infections (42 percent), skin diseases such as scabies and lice (16.7 percent), and diarrhoea (8.4 percent).

The space where people are living is continuously shrinking and framed by violence.

Since the ceasefire, the Gaza Strip has been effectively divided along the 'yellow line', which marks an area under full Israeli military control (58 percent of the territory), pushing Palestinians into only 42 percent of the largely destroyed territory. The yellow line is not clearly marked and is continuously shifting westwards to the sea, squeezing hundreds of thousands of people into a tiny, overcrowded patch of land.

The perimeter of the yellow line has become a kill zone, with gunfire, airstrikes, and shelling from Israeli forces happening daily. Israeli warships are also firing inward from the sea, trapping people with active firing on all sides.

On 6 April, at least 10 people were killed and several others wounded near Maghazi Refugee Camp in Gaza following armed clashes and an Israeli strike. MSF teams at our field hospital in Deir-El-Balah treated 16 patients, half of them with critical injuries.

“Among the critical cases, there were two young girls of seven and eight years old,” says Dr Murad Saliha, an MSF doctor.

“Both of them had life-threatening injuries and were rushed to emergency surgery. Fortunately, despite limited resources, our medical team was able to save both their lives."

MSF calls on world leaders and governments, including the United States and the European Union and its member states, and Arab states, to use all political levers to put pressure on Israeli authorities to protect civilians, restore dignified conditions of life, and urgently allow unhindered humanitarian aid into Gaza, as is Israel’s obligation as the occupying power.