“When the powerful make war, it is the children who die - and history remembers not their names, but our silence.”
IT has been nearly six months since a de jure ceasefire agreement took effect on October 10, 2025. Still, reports indicate this has been a de facto, “one-sided” ceasefire, with continued Israeli airstrikes and military activity, averaging 82 days of attacks within the first 97 days of the agreement. The healthcare system in Gaza remains in a state of near-total collapse, with roughly 60% or more of health service points non-functional due to ongoing destruction, lack of fuel, and attacks.
The ongoing conflict and limited humanitarian aid have prompted reports that the ceasefire has not halted the humanitarian crisis, with many residents remaining displaced in tents. It has even turned worse.
As of early 2026, roughly 61% of health service points remain non-functional. Only about half of all hospitals are partially functional, with 94% of hospitals having been damaged or destroyed at some point during the conflict. Over 60 per cent of medical supplies and nearly half of essential medicines/vaccines are at zero stock.
Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties, and many are functioning at a limited capacity, with no functioning hospitals reported in North Gaza in some assessments. Between October 2023 and early 2026, WHO documented over 930 attacks on healthcare facilities, personnel, and transport.
Fuel shortages have heightened the lack of electricity and fuel to power generators which, in turn, have turned out to be a primary driver of facility closures. Medical evacuations have been sporadically suspended, including a suspension on 28 February 2026, leaving over 18,500 patients in urgent need of specialised care outside Gaza. To further worsen matters, a vast majority of buildings, including clinics and hospitals, have been damaged or destroyed.
The United Nations has described these conditions as an extreme crisis, with limited capacity to address the overwhelming need for surgical care, trauma treatment, and management of communicable diseases.
Humanitarian aid remains limited, and intense military activity persists despite the truce. Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 1,193 times. The ongoing conflict and limited humanitarian aid have prompted reports that the ceasefire has not halted the humanitarian crisis, with many residents remaining displaced in tents.
Israel’s intelligence community (comprising Mossad, Shin Bet, and Aman) is widely regarded as one of the most technologically advanced and capable in the world, yet it faces intense scrutiny and condemnation regarding its methods, legality, and operational ethics, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and operations against adversaries in the Middle East.
Critics, human rights organisations, and some international bodies frequently accuse Israeli intelligence of engaging in activities that violate international law. These include allegations of “targeted killings” (assassinations), the use of torture during interrogations, widespread surveillance of Palestinian populations, and the use of excessive force.
Mossad has been implicated in targeted killings and sabotage including numerous assassinations of scientists and military commanders, including pager and walkie-talkie bombings in Lebanon in 2024, which the human rights community argue show a disregard for civilian life.
Reports have highlighted the use of advanced surveillance technologies to monitor Palestinians in the occupied territories, which human rights groups argue constitutes an unlawful infringement on privacy and human rights.
Following the events of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, Israel has faced intensified international condemnation, global ire and legitimacy decline. Non-Western countries, in particular, and international law experts increasingly view Israel as a serial violator of international law and human rights, leading to a significant decline in its global reputation.
Severe internal legal conflicts between 2025-2026 have also emerged, with the Shin Bet chief accusing the Prime Minister of demanding illegal actions, demonstrating internal struggle over the legality of intelligence operations.
Despite its reputation, the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack was a massive intelligence failure, highlighting that the focus on high-tech surveillance and control can fail, leading to brutal consequences for civilians.
UN reports and the International Court of Justice have raised concerns that Israeli strikes and policies are systematically violating the laws of war, calling for accountability and the halting of operations like those in Rafah.
Humanitarian crises disproportionately impact women and children, causing acute malnutrition, widespread displacement, and severe physical and mental health issues. Women face elevated risks of gender-based violence (GBV) and exploitation, while children endure disrupted education, loss of safety, and potential recruitment by armed forces. Children face injury or death from violence and lack of health services, with malnutrition threatening physical and cognitive development. Children are often displaced, separated from families, or recruited into armed forces. Schools are destroyed or closed, depriving children of safe spaces and education. Widespread trauma, depression, anxiety, and behavioural issues result from witnessing violence and losing loved ones.
A UNICEF report shows how children pay the highest price of humanitarian crisis. Armed conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies expose millions of girls and boys to unthinkable forms of violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. Many children are forced to flee their homes, some torn from their parents and caregivers along the way.
In conflict, children may be injured or killed by explosive weapons and remnants of war, including during attacks on schools and hospitals. They may be recruited by armed forces – not only as fighters, but as scouts, cooks, porters, guards, messengers and more. Especially for girls and women, the threat of gender-based violence soars. Through it all, children lose critical health, education and protection services. Their mental health and psychosocial needs are often neglected, with consequences that can last a lifetime.
Women have faced the brunt of the violence. Gender-Based Violence (GBV) has heightened the threat of sexual violence, trafficking, and forced marriage soars in crisis settings. Over 500 women and girls die daily from preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications due to collapsed healthcare systems. Women often bear the burden of seeking food, water, and health services for families while managing heightened, often violent, challenges. A resource crunch has led Women and women-led organisations to cope with significant funding cuts, reducing access to crucial survival services.
There are other acutely impacted areas. Displacement has forced millions to leave their homes, often living in unsafe, crowded shelters. Attacks on schools, hospitals, and sanitation facilities remove critical protection and healthcare services owing to the destruction of Infrastructure. Lack of security leads to increased exploitation and abuse, creating crisis-like proportions in the breakdown of law and order.
What name shall we give this silence that roars louder than bombs?
What language can carry the weight of a child buried beneath the rubble of indifference?
A ceasefire, they called it – but the sky did not learn restraint, and the earth did not forget how to tremble.
Hospitals became graveyards of hope, their corridors echoing not with healing, but with the slow fading of breath. Tents replaced homes, numbers replaced names, survival itself converted into resistance.
This is not merely a crisis of war. It is a crisis of conscience.
For every shattered clinic, for every mother who mourns without tears left to shed,
for every child who learns the sound of drones before the sound of lullabies— there is a question that returns, relentless: Who will be held to account, and who will dare to remember?
History is watching, even when the world chooses not to. And one day, when the dust settles and the statistics fade into archives, it will not ask who won, but who spoke, who stood, and who remained silent while humanity bled.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years of age. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
