What has happened in Gaza since the start of the Iran war? - Gaza Herald. March 14

What has happened in Gaza since the start of the Iran war?

Blockade & Siege, Humanitarian Crisis 

 March 14, 2026

Gaza Herald _As global attention has shifted to the war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, Israeli military strikes and operations in Gaza have continued.

Since October 7, 2023, more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Palestinian sources, with women and children making up the majority of the victims. Large parts of the territory have been reduced to rubble during the conflict. In Israel, about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken captive during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023.

Below is an overview of developments in Gaza since the Iran war began on February 28.

Border crossing closure

On March 1, Israel closed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The Israeli military’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the decision was part of security measures implemented due to the ongoing war with Iran. Rafah is considered a vital route for humanitarian aid deliveries and for the evacuation of critically ill patients from Gaza.

Panic buying

The closure of the crossing, combined with fears linked to the widening regional conflict, has triggered panic buying across Gaza. Residents, already enduring nearly two and a half years of war,are increasingly worried about potential shortages of food and essential goods.

Ali al-Hayek, a member of the Palestinian Businessmen Association in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that shutting the crossings could disrupt aid distribution to vulnerable families and halt operations at charity kitchens that provide meals for thousands of people.

Calls to reopen crossings

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to reopen Gaza’s border crossings. On March 2, Israeli authorities announced that the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known in Israel as Kerem Shalom, would reopen to allow the gradual entry of humanitarian aid into the territory.

Deadly drone strike

On Saturday, an Israeli drone strike killed a father and his daughter in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Later that day, another attack in the same city left one person dead and a young girl injured, according to Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground.

Fuel and gas shortages

A prolonged shortage of cooking gas and fuel has continued to affect daily life in Gaza since the beginning of the war. Even after the ceasefire, the quantities of fuel entering the territory remain far below the population’s actual needs, according to Gaza officials and United Nations agencies.

Amnesty report on women

Human rights organization Amnesty International recently released a report stating that Palestinian women in Gaza have been denied the conditions necessary to live and give birth safely. The report noted that pregnant women and those suffering from serious illnesses face severe shortages in healthcare services across the territory.

Amid the escalating regional tensions, many residents in Gaza fear that the ongoing conflict involving Iran could further sideline the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. With border crossings restricted, essential supplies limited, and the healthcare system under severe strain, aid groups warn that conditions for civilians could deteriorate further unless humanitarian access is expanded and sustained international attention is maintained.

In fond memory of Walid Khalidi, the historian of Palestine

This week, Palestine lost one of its greatest scholars, Professor Walid Ahmad Samih Khalidi, who passed away peacefully in Cambridge, MA, after having celebrated his 100th birthday the previous year surrounded by family. His passing was received less with shock than with amazement at his intellectual contribution over most of his century, a legacy to which he continued to add his final meticulous touches even in his last days. 

His reputation as the historian of the Nakba, established through his studies, books, and historical collections, is well known in Palestine and throughout the Arab world, as well as among researchers worldwide. But these towering scholarly achievements are less known globally, and remain to be fully recognized, especially since, from the outset, they went against the prevailing Israeli narrative around 1948 and ever since.

The historian of the Nakba

Khalidi’s earliest scholarly work uncovered the Zionist movement’s “Plan Dalet,” which he called the “master plan” to expel the Palestinian people en masse — well before the revisionist school of Israeli historians gradually revealed what Walid Khalidi had shown the world in the 1950s. His singular academic achievements since the 1970s include landmark volumes documenting the Nakba, such as From Haven to Conquest, Before Their Diaspora, and All That Remains, which provide an encyclopedic Palestinian narrative of our history, essential elements of any library on Palestine.

As the tributes to Walid Khalidi poured in over the past days from presidents and kings, from political, intellectual, and community leaders, and from his peers, his academic and scholarly biography has been prominently featured. These include not only his own publications, but no less significantly, the establishment of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS), the premier Palestinian scientific research center. The IPS, today operating in Palestine, Lebanon, and the U.S., is enjoying its sixth decade of world-class research on Palestine in the “all-Palestine” historical and political tradition pioneered by Khalidi, who led the Institute for over 40 years. So not only will he be remembered as a great historian, but he was also a master institution-builder and manager, drawing on his well-honed understanding of the needs of the moment.

Perhaps what is less known about this very special Oxford-educated Palestinian gentleman, with the pedigree of an aristocratic Jerusalemite family, was his deep, less visible political activism. Over three periods of his life, he engaged in different roles in Palestinian politics, and remained very much in tune with the politics of each era and with his own ability to play a role. His biography was formative in that regard, having witnessed the buildup to the Nakba and its aftermath, and having received an upbringing that combined education, patriotism, and courtesy all in one package. His father, Ahmad Samih, was a liberal educator; his grandfather an Ottoman and Mandate-era judge who established a family manuscript Library in 1900; and his uncle was the last elected mayor of Jerusalem and a critical ally of the Palestinian national leadership of his era. Another of his uncles, Ismail (my father), was a UN diplomat.

The man on whom nothing was lost

But what I would like to shed more light on, for those who know of his place in Palestinian history and those who may not, is based more on my own personal interactions with him over the past few years, as well as on some widely known milestones in his political history. Those I refer to in passing, as the definitive version of that story will hopefully be published soon, as Walid has spent the best part of the past decade writing his own memoirs. They promise to be something special in recording the history of the Palestinian national movement since 1948.

READ THE WHOLE MONDOWEISS ARTICLE HERE.

WALID KHALIDI SPEAKING AT THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, NOVEMBER 30, 2009. (PHOTO: SOCIAL MEDIA)