The moment the first US-Israeli strikes hit Iran on February 28, people in Gaza understood what it meant for them. Not relief, not distraction — dread. A population already ground down by more than two years of war watched the world's attention pivot away, and with it, whatever thin thread of international pressure had been keeping their situation visible.

That fear has since proven well-founded.

As a sweeping regional conflict reshapes priorities in capitals from Washington to Tehran, Gaza has not stood still. Israel has moved swiftly to exploit the vacuum of global focus, tightening its control over the territory's crossings, further strangling the flow of humanitarian aid, and pressing ahead with military operations that continue to kill civilians — all while the ceasefire it nominally agreed to in October remains a document honored more in name than in practice.

Crossings Closed, Aid Choked Off

On the first day of the war with Iran, Israel shut Gaza's crossings entirely. Trucks carrying food, medicine, and essential supplies were stopped. Patients who had been waiting to travel abroad for medical treatment — in many cases life-saving treatment, in a territory whose healthcare system Israel's war had already reduced to rubble — found themselves stranded.

After several days of complete closure, Israel partially reopened the Kerem Abu Salem crossing, allowing a limited number of trucks to resume entry. The gesture has done little to address the scale of the crisis. Aid organizations say Gaza requires at least 600 trucks per day to meet the basic needs of its more than two million residents. Current volumes fall far short of that threshold.

Fuel and heavy machinery — essential for clearing the vast quantities of rubble left by nearly two and a half years of bombardment and for restoring even the most basic infrastructure — remain under severe restriction. Recovery, already an almost impossibly daunting task, has slowed further still.

"The war with Iran has given Israel broader space to intensify its crimes in Gaza, while the humanitarian situation has deteriorated rapidly due to severe restrictions on the crossings," said Ramy Abdu, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

The economic consequences have been immediate and severe. Mohammad Abu Jiyab, an economic affairs specialist, said the regional war has had a direct and measurable impact on conditions inside the territory. The reduction in crossing operations and the sharp drop in imports of both aid and commercial goods have sent prices soaring and emptied market shelves. A spokesperson for UNICEF confirmed that some basic commodities — food and cleaning products among them — have risen in price by as much as 200 to 300 percent.

"This has led to a sharp rise in prices and shortages of goods in the markets, along with a decline in the ability of international organisations to distribute humanitarian aid adequately to the population," Abu Jiyab said, warning that prolonged disruption would push Gaza's living and economic crises to a breaking point, leaving residents unable to meet even their most basic daily needs.

A Ceasefire in Name Only

The killing, meanwhile, has not stopped.

Since the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas in October came into effect, Israeli air strikes and artillery fire have continued across multiple areas of Gaza. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, those attacks have killed at least 648 people and wounded nearly 18,000 — numbers that accumulated not during open warfare, but during what was supposed to be a pause in hostilities.

Late Sunday into early Monday, six Palestinians — including two children — were killed and around ten wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza City and the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Analysts say the shift in global attention has created a permissive environment for exactly this kind of low-intensity but persistent violence. With international media and diplomatic energy consumed by the broader regional war, Israel has been able to carry out targeted military operations in Gaza with little fear of triggering significant international reaction.

Abdu described the ongoing operations as part of a systematic pattern, accusing Israel of exploiting every opening to "deepen conditions that make life increasingly impossible for an exhausted population." He raised the alarm over accelerating fears of renewed famine and malnutrition, particularly among children, and pointed to the rapid collapse of health services as medicine and equipment shortages mount.

"Hospitals are shutting down or operating at minimal capacity due to shortages of fuel and medical supplies. Patients are increasingly unable to travel for treatment, and many are deprived of essential medicines," he said.

The Political Process, Frozen

Behind the immediate humanitarian emergency lies a political deadlock that shows no signs of breaking.

The ceasefire agreement, signed in October, laid out an ambitious three-phase framework: a halt to military operations and the entry of large-scale humanitarian aid in the first phase; a broader Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the launch of reconstruction, and the establishment of a transitional civilian administration in the second; and the full normalization of life in the territory thereafter.

Phase one was itself only partially implemented. Israeli forces maintained control of large swaths of the territory and key crossings throughout. Phase two, which was supposed to begin in January 2026, stalled almost immediately. Israel introduced additional conditions around Gaza's future governance and the disarmament of armed factions, and negotiations ground to a halt.

In January, a Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza was formed — a transitional civilian body of 15 technocrats tasked with managing civil affairs, coordinating aid, restarting government institutions, and overseeing reconstruction. Its mandate was directly tied to the second phase of the ceasefire.

Israel has blocked the committee from entering Gaza. The Rafah land crossing, central to the committee's ability to function, has been closed for ten consecutive days.

"It is clear that Israel is exploiting the world's focus on the war with Iran to expand its repressive policies in Gaza at a time when international pressure and accountability are declining," Abdu said. "Many of these measures are taking place even without active combat — civilians are being killed, homes destroyed, and crossings restricted in ways that appear aimed at collective punishment and starvation."

Abu Jiyab, the economist, believes the regional war has given Israel a convenient justification for maintaining exactly the kind of political paralysis that suits its goals. "The clearest indication of this is the political neglect by the United States, the so-called Peace Council, and the mediating states regarding the rapid transfer of governance and enabling the administrative committee to manage the Gaza Strip," he said.

Prolonging the First Phase Indefinitely

Political analyst Ahed Farwana puts it more bluntly. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he argues, is using the shift of global attention to avoid moving to the second phase of the agreement altogether — keeping Gaza locked in a state of managed, controlled misery that stops short of full-scale war but maintains Israeli dominance over every aspect of life in the territory.

"The Israeli army continues to carry out strikes and assassinations, while restricting certain goods and allowing others under a policy of rationing, including fuel and cooking gas," Farwana said.

With Israeli forces currently controlling approximately 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, Farwana sees no indication that Israel intends to relinquish that foothold. "Israel does not want stability in Gaza. Instead, it seeks to keep the front under its control through military restrictions, economic pressure and various forms of punishment."

For the more than two million Palestinians trapped inside, the calculus is brutally simple. The war in Iran has not reached Gaza's streets. But its consequences have — in the form of empty shelves, shuttered hospitals, blocked crossings, and a political process that grows more distant with every passing day that the world looks elsewhere.