Gaza ceasefire ‘exists in name only’, more than 100 NGOs say

One year after the so-called ceasefire in Gaza was reached with United States backing, it exists only on paper, according to more than 100 humanitarian, human rights and civil society organisations.

“The ceasefire exists in name only, with Israeli forces continuing to kill and injure Palestinians daily, and restrictions on aid, equipment and rebuilding materials preventing families from recovering,” a joint statement by the NGOs said on Friday.

Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, Oxfam, Greenpeace and dozens of other international groups said Israeli attacks in the enclave have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 327 children, in the year since US President Trump announced a deal to end hostilities as part of the Gaza Board of Peace framework.

“It is utterly shameful that a full year after the ceasefire was signed, so little has improved for Palestinians in Gaza,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in the joint statement.

Inger Ashing, chief executive of Save the Children, said, “A ceasefire is meaningless if children are still being killed and families are still unable to rebuild their lives.”

He noted that since the October 10, 2025 ceasefire was announced, “nearly one child has been killed every day.”

In the three years since Israel’s October 2023 genocidal war began, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and 175,000 others wounded – about one in every 13 people in Gaza – according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

A conservative World Health Organization (WHO) estimate suggests roughly 24 percent of the wounded have life-changing injuries requiring long-term rehabilitation, a quarter of them children.

Gaza’s few remaining health facilities are overwhelmed and have dwindling supplies, and none of its 36 hospitals is operating at full capacity, with widespread shortages of medicine, equipment and fuel, Friday’s ministry statement said.

It said that more than 18,500 patients, including at least 4,000 children, need medical evacuation, and more than 1,000 have died while waiting.

Almost 2 million Palestinians in the enclave are also in desperate need of shelter, where 80 percent of structures are damaged, the statement said.

Norwegian Refugee Council’s Egeland warned that restrictions on equipment and construction materials continue to prevent recovery.

“Israeli restrictions are still preventing the required equipment or materials, which are the only ways for communities to begin rebuilding their lives,” he said.

At the same time, 1.4 million people in Gaza are “facing crisis-level hunger or worse through the end of the year”, the statement added.

On Friday in Gaza, Israeli forces shot dead at least one Palestinian after firing live ammunition at civilians in the al-Musaddar, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camp areas in the centre of the Strip, which also came under heavy Israeli artillery shelling.

In Khan Younis in the south, Israeli tanks directed heavy fire towards the Bani Suheila roundabout, where a number of injuries were reported.

On Thursday, at least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli air strikes and shelling across Gaza.

Friday’s statement noted that Israeli forces had further squeezed the Palestinian population into an even more crowded environment by arbitrarily moving the so-called “Yellow Line”, established as a buffer to separate Israeli-controlled areas and the Palestinians as part of last year’s ceasefire framework.

The “ceasefire” took effect on October 10, 2025. Since then, Israel has killed at least 1,471 Palestinians and injured 5,189.

Three years of Israeli attacks have killed at least 74,254 Palestinians, including at least 21,000 children. That is about one in every 30 people, or 3 percent of the pre-war population.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health counts only deaths recorded at hospitals or officially registered. The true toll is likely much higher, as it excludes the thousands still buried in destroyed buildings or missing.

“Accountability cannot be buried under the rubble,” Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in the joint statement. “The persistent failure to hold Israel accountable and press Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s binding orders continues to fuel the atrocity crimes on a mass scale against Palestinians.”

Source: www.aljazeera.com