Calibrated survival: governing access to aid under siege in Gaza

This article examines humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip as a system in which access to survival is structured under conditions of prolonged siege. Focusing on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as a recent and concentrated example of securitised aid delivery, it develops the concept of calibrated survival governance to explain how access to life-sustaining resources is organised through spatial concentration, administrative procedures, and securitised delivery systems. The study uses these sources to pinpoint recurring patterns across civilian experience, practitioner accounts, expert interpretation, and documentary evidence, rather than claiming statistical representativeness. The findings identify four interrelated mechanisms shaping access to survival: multi-sectoral deprivation; risk-conditioned access to aid; bureaucratic regulation of availability; and militarised organisation of delivery. The article argues that these patterns are not fully captured by explanations centred only on logistical breakdown, scarcity, or institutional dysfunction. While such factors remain important, the Gaza case shows how humanitarian systems can also operate as infrastructures that mediate who can access assistance, where, when, and under what conditions. By conceptualising these dynamics as calibrated survival governance, the article contributes to scholarship on humanitarian power, access, and siege governance, and offers a framework for analysing aid in protracted, siege-like environments beyond Gaza.