Disease, hunger and Israeli strikes: Six months after Trump’s ceasefire in Gaza

Middle East ConflictDisease, hunger and Israeli strikes: Six months after Trump’s ceasefire in GazaA look at the war-torn Palestinian enclave’s continuing crisis as negotiations between Hamas and Israel go on slowly.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Add NBC News to Google‘Life revolves around survival’: Struggles persist six months into Gaza ceasefire01:37Get more newsLiveonShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 25, 2026, 6:08 AM EDTBy Matt BradleyShe spent the winter struggling to protect her six young children from the biting cold and driving rain. Now the weather in Gaza has improved but Ezyia Abu Hayya is facing a new, more wretched problem: rats who devour her family’s scarce food and even their few remaining clothes.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“In the winter, the water surrounds us, and in the summer, we suffer from rats because our tent is low,” the 34-year-old said, squatting inside her tiny dwelling in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. “The rats eat everything, leaving us with nothing.”It’s been more than six months since a ceasefire halted the heaviest fighting in the Gaza Strip, but the changing seasons still bring fresh miseries for Abu Hayya and her children.Gaza’s most dire conditions — the lack of food and medicine, continuing Israeli attacks, destroyed hospitals, schools and residential buildings, homelessness and overcrowding — now include rodents, climbing temperatures and open-air sewage.Meanwhile, talks over Gaza’s future between Hamas, mediating countries and representatives from President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace have barely progressed, three officials close to the process told NBC News. Widowed Ezyia Abu Hayya looks after her six children in a tent camp in southern Gaza after her husband was killed in 2025. NBC NewsOptimistic plans to improve the enclave’s security, provide reconstruction and humanitarian relief, and institute a more permanent gove...