Nearly a year after the phased ceasefire was supposed to end the war in Gaza, a Danish Refugee Council report based on interviews with 195 displaced people across five governorates finds that the agreement has changed the shape of displacement without ending it. The central mechanism is the Yellow Line — the Israeli military's demarcation of eastern Gaza — which the DRC says is expanding westward, compressing roughly 1.8 million people into approximately 30% of Gaza's territory. The numbers describe a population under systemic pressure. Eighty percent of respondents report water shortages for both drinking and washing. Families share single latrines, outdoor cesspits serve as sanitation, and rat infestations compound the public health crisis. More than 4,000 chickenpox cases were recorded in Khan Younis displacement camps in July alone. Only half of hospitals and just over a third of primary healthcare centers remain operational. Formal education has been absent for nearly three years in some areas. The Yellow Line functions as a slow territorial squeeze. Aid organizations report being unable to operate within several kilometers of the boundary due to access constraints and security concerns, cutting off displacement camps nearer the line from crucial supplies. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged 60% of Gaza's territory sits inside the line — the DRC puts it at 70% — and stated the plan is to expand it further. The report accuses Israel of constructing permanent military infrastructure in the zone, contradicting any suggestion of temporary positioning. Site management in displacement camps is barely functional. Only 36% of camps have a designated site manager — typically a national NGO — coordinating services. Without that structure, problems like collapsing cesspits, missing water deliveries, and unsafe walkways go unescalated and unresolved. The report notes growing risks of domestic violence tied to shared facilities and deteriorating mental health, particularly among adult men exposed to ongoing artillery strikes, drones, and stray gunfire. The DRC and the Agricultural Development Association issued recommendations directed primarily at Israel as the occupying power: halt Yellow Line expansion, disclose its current and planned route, cease construction of permanent military infrastructure, and provide credible assurance that troop positions are not intended to be permanent. They also called for a UN mechanism to monitor ceasefire violations and for reduced 'dual-use' restrictions that currently block medical supplies, water and sanitation items, pest control materials, and fuel. Perhaps the most structurally significant finding is the report's warning on donor fatigue. Political and donor interest has declined markedly in the year since the ceasefire, even as conditions have not improved proportionately. The gap between international attention and ground-level reality is widening — a pattern that historically allows the status quo to harden into permanence. Israel has not commented on the report. The mechanism at work is displacement-by-design: not a single dramatic event but a slow, administrative compression of livable space, paired with degrading infrastructure and declining external pressure to reverse it. The ceasefire provided diplomatic cover while the territorial facts on the ground shifted. Three years without education, collapsing health systems, and an expanding military boundary are not temporary emergency conditions — they are the architecture of a new status quo.
