Is the world ignoring Gaza?
Amid the US and Israel’s war on Iran, we discuss the impact on diplomatic efforts and support for Palestine.
The already catastrophic situation in Gaza is getting worse as the United States and Israel’s war in Iran rages on. Until late last month, the US said its ambitious plans to rebuild Gaza were on track.
After two years of Israel’s genocidal war on the strip, the Rafah border crossing had partially reopened. Limited food aid was allowed in and a small number of people were able to enter and exit Gaza.
But all that came to a halt when the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran last month, shifting the world’s focus away from Palestine. So, what does it all mean for the Palestinians still in dire need of aid? And where does it leave diplomatic efforts to maintain a shaky ceasefire?
Israeli-backed Palestinian militias step up operations against Hamas in Gaza
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/13/israeli-backed-palestinian-militias-against-hamas-gaza
Armed groups appear to have increased their firepower as they carry out raids deep in Hamas-controlled territory
Pro-Israel Palestinian militia have launched repeated raids, clandestine assassination and abduction operations deep inside parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas in recent months, with new operations launched recently despite the outbreak of conflict with Iran.
The militia, which are all based in eastern parts of Gaza that are under Israeli control after a ceasefire came into effect in October, have received significant logistic support from Israel since last year but appear to have increased their firepower, allowing new and more aggressive attacks in recent weeks.
The most powerful among the Israeli-backed militia are the Popular Forces, based around the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and the Strike Force Against Terror, which operates east of the shattered city of Khan Younis. Both have struck into Hamas-controlled territory in recent weeks.
Israel has tasked the militia with security duties within the zone it controls and deployed armed men from the Popular Forces at the Rafah crossing to Egypt after it partially opened last month. Days later, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned of “a pattern of ill-treatment, abuse and humiliation of returnees by Israeli forces and armed Palestinians allegedly backed by the Israeli military”.
A third pro-Israeli militia based in northern Gaza, known as the Ashraf al-Mansi group, sent fighters across the “yellow line”, which currently divides zones of control in Gaza, last week, on what appears to have been a mission to ambush Hamas patrols and possibly assassinate senior Hamas figures. Officials from Hamas said it had foiled the attempt amid fighting in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City.
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The enhanced role of the militias is a further challenge for plans for an international stabilisation force in Gaza. The US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, which aims to demilitarise the territory, formally entered its second phase in January, but progress had stalled even before the joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran, and the spiralling conflict it has triggered.
Hamas, which controls most of the coastal strip where almost all the 2.3 million population of Gaza now live, is reluctant to fully disarm and Israel appears unwilling to relinquish its control over more than half of the territory. The Popular Forces have also been deployed against Hamas militants holding out in a tunnel complex near Rafah.
In January, the group posted footage of Ghassan al-Duhaini, its leader, with a captured semi-naked, injured Hamas commander. On camera, Duhaini slapped the captive and addressed Hamas, telling the group: “Your terrorism is over. We’ll fight with force and won’t allow anyone to sabotage efforts for peace.” He later threatened to execute the captive.
The pro-Israeli militia groups, who have a collective strength of only a few hundred fighters, have also been used for attacks deep into the Hamas-controlled coastal strip. The Popular Army, another Israel-supported militia, which has around 30 fighters, recently assassinated the senior officer of a Hamas police unit that targets collaborators.
According to reliable analysts and reports from Gaza, Hamas militants chased the attackers as they returned to the Israeli-controlled zone from the scene of the attack in the coastal al-Mawasi area, but abandoned their pursuit when targeted by Israeli drones.
Ceasefire my ass. Supporting criminal gangs in Gaza to incite civil war. Same old tactic to destabilize Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran. Arm militias while providing cover for them.
Statistics from Acled show 265 attacks launched by Israel in the month after the October ceasefire, rising to about 350 each month since, to reach a total of 1,664 in mid-March.
Israeli officials say the strikes are retaliation after attacks by Hamas and infiltration attempts across the yellow line, but many target individuals far from the immediate site of any alleged breach of the ceasefire, suggesting a campaign with broader strategic aims.
More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, bringing the overall total for the war to more than 72,000, mostly civilians.
Israeli strikes in Gaza, which had averaged around 10 a day across the devastated territory over the last five months, have continued even as Israeli jets carry out bombing campaigns in Iran and Lebanon.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike and tank shelling killed six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, in separate attacks in Gaza City, the deadliest incidents in Gaza since the US-Israeli offensive on Iran began, health officials said. At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes since the outbreak of war with Iran on 28 February, health officials say.
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Tahani Mustafa, an expert in regional armed groups and lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, said the intensified activity of the militia in Gaza was unlikely to stabilise the devastated territory.
“The problem is that these [pro-Israeli] gangs have not only been implicated in criminality but also are operating with an occupying force that is responsible for mass devastation and starvation … They have given Hamas an inadvertent popularity boost, not because people sympathise with Hamas ideology, but because there is no one else.”
Hamas has so far stayed on the sidelines of the new conflict in the region, restricting any involvement to a statement welcoming the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader and condemning “Israeli-US aggression”.
