Peter Tanyanyiwa
Herald Reporter
On the morning of March 18, 2025, the fragile silence over Gaza was broken.
After 42 days in which guns had largely fallen silent and humanitarian agencies had begun to rebuild the delivery of food, medicine and other essential supplies, Israeli airstrikes again shook the Gaza Strip.
The first reports spoke of hundreds of Palestinians killed.
For a population that had endured more than a year of war, mass displacement and the destruction of homes and public infrastructure, the return of bombardment carried a familiar message: the brief respite had ended.
From Harare, the State of Palestine’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Dr Tamer Almassri, condemned the renewed Israeli offensive and appealed for urgent international intervention.
He said the international community could no longer respond to the destruction of Palestinian lives with statements of concern alone.
“The resumption of the war against Gaza means the return of death, destruction, displacement and deprivation to a population that has already endured unimaginable suffering,” Ambassador Almassri said.
“The international community cannot continue to watch the destruction of Palestinian families and communities unfold before its eyes without taking meaningful measures to protect civilian life.”
His intervention came as the United Nations warned that the renewed hostilities were destroying the limited humanitarian gains achieved during the ceasefire.
On March 18, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told the Security Council that the humanitarian community’s worst fears had materialised.
“Overnight, our worst fears materialized,” Mr Fletcher said.
He said the ceasefire period had coincided with some of Gaza’s “better days” because humanitarian agencies had been able to deliver hundreds of aid trucks every day.
“Not anymore,” he told the Council.
The United Nations said Israel had halted the entry of lifesaving supplies, including food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, into Gaza from March 2, affecting an estimated 2,1 million people.
The renewed bombardment therefore did more than produce another surge in casualties.
It reopened a humanitarian wound that had never healed.
When the guns fell silent
The January ceasefire had provided something Gaza’s civilians had been denied for months time.
Between January 19 and the resumption of hostilities in March, humanitarian agencies were able to increase deliveries and reach millions of people.
Food distribution expanded.
Medical operations were restored in some areas.
Families began attempting to return to neighbourhoods from which they had been displaced.
For a brief period, Gaza’s humanitarian workers saw what could be achieved when military operations stopped.
But the ceasefire proved temporary.
When fighting resumed on March 18, UN agencies reported hundreds of deaths within days.
By March 20, according to the UN Human Rights Office, at least 506 Palestinians had been killed since the renewed bombardment began, including 200 children and at least 112 women, based on figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health cited by the UN.
The UN Human Rights Office said airstrikes and artillery fire had struck homes, schools being used as shelters and tents housing displaced people.
The renewed violence also deepened an already devastating displacement crisis.
For families who had moved several times in search of safety, another evacuation was not simply a matter of packing a bag.
There was often nowhere left to go.
A war measured in human lives
The statistics became increasingly difficult to comprehend.
By December 10, the Gaza Ministry of Health had reported 70 369 Palestinian fatalities and 171 069 injuries since October 7, 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
OCHA also reported more than 1 200 Israeli fatalities and 471 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s ground operation.
The figures represent the human cost of a conflict that had transformed homes into ruins, hospitals into emergency shelters and schools into places of refuge.
Yet the numbers alone cannot convey what the war meant for an ordinary family.
A child losing a parent.
A mother searching for medicine.
A doctor operating without adequate equipment.
A displaced family sleeping in a tent while winter rains flooded the ground beneath them.
A patient waiting months for permission to leave Gaza for treatment.
These became part of the daily reality of the territory.
The second battlefield: hunger
As the fighting continued, food became another central feature of the crisis.
The destruction of agricultural land, livestock, fishing activities, markets and infrastructure undermined Gaza’s ability to produce and distribute food locally.
Restrictions on humanitarian access compounded the problem.
The World Food Programme, UNICEF, WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation warned in December that although famine conditions had been pushed back following the October ceasefire and increased humanitarian and commercial access, the improvement remained extremely fragile.
At least 1,6 million people, about 77 percent of Gaza’s population were still facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
More than 100 000 children and 37 000 pregnant and breastfeeding women were projected to suffer acute malnutrition through April 2026.
UNICEF Director of Emergency Operations Lucia Elmi described the situation in stark terms.
“Gaza’s children are no longer facing deadly famine, but they remain in grave danger.”
“Food is now in markets, but many families simply cannot afford to buy it,” she said.
She warned that damaged health facilities, inadequate clean water and sanitation and winter conditions were compounding the suffering of displaced families.
“These fragile gains could vanish overnight if fighting resumes,” Ms Elmi said. “We need sustained humanitarian access, restored basic services, and above all, lasting peace.”
That warning captured the central paradox of Gaza at the end of 2025.
The situation had improved in some respects.
But improvement did not mean recovery.
A new health system pushed to the edge
Perhaps nowhere was the destruction more visible than in Gaza’s health system.
In June 2025, the World Health Organisation warned that Gaza’s health system was collapsing.
Only 17 of the territory’s 36 hospitals were partially functional at that stage, with no functioning hospitals in northern Gaza.
Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital, two key facilities in Khan Younis, were operating under severe pressure.
WHO warned that losing them would remove another 490 beds from a health system already operating with substantially reduced capacity.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later reported that more than 16 500 people, including nearly 4 000 children, were still waiting for medical evacuation.
More than 900 people had died while waiting, according to WHO figures cited in November.
The medical crisis was therefore not limited to people wounded by bombs.
It affected cancer patients.
Children born with congenital conditions.
Patients requiring dialysis.
People needing reconstructive surgery.
Pregnant women.
Those suffering severe burns and traumatic amputations.
By October, WHO estimated that more than 170 000 people had sustained injuries in Gaza, including more than 5 000 amputees and about 3 600 people with major burns.
At least 42 000 people required long-term rehabilitation.
The physical injuries were only one part of the damage.
The psychological wounds were harder to count.
WHO estimated that about one million people needed mental health support.
Medicine under fire
For medical teams working inside Gaza, the war created challenges rarely encountered even in other conflict zones.
WHO emergency medical team workers described having to move patients through roads blocked by rubble, while ambulances struggled with shortages of spare parts, fuel and medical supplies.
Emergency medical teams supported by WHO treated and transferred patients despite the restrictions.
One emergency medical worker, Avery Cox of CADUS, described Gaza as an unusually restrictive operating environment.
“It’s restrictive on when it comes to movements, and especially resources,” he said.
He said obtaining medical supplies, maintaining ambulances and securing replacement vehicles had become extremely difficult.
Another medical worker, Amar Mardini, described patient evacuations as physically and emotionally exhausting.
He recalled transporting severely injured children and patients who had gone without essential medicines.
“Nothing about it was predictable,” he said of the evacuation missions.
One child he encountered had suffered multiple blast injuries, lost a hand and required sedation before medical workers could change his wounds.
Such accounts revealed the human dimension behind the statistics.
For medical workers, treating a casualty did not end with surgery.
There was rehabilitation.
There was trauma.
There was the question of whether the patient could return to a functioning home.
And increasingly, there was the question of whether Gaza would still have a health system capable of caring for survivors.
The October turning point
Then came another turning point.
On October 10, 2025, a new ceasefire entered into effect.
For the first time in months, the humanitarian situation began showing measurable signs of improvement.
Aid flows increased.
Food became more available.
Humanitarian agencies expanded operations.
But the ceasefire remained fragile.
In December, UN officials continued to report airstrikes, shelling and gunfire.
On December 16, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov told the Security Council that the ceasefire remained fragile and urged Israel and Hamas to fully implement it, exercise maximum restraint and comply with international law and relevant UN resolutions.
“The ceasefire must be consolidated to enable recovery and reconstruction in Gaza,” Mr Alakbarov said.
The message was clear: stopping the largest-scale fighting was only the beginning.
The next challenge was rebuilding a territory whose infrastructure had been devastated.
The fragile gains
By December, humanitarian organisations were delivering substantially more assistance.
OCHA reported that by December 23, food-security partners had reached about 970 000 people with general food assistance during the monthly distribution cycle.
Thousands of aid pallets containing food, shelter, water, sanitation and health supplies were entering through Gaza’s crossings.
But access remained complicated.
Humanitarian missions were still being delayed, impeded or cancelled.
The December rains added another layer of suffering.
Severe flooding affected displacement sites in Khan Younis, where thousands of people were sheltering.
OCHA reported that hundreds of families had to be evacuated from shoreline sites as winter conditions intensified.
In one report, OCHA noted that flooding affected eight displacement sites housing more than 10 000 people, with about three quarters of those sites reporting inadequate functioning latrines.
The war had therefore created a cruel contradiction.
The guns had fallen quieter.
But rainwater was entering shelters.
Sewage systems remained damaged.
Hospitals were struggling.
Families were still displaced.
And winter was exposing the weakness of temporary accommodation.
Famine pushed back but not defeated
By December 19, the four major UN agencies FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO announced that famine conditions had been pushed back across Gaza.
It was a significant humanitarian development.
But the agencies immediately warned against interpreting it as the end of the food crisis.
WFP Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response Ross Smith said the improvement demonstrated what could happen when humanitarian agencies had access, security and funding.
“Once again, we have shown that we can push back on famine when we have the access, security and funding to deliver food and vital support,” he said.
But he added:
“Now is the time to double down on these gains and ensure people can reliably access essential services.”
That was the central lesson of 2025.
Humanitarian relief could save lives.
But humanitarian relief alone could not rebuild a society.
The price of waiting
The medical evacuation figures illustrated the scale of the problem.
Throughout 2025, WHO supported 119 evacuation missions involving 2 714 patients, including 1 592 children, to more than 25 countries.
Yet by the end of December, WHO estimated that another 18 500 patients still required urgent medical evacuation.
Each number represented a person waiting for a medical decision that could determine whether they lived with disability, recovered or died.
For Ambassador Almassri, the international response therefore needed to go beyond humanitarian relief.
He called for protection of civilians, sustained humanitarian access and international action to prevent a return to large-scale warfare.
“The people of Palestine deserve more than sympathy,” he said.
“They deserve protection, dignity, justice and the right to live.”
He said the continued suffering of civilians demonstrated the need for the international community to uphold international humanitarian law and work towards a durable political settlement.
A war that changed Gaza
The Gaza conflict of 2025 cannot be understood simply through the dates of ceasefires and renewed offensives.
It was a year in which an entire society was repeatedly forced to move between hope and despair.
March brought the collapse of the first ceasefire and a return to intense bombardment.
The months that followed brought mounting humanitarian needs, restrictions on aid, hunger and the further weakening of the health system.
By October, another ceasefire created a new opening.
By December, famine conditions had been pushed back, humanitarian access had improved and medical and food operations had expanded.
Yet the fundamental humanitarian crisis remained.
More than 70 000 Palestinian fatalities had been reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health by December 10, according to OCHA.
Tens of thousands were injured.
Millions had been displaced.
Infrastructure was devastated.
And thousands of patients still required medical evacuation.
The State of Palestine itself continued pressing the international community for action.
In a December 12 communication to the United Nations, Palestinian Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour called for the ceasefire to be consolidated and for international efforts to prevent its collapse.
The letter reported continued Palestinian casualties since the October ceasefire and called for sustained humanitarian access, protection and support for recovery.
Beyond the ruins
The challenge facing Gaza at the close of 2025 was therefore larger than stopping the next airstrike.
It was the challenge of rebuilding life.
Hospitals would need to be reconstructed.
Schools reopened.
Water and sanitation networks restored.
Homes rebuilt.
Agricultural land rehabilitated.
Children treated for trauma.
Patients evacuated and returned home.
Families given safe shelter.
And an economy devastated by war given a chance to function again.
The December UN assessment showed that Gaza’s farmers, herders and fishers were ready to resume production, but lacked the supplies and resources required to do so.
FAO’s Director of Emergencies and Resilience Rein Paulsen said:
“Gaza’s farmers, herders and fishers are ready to restart food production, but they cannot do so without immediate access to basic supplies and funding.”
That statement went to the heart of the recovery challenge.
Humanitarian aid could keep people alive.
But rebuilding livelihoods could give them a future.
The question left unanswered
As 2025 drew to a close, Gaza stood at an uncertain crossroads.
The October ceasefire had created an opening.
The famine classification had been pushed back.
Aid deliveries had increased.
Medical evacuations had resumed.
But the ceasefire remained fragile, humanitarian needs remained enormous and the destruction of two years of war continued to shape virtually every aspect of life.
The UN’s message was consequently one of guarded urgency.
The humanitarian gains could be lost.
The food crisis could deteriorate again.
The health system could not recover without supplies and access.
And reconstruction could not begin meaningfully without sustained security.
For Palestinians, the year had become a succession of promises ceasefires, aid corridors, diplomatic initiatives and international appeals followed by the grim reality of renewed violence.
For the international community, it became a test of whether temporary humanitarian relief could finally be transformed into lasting protection and recovery.
And for Gaza’s civilians, the stakes remained painfully simple.
A safe night.
A functioning hospital.
Clean water.
Enough food.
A home to return to.
A child able to grow up without the sound of war defining childhood.
As Ambassador Almassri put it:
“Every minute of continued bombardment means another family may lose a loved one, another child may become an orphan and another home may disappear.”
By December, the bombardment had not erased Gaza’s suffering, nor had the ceasefire erased the devastation.
But it had created something the territory had desperately needed throughout the year: **a narrow window in which survival could begin to give way to recovery.
Whether that window would remain open depended not only on the parties to the conflict, but on whether the international community could convert declarations into sustained humanitarian access, protection, reconstruction and a credible political pathway.
For Gaza, after a year of broken ceasefires and shattered lives, that remained the defining question as 2025 came to an end.
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