Israel’s assault on Iran, launched with the USA, has shifted the global spotlight away from its ongoing violations of the rights of people in Gaza, where killing continues despite the October ceasefire. Civil society is sustaining pressure on governments but faces an attritional campaign of state repression. Plans by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to impose an external governance structure on Gaza, designed with no Palestinian input, constitute the latest denial of the rights of Palestinian people. There can be no peace without justice, and there must be no reconstruction without Palestinian agency.

In January, one of those tasked with governing Gaza, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, unveiled his vision for the territory’s future: a futuristic property development plan apparently modelled on Dubai. Existing neighbourhoods would be erased and luxury gated communities and tourism zones created. The population would be pushed southwards towards the Egyptian border, away from Israel’s main population centres, with Gaza surrounded by an Israel-controlled buffer zone and watched over by high-tech surveillance. No one in Gaza has been consulted on this plan. The only role the proposals assign to Palestinians is economic and political compliance: to staff the businesses that make money for international investors and not express dissent.

This is the latest expression of a pattern as old as the occupation. Israel and its allies believe they should continue to make decisions about Palestinians while systematically denying them any agency.

The latest shifting of the global spotlight helps enable this erasure. A new phase of Israel’s seemingly permanent state of warfare has begun with its assault on Iran, in concert with the USA. US war aims and what the Trump administration would deem victory are unclear, but Israel has made no secret that it wants regime change. Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn Trump into another conflict, and its broadening regional footprint, with Iran striking other countries, doesn’t seem to trouble him.

As was the case when Israel and the USA launched airstrikes on Iran last June, pressure on Israel to end the grotesque suffering it’s inflicting in Gaza and its systematic human rights abuses across Palestine has ebbed. The ceasefire agreed in October had already dissipated international concern and scrutiny, even though Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians since it supposedly came into effect. Israel has routinely used ceasefires strategically, to buffer pressure, recalibrate its objectives and, as is now evident, to launch new wars, while failing to honour the terms of agreements. It has also continued to choke aid and restrict freedom of movement.

View of destruction in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on 26 December 2025. Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AFP.

Ongoing violations

For people in Gaza, the suffering continues. They continue to live with the scarcity of essentials Israel has engineered. Everyday life is based on calculations about how to secure what’s needed for survival. Local civil society has continued to mobilise to provide vital aid, but faces enduring challenges of coordination, funding and access to some parts of Gaza.

Those challenges threatened to worsen in December, when Israel banned 37 international civil society organisations from working in Palestine, including ActionAid, Doctors Without Borders and the International Rescue Committee. According to the Israeli government’s new regulations, it can now refuse registration to organisations on grounds such as their support for boycotts and prosecutions of military personnel. In February, an Israeli court temporarily halted the government’s ban following an injunction filed by 17 civil society organisations, but the threat remains.

In January, the Israeli government further showed its hostility to humanitarian efforts when it tore down the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestine, UNRWA, in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, having already killed hundreds of its staff in Gaza. It treats aid not as a humanitarian obligation but as a tool, something it will withhold or allow in exchange for submission.

Voices from the frontline

Ali Abdel-Wahab is a data analyst and policy researcher with PalThink for Strategic Studies and the Social Developmental Forum. Ali was recently able to leave Gaza and is now living in Brussels.

 

Civil society in Gaza operates under exceptional conditions, but it hasn’t stopped. Despite the destruction of hundreds of offices and the killing of dozens of staff members, community leaders, informal networks and local organisations continue to fill critical gaps: distributing relief, providing psychological first aid, documenting violations and protecting the most vulnerable, including children, women and people with disabilities.

But there are many obstacles. First, funding: the war has seen a proliferation of crowdfunding campaigns, but much of this money flows to informal networks that exploit wartime chaos for material gain, rather than reaching those genuinely in need or formal civil society institutions that contribute systematically to relief and recovery. Community kitchens, temporary education tents and psychosocial support teams all operate with very limited resources.

The second problem is access: northern Gaza is isolated, as are areas east of the Yellow Line and eastern Gaza Strip, and organisations struggle to reach these zones. The third challenge is coordination, which is made extremely difficult by the absence of a unified authority.

Some obstacles are deliberate: Israel directly targets civil society by bombing centres, preventing entry of equipment and arresting staff or restricting their movement. Far from ‘collateral damage’, this is systematic targeting of civil infrastructure.

The crisis is escalating with the suspension of over 35 international organisations from working in all occupied Palestinian territories, on the pretext of not registering with the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories. This will severely impact on humanitarian projects in Gaza, particularly in the areas of education, health, shelter and water and sanitation.

But we shouldn’t romanticise civil society’s role as a substitute for political rights. Civil society groups can fill emergency gaps, but can’t — and shouldn’t be asked to — compensate for the absence of sovereignty or the denial of basic rights.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Ali. Read the full interview here.

International pressure

International solidarity is vital for people in Gaza, but attention spans waver. The global spotlight has dimmed as other events, not least the daily outrages of the Trump administration, command attention.

State repression has imposed attritional costs on solidarity efforts. In 2025, at least 17 European states imposed restrictions on Palestine solidarity protesters, with authorities often equating dissent with terrorism and unleashing violence against protesters.

Last year, the UK government listed direct action group Palestine Action as a banned terrorist organisation following a civil disobedience action held at an airbase to demand an end to military cooperation with Israel. Being listed means members or supporters can face jail sentences of up to 14 years. Thousands have been arrested for holding signs reading: ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. A court ruling in February overturned the ban, but the government is appealing. German authorities have also banned two organisations and charged thousands of people for participating in Palestine solidarity protests.

The USA, Israel’s partner in warfare, is leading the crackdown. Authorities have carried out mass arrests of peaceful protesters, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested, detained and deported foreign residents, using AI tools to trawl their social media accounts for signs of any potential support for Hamas. Campus activism has been suppressed through suspension of student groups, disciplinary measures and visa revocations, driven by threats from wealthy funders to withdraw their support.

Despite this repression, the genocide in Gaza has been a tipping point for many people who understand that neutrality is compliance. Young people are at the forefront, connecting demands for Palestinian rights with broader struggles for economic, racial and social justice.

Human rights organisations, labour movements and students have come together to expose the complicity of governments, defence contractors and technology companies, urging them to cut ties with Israel and pressure it to comply with international law. They’ve had some success: last year, four Belgian civil society organisations won a court ruling ordering the Flemish government to halt all shipments of military goods.

Around the world, civil society is urging governments to halt all military and trade cooperation with Israel, keeping up the pressure through calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Voices from the frontline

Karam Dana is an interdisciplinary social scientist and professor at the University of Washington Bothell. His award-winning book, To Stand with Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the United States, examines changing global discourse on Palestine.

 

Civil society mobilisation has reshaped the political terrain around the genocide in Gaza in ways states have been unwilling to do. Diasporic organising, labour actions prioritising justice over profit, mass protests across continents and student movements have turned Palestine into a global moral and political reference point. These transnational movements, led by diasporic networks, justice advocates, racialised communities and young people, have disrupted narratives that dehumanise Palestinians and normalise Israeli violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

What distinguishes this moment is the convergence of struggles. Palestine has become a connective tissue linking movements against incarceration, police violence, racial capitalism and settler colonialism. Activists increasingly recognise that legal doctrines, surveillance regimes and technologies tested on Palestinians circulate globally. Gaza is no longer treated as an exception, but as a warning.

Civil society’s role in accountability extends beyond monitoring ceasefire violations. Through documentation of war crimes, economic pressure campaigns, institutional disruption and legal advocacy, grassroots movements are redefining what accountability looks like. Civil society is one of the few remaining arenas where international law retains political meaning.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Karam. Read the full interview here.

External control

But what’s next for Gaza is likely to be far removed from the global solidarity movement’s demands for a genuine, inclusive peace. Kushner’s property development plan forms part of an imposed governance architecture. Trump’s newly created Board of Peace intends to subject Gaza to external control, and given the USA’s unconditional support for Israel, it will be far from neutral. The executive board set to govern Gaza is packed with Trump allies, and while it has some representation from Middle Eastern states, not a single member is Palestinian.

Day-to-day governance of public services is set to rest with the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, taking over from the Hamas administration. But it’s hard to see how it could stand up to the Board of Peace, while Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are reluctant to concede ground to it.

If Gaza currently can’t govern itself, this is the result of the devastation Israel has caused. The current situation reflects decisions Israel and its allies have taken, not any inherent inability of Gaza’s people to shape their own future.

The exclusion of Palestinians from decision-making is part of an established pattern in which Israel and its allies appoint themselves arbiters and take decisions, denying Palestinians any agency. Gazans must be the architects of reconstruction, not its objects. The international community’s response must rebuild the capacity of Gaza’s people to govern their territory.

Genuine peace requires more than a formal ceasefire: it demands accountability. There can be no peace without justice, and no justice while impunity persists. So long as those who’ve violated international law face no consequences, no ceasefire agreement, governance plan or reconstruction initiative deserves to be called peace.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • States and international organisations must pressure Israel to fully respect the terms of the ceasefire.
  • Governance bodies for Gaza must be restructured to guarantee genuine Palestinian representation, and any reconstruction plan must be grounded in the right to self-determination.
  • States must uphold the right of people to protest in solidarity with Palestine and end the criminalisation of peaceful protesters.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

Cover photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AFP