Israel enforces draconian Gaza closure during Ramadan

Since the fraudulent ceasefire was declared in October 2025, at least 650 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,730 injured as of 11 March, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Draconian blockade

Israel has maintained its draconian closure of all but one of the crossings in and out of Gaza since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began on 28 February.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that the only operational crossing point is Kerem Shalom in southern Gaza.

“This long route is slower and more costly, and increases reliance on scarce fuel inside Gaza, where movements take place on damaged roads,” the UN said.

The exit from Gaza of patients who need medical evacuations and the return of Palestinians from abroad remain suspended, the UN added.

Palestinians “are rushing to stock up on essentials, as soaring prices and shortages of key items, particularly vegetables, signaled the impact of the closures,” writes reporter and Electronic Intifada contributor Ahmed Dremly wrote this week in Middle East Eye.

“Most residents of Gaza can buy only enough for a single day as prices soar and purchasing power plummets,” Dremly adds.

Meanwhile, basic infrastructure such as water, electrical and sewage services remain in ruins after nearly two and a half years of genocide.

On 6 March, reporter Alaa Hammouda spoke to children in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, who struggle to obtain water under the current circumstances.

One child with a broken cart says, “we fill up water, go over there, and come back. We’re completely worn out by the water situation.”

The reporter asks how many times a day he does this, and the child responds, “we come back, we find more water, and go again.”

Jorge Moreira da Silva, the head of the United Nations infrastructure management agency UNOPS stated that on 5 March, one of the agency’s tankers was on its way to collect fuel for distribution inside Gaza and was struck from “the direction of the sea.”

He did not name the attacker, but only Israeli naval ships are stationed there.

No one was injured, da Silva added, but the tanker was directly hit and damaged, and he called for a full investigation into the incident.

The day after, the Israeli army admitted that its naval forces indeed struck the fuel tanker, but claimed it was unintentional.

Systematic destruction of education

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor released a report this week on Israel’s ongoing obstruction of education in Gaza, 28 months into the genocide, “through systematic and deliberate policies aimed at preventing the population from restoring education.”

These policies, the rights group notes, “include the ongoing blockade, the targeting of civilian objects, including educational facilities, through bombing and destruction, the prevention of reconstruction, and the obstruction of the entry of materials, equipment and operational resources needed to rehabilitate and run schools and universities. As a result, hundreds of thousands of students remain cut off from formal education.”

The rights group has so far documented the killing of nearly 19,000 school pupils and more than 1,300 higher education students, in addition to the injury of thousands more students of every age. Furthermore, Israeli army attacks have killed 794 teachers and 246 university faculty members and researchers, while injuring thousands more.

The Israeli army directly bombed 668 school buildings, completely destroyed 179 public schools, and severely damaged 118 others, in addition to bombing and vandalizing 100 schools administered by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.

A total of 63 university buildings were completely destroyed, with severe damage inflicted on the remaining universities and colleges, Euro-Med Monitor says.

Women’s and girls’ health crisis

And marking International Women’s Day, Amnesty International released a report on the impact that Israel’s genocide has had, and continues to have, on women’s reproductive health in Gaza.

“Women have been forced to give birth without adequate medical care, to endure pregnancy and post-partum recovery while displaced in overcrowded and unsanitary sites, and to navigate hunger, disease and trauma with little privacy, protection or access to essential services often while caring for others,” the report states.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, stated, “Women in Gaza are being denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely. This systematic erosion of their rights to health, safety, dignity and a future is not an unfortunate by-product of war; it is a deliberate act of war targeting women and girls.”

There has been a total collapse of maternal and neonatal health services, the report states, as 60 percent of all health service points remain non-functional as immense pressure is placed on the few that remain operational and the fewer that provide emergency obstetric care.

Nearly 50 percent of all medications remain at zero stock, including drugs for managing and inducing contractions, labor and postpartum hemorrhage, anesthesia and pain management, infections and respiratory conditions, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Medical personnel interviewed by Amnesty International said that even since the so-called ceasefire, “women who gave birth endured extreme shortages of food, medicines and nutritional supplements during much of their pregnancy and post-partum. They said that most women who come to deliver in hospitals suffer from anemia because of malnutrition, and from waterborne diseases, vaginitis and other infections because of polluted water and unsanitary conditions.”

Callamard said, “Women in Gaza are holding families and communities together under conditions designed to break them. They are the teachers providing schooling to children in tents, the doctors and nurses working in field hospitals often without pay, and the caregivers fighting tirelessly to keep hope alive amidst genocide.”

She added that “their courage commands immense respect and stands as an inspiration to all of humanity,” and called on states to take meaningful action to end Israel’s genocide and unlawful occupation “including by ensuring women and girls can access their fundamental rights, and securing a future where all Palestinians can live in dignity.”

Palestinians killed in settler attacks

Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers killed at least five Palestinians in attacks this week.

Two Palestinians were shot and killed by Jewish Israeli settlers in the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, northwest of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Fare Jawdat Hamayel and Thaer Farouq Hamayel were both shot in the head.

The Wafa news agency reported that a third Palestinian, 55-year-old Muhammad Hassan Murrah, died on Sunday (8 March) from the fumes of tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers who accompanied the settlers.

Later on Sunday, 27-year-old Amir Muhammad Shanaran was killed by settlers after an attack in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

Community resident and activist Mohammad Hureini uploaded this video of the attack.

Mohammad Rabai, head of the village council in nearby at-Tawani, told Agence France-Presse that settlers had entered homes in the area and attacked Shanaran and his family before killing him.

Al Jazeera reported that Israeli settlers shot and killed a man and wounded his brother during an attack in the village of Wadi al-Rakhim in the south.

On 6 March, activist and journalist Adele Shoko reported from the village of Duma during a settler attack. Along with this video, Shoko stated, “Settlers in Duma were shooting at Palestinians, attacked solidarity activists, and beat a Palestinian man with bats. When the Israeli army arrived, they arrested me and four Palestinians, one of them is a 13-year-old boy, another was injured and needed an ambulance, but instead was taken to jail.”

Charges dropped against soldiers who raped Palestinian

The Israeli military says it is dropping charges against five soldiers who were accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee in an attack by a group of soldiers at the notorious Sde Teiman torture camp that was partially caught on camera in July 2024.

As we reported, when footage of the rape was leaked to the press, the UN Human Rights Office stated that it had “documented a number of videos in recent months which show gross violations of the rights of Palestinians detained by Israel, including acts of ill treatment, torture, sexual violence and rape.”

The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah wrote, “The Sde Teiman video led to outrage in Israel – not about the attack it showed, but in defense of the soldiers. It sparked ‘right to rape’ protests by Israelis demanding the soldiers’ release, while senior officials justified their actions.

“Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi – the Israeli military prosecutor who leaked the video in a failed effort to tamp down the outrage over the soldiers’ arrests – resigned and was arrested and placed in home detention.

“Meanwhile, the soldiers accused of the rape continued to be treated as heroes.”

Highlighting reclamation

And finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and reclamation across Palestine and around the world.

Journalist Salma Kaddoumi, whose footage was highlighted earlier in this report, not only reports from scenes of unbearable pain and grief, but also from places where young Palestinians find relief and strength.

On International Women’s Day, Kaddoumi spent time with girls who are learning the art of boxing. She wrote with this video that “boxing is a refuge for the girls of the tents, where they find a space to breathe away from the atmosphere of tension and psychological pressure.”

Link : https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-enforces-draconian-gaza-closure-during-ramadan