Three Years On: How War Has Reshaped Every Corner of Life in Gaza

Three years after Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave has undergone a transformation so profound that its pre-war identity is barely recognizable. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, more than 74,245 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the conflict, a toll that continues to mount even after a "ceasefire" was announced in October 2025. That agreement, far from ending the violence, has merely altered its rhythm: the ministry reports that 1,462 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect, with Israeli attacks and other military operations persisting across the territory.

The scale of the devastation is difficult to overstate. A population of roughly two million people has seen its homes, neighborhoods, and essential services systematically damaged or destroyed. Repeated displacement orders have uprooted families and torn apart communities, forcing people to move not once but again and again in search of safety that never fully materializes. The result is a society whose daily existence has been reorganized around the single imperative of survival.

Shelter remains one of the most acute crises. In September, the United Nations reported that 94 percent of Gaza's population still required urgent shelter and basic household assistance. Approximately 65 percent of households were living in tents or makeshift structures that offer minimal protection from the elements, their occupants having fled their homes because of Israeli attacks or forced evacuation orders. Beyond the lack of walls, many families also go without adequate bedding, lighting, kitchen equipment, and sanitation facilities, according to UN assessments.

Water access has deteriorated even further as the war has dragged on. By early August, 91 percent of assessed households were experiencing moderate-to-high water insecurity, a marked increase from 84 percent just two months earlier in June. The scarcity is not merely an inconvenience; it is a public health emergency in a territory where clean water was already precarious before the conflict.

Electricity tells a similar story. Gaza has been left without a functioning electricity grid, forcing hospitals, water pumps, and ordinary households to rely on generators. Those generators, in turn, depend on fuel, engine oil, and spare parts that have become increasingly difficult to obtain. Damaged roads and communications networks compound the problem, making transportation, phone service, and internet access unreliable at best. The cumulative effect is that once-mundane tasks—collecting water, charging a phone, cooking a meal, washing clothes, or traveling to reach a service—now demand resources, planning, and time that most families can scarcely afford.

Gaza's economy has been equally devastated. In September, the UN Conference on Trade and Development estimated that 92 percent of the territory's economic establishments had been damaged or destroyed since October 2023. Unemployment has climbed to 78 percent. GDP per capita stood at just $212 in 2025, a mere 17 percent of its 2022 level. Agriculture and industry were each operating at only 6 percent of their 2022 output, while construction had collapsed to 1 percent.

The collapse of economic activity has been deepened by restrictions on the movement of goods through Israeli-controlled crossings, which historically handled most of Gaza's trade with the outside world. Consumers have felt the consequences directly: as of September, prices remained roughly 200 percent above pre-October 2023 levels, according to the UN. With jobs and incomes gone, economic life has increasingly shifted toward humanitarian aid, debt, and small-scale informal work. Economic researcher Rami al-Zaygh told Al Jazeera that the war had "pushed society back decades," reviving old professions and generating new forms of work improvised from basic tools and whatever materials are at hand.

Cash itself has become scarce, pushing many families toward digital payments and e-wallets, while others depend on cash assistance from humanitarian organizations to meet basic needs. The shift reflects not modernization but necessity—an economy adapting to the absence of banks, markets, and stable currency flows.

Education has suffered a comparable rupture. For nearly three years, hundreds of thousands of children have had no regular access to in-person schooling. According to UNICEF, nearly 98 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed, and many of those still standing are being used as shelters for displaced families. As of April 2026, approximately 700,000 children between the ages of 4 and 17 had missed almost three consecutive years of classroom education—a lost generation in the making, with consequences that will likely outlast the war itself.

Healthcare, likewise, has been driven to the brink of collapse. Hospitals have been damaged, forced to operate without reliable power or supplies, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of casualties. The combination of destroyed infrastructure, limited medical imports, and the ongoing toll of injuries and disease has left what remains of the health system unable to meet the population's needs.

Taken together, these developments describe not a temporary humanitarian crisis but a structural transformation of Palestinian life in Gaza. The war has changed where people live, how they eat, how they learn, how they work, and how they move. Recovery, whenever it becomes possible, will require rebuilding not only physical structures but the civic, economic, and social fabric that held a society together—a task whose cost has already been estimated by the UN at $71.5 billion.

Three years into this conflict, the daily struggles of Gaza's residents continue with no clear end in sight. The ceasefire of October 2025 has not restored electricity, reopened schools, or revived the economy. It has not returned families to their homes or replaced the dead. For the two million people of Gaza, survival remains a full-time undertaking, and the future remains profoundly uncertain.