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Yes, this is Diaa Ostaz, a journalist based in Gaza, describing for you the circumstances in the Gaza Strip.
What’s happening in Gaza today is a crisis unlike anything we have seen in years.
Streets that were once full of life are now quiet. Markets are almost empty, and families walk through them with nothing to buy and nothing to eat.
We can say that since early March, or the beginning of March 2025, all crossings into Gaza have been closed. That means no food, no fuel, no medicine entering the strip for more than two million people which are the population of the Gaza Strip.
Within weeks, the impact was clear: Food supplies ran out, prices shot up beyond what anyone could afford, and hunger spread quickly across the population. Children are the ones suffering from malnutrition and other diseases. Malnutrition has become widespread, and preventable diseases are now taking lives every single day.
And, when we talk about the suffering in Gaza Strip, we are not talking about only the food and the starvation, we are talking about all of the aspects of life here.
Also, the health systems in Gaza Strip are collapsed, so hospitals are overwhelmed with patients but have no supplies, no spare parts for broken machines, and no fuel to keep generators running. Doctors face impossible choices about who they can and cannot treat.
So, every aspect of life has been affected. Families are displaced and living in tents or crowded shelters without clean water or proper sanitation. Children are out of school, many dealing with trauma, and some have forgotten how to read and to write. Livelihoods have collapsed — markets destroyed, fishing banned. In many homes, parents skip meals so their children can eat, and still, it’s not enough.
The reality in the Gaza Strip is really a crisis, is not only about war damage. It’s about the total closure that has cut Gaza off from the outside world. Humanitarian agencies describe the situation as catastrophic and warn that without fuel and safe access for food, medicine, more lives will be lost — not to violence, but to starvation and disease.
So right now, Gaza’s people are asking for something very, very, very simple: the chance to live, the chance for their children to grow up, to study, to play, to eat, to eat any proper meal. Without an immediate ceasefire, and without opening the way for aid to reach everyone who needs it, the suffering will only deepen. Unfortunately.
Read more about the situation in Gaza in a feature report by Diaa Ostaz.
Click here to support CNEWA’s emergency campaign in Gaza.