Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Below worldwide humanitarian regulation, freedom of motion is a elementary proper, inseparable from different core protections resembling the best to life, meals and training.
In Gaza, nonetheless, freedom of motion has change into a device of management and collective punishment, administered by a fancy system of street closures, permits and guarded land crossings.
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Throughout Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which started in October 2023, this method grew to become totally entrenched by the management of gateways: who’s allowed out and in, when, in what numbers, and what items might enter or are barred.
As months handed, closure ceased to be a short lived “safety measure” and as a substitute grew to become a day by day actuality that has redefined survival itself for Palestinians.
A affected person in want of medical therapy overseas, a pupil awaiting a chance to check, a household separated throughout borders, or a wounded struggle sufferer on an evacuation listing – all finally confront the identical barrier: Israeli-controlled land crossings.
On the centre of this method stands the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, lengthy seen as Gaza’s solely outlet to the surface world indirectly ruled by Israel.
In follow, nonetheless, Rafah grew to become a part of the identical management regime. On Might 7, 2024, Israel introduced it had taken “operational management” of the Palestinian aspect of the crossing, successfully shutting down an important lifeline for humanitarian support and medical evacuations.
Within the weeks that adopted, media retailers documented how support vehicles have been left stranded, and meals provides destined for Gaza had spoiled beneath the solar, whereas Rafah remained closed or successfully disabled on the peak of humanitarian want.
With its closure, Rafah was remodeled from a crossing level into an instrument of collective regulation.
By way of numerical caps, title lists and layered approvals, Israeli authorities have exercised full management over motion, with speedy penalties for meals provide chains, humanitarian help, medical evacuations, and Palestinian civilians’ proper to journey and reunite with their households.
Following the closure of the Rafah crossing, the Israeli military selectively opened different factors for the passage of “pre-approved items” and restricted numbers of sufferers and humanitarian employees.
The United Nations repeatedly warned about unsafe entry to a number of crossings due to Israeli navy exercise in Gaza.
The crossings deemed “operational”, which shifted over time, have been primarily Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Kissufim.
In actuality, this association didn’t end in a steady circulation of support, however in a risky system reliant on consistently altering entry factors according to navy developments.
In northern Gaza, following Israel’s enforced separation of Palestinians from the south, the UN documented the Israeli military’s closure of a number of key roads and corridors.
This meant restrictions utilized not solely to “entry into Gaza” but additionally to “entry inside Gaza”, additional isolating complete areas from provides and important providers.
Past crossings and roads, Israel’s struggle imposed a further layer of management by what grew to become generally known as “necessary coordination” for humanitarian convoys. Even when support was permitted to enter, its motion inside Gaza remained contingent on Israeli navy approvals, notably close to areas of Israeli troop deployment or on routes resulting in crossings.
Knowledge from the UN’s Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) present lots of of humanitarian missions confronted “obstacle, cancellation, or denial”.
In line with Maha al-Hussaini, advocacy director on the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, what unfolded throughout the genocide was not merely non permanent restrictions on freedom of journey, however “a scientific coverage by which Israel used management over motion to and from Gaza as a central device of siege, collective punishment, and coercive administration of the civilian inhabitants”.
Al-Hussaini instructed Al Jazeera that beneath worldwide regulation, Israel – because the occupying energy – is obligated to permit freedom of motion to ensure “entry to meals, humanitarian support, healthcare, training, and household reunification”.
But, she stated, Israeli practices throughout the struggle mirrored “a scientific violation of those obligations” by the near-total closure of crossings, strict management over who’s permitted to depart or return, and the usage of “arbitrary and degrading measures towards civilians”.
Medical evacuations: A matter of life or loss of life
Using motion as a management mechanism is most starkly revealed within the medical evacuation file.
Following Israel’s closure of Rafah, evacuation of the sick and wounded was routed by a particularly advanced course of, starting with affected person lists and referrals, adopted by transfers to gathering factors inside Gaza, after which transport to the Karem Abu Salem crossing, the place extra Israeli safety clearances have been required.
This failed miserably in responding to the terrifying scale of the continued medical disaster within the Strip. It’s as a substitute a purposefully gradual and closely conditioned pathway.
Official figures expose a stark hole between demand and actuality.
Between Might 8, 2024, and January 18, 2025, solely 459 sufferers have been evacuated by Karem Abu Salem. Throughout a subsequent ceasefire interval between January 19 and March 17, 2025, when Rafah was partially reopened, the quantity rose to 1,702 sufferers, including hundreds of children, clearly indicating that evacuations enhance solely when extra motion routes have been out there.
As soon as that interval ended and reliance on Karem Abu Salem resumed, evacuations once more dropped sharply to simply 352 sufferers between March 18 and July 16, 2025.
In contrast, the World Well being Group (WHO) at this time experiences that greater than 18,500 sufferers in Gaza stay in pressing, life-saving want of medical therapy exterior the Strip.
The disparity between want and consequence reveals that evacuations performed over many months addressed solely a tiny fraction of precise demand, leaving 1000’s trapped on open-ended ready lists in war-battered Gaza.
‘Merciless and inhuman therapy’
Greater than 1,600 Palestinians have died whereas ready for healthcare overseas. On this context, al-Hussaini stated restrictions on motion quantity to one in every of Israel’s gravest violations throughout the genocide.
“Hundreds of wounded and ailing Palestinians, together with youngsters and most cancers sufferers, have been denied the power to journey exterior Gaza for medical therapy, or have been pressured to attend for weeks or months beneath advanced and opaque procedures. In lots of circumstances, their well being deteriorated or they died earlier than permission to depart was granted,” she stated.
“Such practices can’t be justified on safety grounds and represent a direct violation of the best to life, amounting to merciless and inhuman therapy.”
When Rafah was partially reopened this month after the USA utilized stress on Israel’s leaders, the underlying actuality didn’t basically change. On February 2, the WHO introduced the evacuation of simply 5 sufferers and 7 companions.
It was a tightly managed border opening with Egypt ruled by a number of layers of scrutiny: small numbers allowed to cross, prior Israeli safety authorisation for returnees, European screening at Rafah, adopted by a second identification and interrogation course of in a hall administered by the Israeli military.
Al-Hussaini stated the restrictions imposed throughout the struggle, taken in totality, present that Israel makes use of freedom of motion in Gaza to manage the day by day lifetime of Palestinians, figuring out who receives support, who accesses well being therapy, and who stays trapped within the Strip, putting these insurance policies on the coronary heart of authorized debates round proportionality, the prohibition of collective punishment, and the obligations of an occupying energy.
Blockade as everlasting coverage since 2007
Israeli restrictions on freedom of motion in Gaza didn’t start with the present struggle. Since 2007, they’ve developed from purportedly non permanent safety measures right into a everlasting coverage structuring the lives of two.4 million individuals.
Following Hamas’s rise to energy in 2007 by democratic elections, Israel imposed a complete land, sea and air blockade. The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross has persistently acknowledged that the excellent closure of Gaza targets the civilian inhabitants as a complete, infringes on elementary rights, and constitutes a type of collective punishment prohibited beneath worldwide humanitarian regulation.
UN businesses have equally burdened that long-term restrictions, even during times of relative calm, lack any official authorized justification.
Economically and socially, the World Financial institution and the United Nations Convention on Commerce and Improvement (UNCTAD) have documented how the blockade has paralysed Gaza’s financial system, eroded its productive base and pushed unprecedented ranges of poverty and unemployment. Extreme restrictions on items, uncooked supplies and exports have made any type of sustainable financial restoration not possible, entrenching power dependence on humanitarian support.
Israel additional strengthened the blockade by a coverage of separating Gaza from the occupied West Financial institution, treating the Strip as a definite territorial unit regardless of their standing as a single territory beneath worldwide regulation.
UN particular rapporteurs and rights teams say this separation has fractured social and household ties, and obstructed entry to training, work and healthcare.
For greater than 15 years, these restrictions have been recalibrated after every escalation. The extreme constraints imposed throughout the present struggle are merely an intensification of a system in place since 2007.
Controlling meals, water, medication
In March 2024, OCHA reported that solely 26 % of support missions have been facilitated by Israel’s military, whereas 40 % have been denied, 20 % delayed, 11 % impeded and three % withdrawn.
Might 2024 marked a turning level, as crossing closures and restrictions led to a pointy discount in support and humanitarian personnel entry.
As safety situations on convoy routes deteriorated, support more and more failed to succeed in the meant locations. This prompted the UN company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, to droop support entry by the Karem Abu Salem crossing on December 1, 2024, citing unsafe situations and repeated looting incidents. In lots of circumstances, support was unloaded on roads or seized earlier than reaching warehouses.
In August 2025, the Built-in Meals Safety Section Classification (IPC), a world starvation monitor, confirmed that famine had taken hold in northern Gaza.
Subsequent updates reiterated that famine danger would persist so long as Israeli navy operations continued and humanitarian entry remained restricted, noting that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants confronted excessive ranges of meals deprivation.
“Restrictions on motion have been among the many gravest violations. Motion management was not incidental or administrative – it was used as a central device to handle and stress the civilian inhabitants,” stated al-Hussaini.
She described Israel’s actions as “a transparent violation of worldwide humanitarian regulation, together with the prohibition on the usage of hunger of civilians as a technique of warfare”.
Israeli restrictions fragmented humanitarian flows, elevated dangers alongside convoy routes, and at occasions pressured support businesses to droop operations solely.
“The inhabitants was left trapped in a cycle of starvation, pushed not solely by shortages however by the denial of entry, freedom of motion, and finally the best to outlive,” al-Hussaini stated.
‘Stripping Gaza of technique of life’
After the partial reopening of Rafah final week, solely small numbers of sufferers needing healthcare overseas and separated households have been allowed to cross.
As of Sunday, a complete of 165 individuals have managed to depart Gaza into Egypt, and 94 Palestinians have been allowed to return. Tens of 1000’s proceed to attend to cross Rafah, together with sick and wounded whose lives rely on it.
Al-Hussaini stated the impression of motion restrictions extends past bodily survival, slicing throughout financial, social and cultural rights.
“Hundreds of scholars have been prevented from persevering with their training overseas, households have been torn aside by the denial of household reunification, and alternatives for work, examine and medical therapy have been halted,” she stated.
Israel’s insurance policies “deepened the psychological and social penalties of the struggle past the scope of direct navy operations”.
Continued Israeli management over freedom of motion poses a elementary impediment to any real reconstruction and social rehabilitation.
“By proscribing the entry of supplies and gear, stopping specialists and specialised personnel from shifting freely, and retaining the inhabitants in a state of pressured instability, these insurance policies can’t be separated from a broader context aimed toward stripping Gaza of the technique of life, and imposing a long-term actuality of forcible displacement and inhabitants management,” al-Hussaini stated.
Israel’s ongoing actions “represent critical violations which will quantity to struggle crimes”, she concluded.
