More than one month has passed since the IDF began Operation Summer Rains. The Gaza Strip is sealed close. The humanitarian situation, which was poor before the operation began, has grown worse. International aid organizations have worked in recent weeks to supply food and water to needy families and substitute housing to residents who lost their homes or had to flee IDF bombing.

For example, on 22 July, 133 families (953 persons), left a-Shokah neighborhood, in the south of Rafah, following IDF bombings in the area. The families found temporary refuge in facilities provided by the UN's Palestinian Refugees Aid and Employment Agency.

At the beginning of the operation, on 28 June, the air force bombed an electricity relay station. Since then, the supply of electricity to the residents of the Gaza Strip has been irregular. According to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), households in the Gaza Strip now receive, on average, electricity for 6-8 hours a day. In urban areas, each household receives electricity for 2-3 hours a day. The irregularity of electricity supply affects the water network, and many residents suffer from a water shortage.

The shortage of electricity makes it impossible for houses and shops to refrigerate food products, affecting the supply of milk and meat products. Bakeries, too, have trouble functioning. The shortage of foodstuffs has caused a rise in prices, a significant problem in the harsh economic conditions in Gaza , which have deteriorated since the Israeli attack began.

In addition, since the operation began, the IDF has forbidden Palestinian fishermen to fish along the Gaza coast, reducing the supply of fish, an important source of protein in the Strip.

The twenty-two hospitals in the Gaza Strip operate under an emergency electricity-supply plan. Generators, which are used when there is a blackout, is sufficient only for emergency needs, such as for emergency surgery, incubators, and intensive-care units. The partial lighting creates a hardship for the doctors, hospital laundries have been out of operation, some of the oxygen machines have ceased operation, non-emergency surgery has been postponed, and air conditioning and some dialysis machines have not been used. The World Health Organization reports a shortage of vital medicines in the Gaza Strip, and sixty-seven kinds of vital medicines have run out of supply, as have 170 kinds of non-vital medicine.

The State of Israel has the basic obligation, set forth in both international law and Israeli law, to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to refrain from bombing clearly civilian objects, such as electricity facilities. Destruction of civilian objects in the area primarily harms the civilians. Even if the attack is intended to achieve a proper purpose, it clearly is disproportionate, and thus illegal.