Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Beneath worldwide humanitarian regulation, freedom of motion is a elementary proper, inseparable from different core protections akin to the suitable to life, meals and training.
In Gaza, nevertheless, freedom of motion has change into a software of management and collective punishment, administered by way of a posh system of highway closures, permits and guarded land crossings.
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Throughout Israel’s genocidal struggle on Gaza, which started in October 2023, this method turned absolutely entrenched by way of 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 an alternative turned a day by day actuality that has redefined survival itself for Palestinians.
A affected person in want of medical remedy overseas, a scholar awaiting a chance to check, a household separated throughout borders, or a wounded struggle sufferer on an evacuation listing – all in the end confront the identical barrier: Israeli-controlled land crossings.
On the centre of this method stands the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, lengthy considered as Gaza’s solely outlet to the skin world in a roundabout way ruled by Israel.
In follow, nevertheless, Rafah turned a part of the identical management regime. On Might 7, 2024, Israel introduced it had taken “operational management” of the Palestinian facet of the crossing, successfully shutting down a significant lifeline for humanitarian support and medical evacuations.
Within the weeks that adopted, media shops documented how support vehicles had been left stranded, and meals provides destined for Gaza had spoiled below the solar, whereas Rafah remained closed or successfully disabled on the top of humanitarian want.
With its closure, Rafah was reworked from a crossing level into an instrument of collective regulation.
By means of numerical caps, identify lists and layered approvals, Israeli authorities have exercised full management over motion, with quick 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 various 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, had been primarily Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Kissufim.
In actuality, this association didn’t lead to a secure circulate of support, however in a risky system reliant on continuously altering entry factors in step with 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 whole areas from provides and important providers.
Past crossings and roads, Israel’s struggle imposed a further layer of management by way of what turned often known as “obligatory 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 tons of of humanitarian missions confronted “obstacle, cancellation, or denial”.
In keeping with Maha al-Hussaini, advocacy director on the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, what unfolded in the course of the genocide was not merely short-term restrictions on freedom of journey, however “a scientific coverage by way of which Israel used management over motion to and from Gaza as a central software of siege, collective punishment, and coercive administration of the civilian inhabitants”.
Al-Hussaini informed Al Jazeera that below 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 in the course of the struggle mirrored “a scientific violation of those obligations” by way of the near-total closure of crossings, strict management over who’s permitted to go away or return, and using “arbitrary and degrading measures in opposition to civilians”.
Medical evacuations: A matter of life or demise
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 way of 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 further Israeli safety clearances had been required.
This failed miserably in responding to the terrifying scale of the continuing medical disaster within the Strip. It’s as an alternative 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 had been evacuated by way of 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, together with tons of of kids, clearly indicating that evacuations enhance solely when further motion routes had been accessible.
As soon as that interval ended and reliance on Karem Abu Salem resumed, evacuations once more dropped sharply to only 352 sufferers between March 18 and July 16, 2025.
Against this, the World Well being Group (WHO) in the present day reviews that greater than 18,500 sufferers in Gaza stay in pressing, life-saving want of medical remedy outdoors the Strip.
The disparity between want and end result 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 remedy’
Greater than 1,600 Palestinians have died whereas ready for healthcare overseas. On this context, al-Hussaini stated restrictions on motion quantity to certainly one of Israel’s gravest violations in the course of the genocide.
“Hundreds of wounded and unwell Palestinians, together with kids and most cancers sufferers, had been denied the power to journey outdoors Gaza for medical remedy, or had been compelled to attend for weeks or months below advanced and opaque procedures. In lots of circumstances, their well being deteriorated or they died earlier than permission to go away was granted,” she stated.
“Such practices can’t be justified on safety grounds and represent a direct violation of the suitable to life, amounting to merciless and inhuman remedy.”
When Rafah was partially reopened this month after the USA utilized strain 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 in the course of the struggle, taken in totality, present that Israel makes use of freedom of motion in Gaza to control the day by day lifetime of Palestinians, figuring out who receives support, who accesses well being remedy, 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 short-term safety measures right into a everlasting coverage structuring the lives of two.4 million individuals.
Following Hamas’s rise to energy in 2007 by way of democratic elections, Israel imposed a complete land, sea and air blockade. The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross has constantly said 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 below worldwide humanitarian regulation.
UN businesses have equally pressured that long-term restrictions, even during times of relative calm, lack any legit 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 persistent 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 below 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 in the course of the present struggle are merely an intensification of a system in place since 2007.
Controlling meals, water, drugs
In March 2024, OCHA reported that solely 26 % of support missions had been facilitated by Israel’s military, whereas 40 % had 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 achieve the supposed locations. This prompted the UN company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, to droop support entry by way of 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 Part Classification (IPC), a world starvation monitor, confirmed that famine had taken maintain in northern Gaza.
Subsequent updates reiterated that famine threat 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 had been among the many gravest violations. Motion management was not incidental or administrative – it was used as a central software to handle and strain the civilian inhabitants,” stated al-Hussaini.
She described Israel’s actions as “a transparent violation of worldwide humanitarian regulation, together with the prohibition on using hunger of civilians as a technique of warfare”.
Israeli restrictions fragmented humanitarian flows, elevated dangers alongside convoy routes, and at occasions compelled support businesses to droop operations fully.
“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 in the end the suitable 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 had been allowed to cross.
As of Sunday, a complete of 165 individuals have managed to go away Gaza into Egypt, and 94 Palestinians had been allowed to return. Tens of 1000’s proceed to attend to cross Rafah, together with sick and wounded whose lives depend upon it.
Al-Hussaini stated the influence of motion restrictions extends past bodily survival, slicing throughout financial, social and cultural rights.
“Hundreds of scholars had been prevented from persevering with their training overseas, households had been torn aside by way of the denial of household reunification, and alternatives for work, research and medical remedy had 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 limiting the entry of supplies and gear, stopping specialists and specialised personnel from shifting freely, and maintaining the inhabitants in a state of compelled 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 severe violations that will quantity to struggle crimes”, she concluded.
