Karam, 14, dribbles a blue, yellow and white soccer ball down a sandy road in Deir al-Bala, central Gaza.
“My dream was to become a soccer player,” said Karam, who is evacuated with his two older brothers and sister. “I used to hang out around town with my friends.
“Life before the war was beautiful. But now there is no life,” he told CNN.
As a teenager, Gaza’s azure sea horizon gave way to a panorama of burnt farmland, charred orchards, and piles of rubble.
As the U.S. and Iran try to turn a ceasefire into a long-term peace, CNN spoke to residents of the Strip who say they are living in the ashes of another failed U.S.-led agreement. Israel has barred foreign journalists from reporting independently in Gaza since the start of the war.
After two years of bombing and siege of Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israel and Hamas signed a two-phase agreement last fall.
Both parties accuse each other of violating terms that ultimately envisage the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers, the complete disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of international troops and the establishment of a new Palestinian governing body.
More than eight months later, there is little sign of progress. Instead, Gazans face a “dangerous current situation,” Nikolai Mladenov, a former UN official tasked with implementing the agreement, warned in May. On Thursday, the peace committee set up to advance plans for a ceasefire in Gaza touted two days of “very productive” meetings in Cyprus, but the path forward remains unclear.
Authorities have not yet set a timetable for introducing a Palestinian technocratic committee to take over governance of the enclave from Hamas, and international powers that have proposed security infrastructure have yet to materialize.
Israel has further strengthened its occupation of Gaza beyond the “yellow line” and continues to target Hamas members. Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to take control of 70% of the enclave and suggested it could take more.
Meanwhile, Hamas has rallied, refused to lay down its arms, and expanded its control in the enclave.
The number of deaths is steadily increasing. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on June 21 that Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,059 people and injured 3,429 in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire was signed on October 11.
An average of one child has been killed every day in Gaza since October, according to statistics compiled by the Health Ministry by CNN. In June, an independent United Nations commission found that Israel continues to commit genocide against Palestinians by deliberately targeting children in the Gaza Strip, an accusation Israel rejected as “political bloody libel disguised as a United Nations document.”
People living in Gaza say diplomats’ references to “peace” do not reflect the reality in Gaza, which has endured a brutal war.
“You can be bombed anytime, anywhere,” says Salih Saleh, an aid worker sheltering in Deir al-Bala, central Gaza. “There’s no real ceasefire here.”
More than 1.9 million people, nearly the entire population of Gaza, have been forced to flee multiple times, according to the United Nations. That number remains stubbornly unchanged, exacerbating the inhumane consequences of long-term homelessness.
Months after a ceasefire was signed, many people are staying in improvised tents with no ventilation, and rashes and other ectoparasitic infections (parasites that burrow into the skin) are becoming more prevalent, the United Nations warned in late May. The United Nations said in its latest report that such infections affect more than 80% of all displaced areas.
Rats, cockroaches, and weasels run amok, tearing limp tent sheets and biting sleeping children and newborn babies. In some cases, they are “directly attacking people,” said Saleh, Gaza emergency director for the UK-based NGO Palestinian Medical Assistance (MAP). Elderly people and people with disabilities can have a harder time avoiding rodents, especially at night.
“We have spoken to parents whose children have been bitten by rats, and they are afraid it will happen again,” Saleh said.
Hosni Nadeem Mohanna, a spokesman for Gaza City’s water municipality, said in other regions residents have resorted to digging cesspits because toilet stocks have been severely depleted, leading to soil and water contamination.
Rats have invaded aid supplies, forcing people to throw away scarce rice and flour. Some Palestinians try to keep food containers out of reach by hanging them from the ceiling of their tents.
Last month, the Israeli government announced it would launch a “massive pest control campaign” in a number of facilities in cooperation with the United Nations.
More broadly, the Coordination of Regional Government Activities (COGAT), the Israeli government agency tasked with facilitating aid distribution in the Gaza Strip, said it has been coordinating the entry of around 600 trucks daily since October last year, the minimum required under the agreement. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is stable and supported by a continuous and consistent flow of aid,” COGAT posted on X in early June.
But human rights organizations say this is not enough, citing Israel’s restrictions on access to power plants and spare parts, and the killing of aid workers tasked with distributing aid.
These restrictions have forced some government agencies to scale back operations, including water delivery, “putting an additional burden on the population,” Saleh added.
The Israeli military’s recent expansion of the Yellow Line is “causing a new wave of displacement,” Saleh warned. Overhead, strikes and shootings are “intensifying” “across populated areas,” she said.
Saleh warned that the Israeli military’s ongoing expansion of occupied territory in the Gaza Strip and the so-called “Yellow Line” movement are creating new displacements. She said strikes and shootings overhead and in populated areas were “intensifying.”
Even if families find new land, piles of solid waste and sewage pools are destroying the environment after Israeli military action rendered desalination plants, wastewater treatment, and sewage management systems inoperable or inaccessible. Mohanna, the water municipality’s spokesperson, said this, combined with piles of unremoved debris, created a breeding ground for mosquitoes and rodents.
According to Mohanna, around 25 million tons of debris has accumulated in Gaza City alone. He told CNN that strict restrictions on the access of waste compactors and debris removal machines are limiting authorities’ ability to efficiently collect waste. Louise Waterridge, a spokeswoman for the United Nations children’s agency in the Middle East and North Africa, said some relief workers were using donkeys and bulldozers to remove solid waste.
CNN has reached out to COGAT for comment.
“I wash my shoes every day because of the sewage,” Saleh said. “Gaza is now just a place where no creature can live.”
The strongest reminder of the bloodshed is the thousands of people buried under the rubble. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Palestinian Authority has recovered 784 bodies since the ceasefire last October. However, the Palestinian Ministry of Health told CNN on June 28 that at least 7,500 people remained unaccounted for, buried under the rubble.
Pat Griffiths, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, told CNN that the longer the dead remain under the rubble, the less likely they will be identified, adding that the bodies “need to be treated with dignity.”
He added that identifying information such as height, fingerprints, dental records, old injuries, scars and birthmarks are all at greater risk of being lost, adding that the lack of DNA testing kits in Gaza makes them even more valuable.
“People keep writing, keep talking, keep hoping.”
With no sign of a definitive ceasefire in Gaza, a new generation of Palestinians say they are psychologically scarred by the current horrors and numb to the task of building a future.
Saleh said one of the most noticeable symptoms of children trying to process death and loss in Gaza appeared while playing. “I’ve seen children imitate funerals and burials,” she says.
Yahya al-Hamarna, a 24-year-old writer displaced in Gaza City, said older students and professionals are facing an existential threat to find work. According to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has gradually increased to 85.1% as of May. Before October 2023, this number was 45%, according to PCBS.
“Palestinian men are often portrayed through a narrow lens of security rather than as individuals living in extreme conditions. This framing is dehumanizing,” Al-Hamarna added.
As physical traces of life in Gaza are erased, Al-Hamarna turned to storytelling as an “act of preserving memory,” quoting Refaat Alalil, a famous professor killed in an Israeli attack in December 2023.
“He represented the power of ideas, culture and words,” Alhamarna said. “People write, they speak, they keep their hopes up, and that in itself is a form of resistance.”
CNN’s Eugenia Yosef contributed reporting.
