A Day for Gaza / February 10, 2026

Gaza Is Still Here

Despite a “ceasefire,” Israel’s killing has not ended. Neither has the determination of the Palestinian people to survive.

Rayan El Amine, Lizzy Ratner, and Jack Mirkinson
(Ali Skaik)

Gaza has been suspended in a bloody limbo for months. The so-called ceasefire with Israel has not brought peace. The bombings and demolitions persist, and Israel’s expanding occupation continues unabated. Since October 10, 2025, when the ceasefire was declared, more than 440 people have been killed and more than 2,500 buildings destroyed. Israel has only allowed a fraction of the essential equipment needed for cooking, heating, and construction to enter the Strip. Gaza is now buried beneath 680 million tons of rubble. Ninety percent of the population has been displaced, many of them several times. Hundreds of thousands live in threadbare tents.

The “ceasefire” is meant to breed apathy among us; the spectacle of modern genocidal warfare has been replaced by the slow bureaucratic proceedings of ethnic cleansing. Washington’s hollow promises to bring “technocratic governance” to Gaza mask a colonial project imposed on a people with no say: a people left to die, forgotten by the world.

This, then, is where we return. In early February, The Nation gave over its website for a day to writers from Gaza. We did this to make it clear that we will remain focused on Gaza and the Palestinian people. No diplomatic proceedings or political distortions will subdue our demand for their right to self-determination—or their right to speak for themselves.

The pieces in this series are an affirmation of that right: a record of Gaza’s refusal, in the face of the world’s neglect, to be exterminated.

—Rayan El Amine, Lizzy Ratner, and Jack Mirkinson

Two children are waving Palestinian flags on a wrecked car as displaced Palestinians start to return their houses past damaged houses in Jabalia and Beit Lahia regions
(Ferial Abdu / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Rayan El Amine, Jack Mirkinson, Lizzy Ratner

Today, The Nation is turning over its website exclusively to stories from Gaza and its people. This is why.

A Palestinian girl carries a gallon of drinking water she filled from a water truck in Khan Younis. Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from a severe water crisis due to the destruction of water wells by Israeli air strikes.
(Abed Rahim Khatib / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

Mohammed Mhawish

The language of ceasefire has been repurposed in Gaza: It no longer describes a pause in violence but rather a mechanism for managing it.

Before Israel's genocide began, the Colorful Block hummed with vibrancy, a symbol of the pride of the people of Gaza.
(Atia Darwish)

Ali Skaik

What I saw walking one block in Gaza.

Deema Hattab

Recording what has been erased—and making sense of what remains.

Relatives and colleagues bid farewell to Palestinian journalists Abdel Raouf Shaath, Mohammed Qashta, and Anas Ghoneim, who were killed in an Israeli air strike.
(Abed Rahim Khatib / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

Ola Al Asi

Journalists in Gaza have bartered their lives to tell a truth that much of the world still doesn’t want to hear.

(Ulf Andersen / Getty Images)

Alaa Alqaisi

On Palestine and the geography of vanishing.

Gaza City, December 8, 2025.
(Abdalhkem Abu Riash / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Asmaa Dwaima

Rewaa was killed by an Israeli bomb. Her absence has broken me in ways I still cannot describe.

(Moatasem Abu Aser)

Huda Skaik

These pictures are records of a genocidal war, but they are something more, too—they are fragments of Gaza itself.

Palestinians exercise on a beach in the Deir al-Balah Palestinian refugee camp on June 14, 2023.
(Mohammed Abed / Getty Images)

Engy Abdelal

Faced with endlessly narrowing possibilities, I return to my diary in an attempt to dream, to imagine a future.

(Rasha Abou Jalal)

Rasha Abou Jalal

After their home was obliterated, Rasha Abou Jalal and her family remain determined to build a new one, even if it must be built out of nothing.

(Khames Alrefi / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ismail Nofal

Hamada Abu Layla spent 22 years gathering three university degrees. Now they mock him from a garbage dump.

Your support makes stories like this possible

From illegal war on Iran to an inhumane fuel blockade of Cuba, from AI weapons to crypto corruption, this is a time of staggering chaos, cruelty, and violence. 

Unlike other publications that parrot the views of authoritarians, billionaires, and corporations, The Nation publishes stories that hold the powerful to account and center the communities too often denied a voice in the national media—stories like the one you’ve just read.

Each day, our journalism cuts through lies and distortions, contextualizes the developments reshaping politics around the globe, and advances progressive ideas that oxygenate our movements and instigate change in the halls of power. 

This independent journalism is only possible with the support of our readers. If you want to see more urgent coverage like this, please donate to The Nation today.

Rayan El Amine

Rayan El Amine is a writer and journalist from Beirut, Lebanon, who lives in New York City. A former Victor Navasky fellow at The Nation, he served as a guest editor on "A Day for Gaza."

Lizzy Ratner

Lizzy Ratner is deputy editor for print at The Nation.

Jack Mirkinson

Jack Mirkinson is a senior editor at The Nation and cofounder of Discourse Blog.

More from The Nation

Marco Rubio and Ararat Mirzoyan attend a signing ceremony on May 26, 2026, in Yerevan's Zvartnot’s international airport.

Rubio in Yerevan Rubio in Yerevan

A neocon in the land of Nairi.

Pietro A. Shakarian

A Renault SA logo above the automobile plant in Flins, France, on December 20, 2024.

Drones? Europe’s Automakers Are Taking Orders. Drones? Europe’s Automakers Are Taking Orders.

French car company Renault seeks a foothold in rearmament.

Harrison Stetler

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, left, hold signed documents during an Abraham Accords signing ceremony event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, September 15, 2020.

Trump’s Abraham Accords Fantasy Will Only Cause More Suffering Trump’s Abraham Accords Fantasy Will Only Cause More Suffering

Any expansion of the alleged peace agreement would lock the Middle East into endless apartheid, despotism, and militarism.

Jeet Heer

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on May 14, 2026.

An Alternative View of What’s Next After the Trump-Xi Summit An Alternative View of What’s Next After the Trump-Xi Summit

Hawkish rhetoric from the national security establishment isn’t grappling with the complex challenges posed by China’s rise.

Jake Werner

Children play on American military helicopter wreckage in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Trump’s Killing Spree in Somalia Is Just One Assault in His Global War-Making Trump’s Killing Spree in Somalia Is Just One Assault in His Global War-Making

No American president has ever attacked Somalis with the persistence and at the rate of President Donald Trump.

Nick Turse

“Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?”

“Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?” “Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?”

The story of how millions of Iranians fell for the regime-change fantasy.

Feature / Alex Shams