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​Background

Since the onset of the 7 October 2023 escalation, Israel's military operations have resulted in widespread destruction across multiple dimensions. For more than two years, Israel has used the narrative of retaliation and self-defense to justify its attacks on Gaza, leaving countless civilians and aid workers caught in the crossfire. Under such conditions, ensuring safe and timely humanitarian access is essential for protecting non-combatants, guaranteeing aid delivery to vulnerable populations, and safeguarding humanitarian actors.

Those in Gaza, however, witnessed a different scenario. Humanitarian assistance has been stripped of all protection measures, with no mechanisms in place to secure aid delivery to civilians and shield relief workers from deliberate attacks. Instead, aid efforts have faced systematic, discriminatory control and obstruction, as Israel has blocked assistance in line with policies applied since 2006, targeted aid personnel, and deliberately impeded access to relief (Tanielian, 2024; Whyte, 2024). Even interventions led by international humanitarian organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have remained limited due to Israeli-imposed restrictions (Buheji & Hasan, 2024). As a result, a severe humanitarian crisis has unfolded, displacing nearly two million Gazans and depriving them of access to essential needs such as food, water, and healthcare (Mousavi and Sani, 2025).

The repeated paralysis of civilian and aid worker protection for over two years reflects a systemic failure in humanitarian protection. The existing humanitarian system adheres to the so-called classical Dunantist paradigm, in which humanitarian space is guided by the fundamental humanitarian principles and international organizations, primarily the United Nations (UN) (Hilhorst, 2018). By placing humanitarian ethics and agencies at the center of protection mechanisms, this approach has failed to provide enforceable tools, diminishing the role of legal and political dimensions as well as crisis-specific realities.

This policy brief focuses on Gaza's recent crisis to emphasize the importance of reforming fragile protection frameworks and replacing ineffective mechanisms embedded in the current humanitarian structure. First, it diagnoses the key drivers of the protection collapse and identifies priority gaps. Second, it advances practical, context sensitive solutions to address shortcomings rooted in the classical approach. The objective is to propose actionable, evidence-based measures for building a contextually competent, effective, humane, and timely protection system within the international humanitarian architecture.

In addition to desk research, this brief draws on expert insights and discussions from a webinar titled “Conventional Humanitarianism Under Siege: Rethinking Protection Mechanisms in the Case of Gaza," hosted by the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS) in September 2025. The webinar was part of a series examining the failure of the international humanitarian system in Gaza. While three experts were invited as keynote speakers, over 70 humanitarian professionals participated, including scholars, practitioners, and international stakeholders, providing firsthand perspectives from the field. The recommendations section integrates perspectives gathered from the webinar alongside findings from interviews with humanitarian experts and practitioners, both within Gaza and internationally.​...


Click here ​to read the full Policy Brief