Even though a ceasefire started just over a month ago, Israel is still working to make Gaza unlivable.

On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office stated that only 30% of the supplies that were supposed to enter the strip in accordance with the ceasefire agreement have been let in. According to the agreement, Israel is supposed to let in 600 trucks of aid per day, including 50 trucks of fuel, and a total of 200,000 tents and 60,000 prefabricated mobile homes during the first phase of the ceasefire. The Government Media Office said that Israel has only let in 8,500 trucks out of the total 12,000 (in northern Gaza, only 2,916 instead of 6,000), less than half the intended number of tents, and only a handful of mobile homes.

The practical result of this policy is that, without the humanitarian aid stipulated in the ceasefire deal, Gaza remains uninhabitable. This has pushed some Palestinians to consider leaving Gaza until they are able to return. Hundreds of thousands have already fled to Egypt since the beginning of the war, and many more are looking to join them. Others, however, vow that they will not leave Gaza no matter what.

In October 2023, Israel’s initial goal for the war was to push Palestinians into the Sinai under the pretext of providing a “humanitarian corridor” for the civilian population. After Egypt refused to be complicit in the plan, the genocidal nature of Israel’s war took center stage.

But even after the ceasefire came into effect, Israel sought to continue the war through other means, intentionally stalling the delivery of humanitarian aid — in violation of the ceasefire’s terms — in order to keep living conditions in Gaza unbearable. The objective of this strategy is clear: to push Palestinians to abandon their homeland or die. The commonly applied euphemism for this process is “voluntary emigration.”

This is what led Hamas to suspend its intended release of Israeli captives last week, citing Israel’s systematic violations of the humanitarian protocols of the ceasefire. After receiving assurances from mediators that Israel would start letting........

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