How the People of Gaza Are Being Starved

The Israeli military has destroyed most of the cropland in Gaza and won’t let Palestinians fish. There isn’t enough food in the Strip, and Israeli authorities are actively preventing the massive food stockpiles on the border from entering. The Israelis let a little bit of food and fuel in as a face-saving measure, but it is a drop in the bucket, and they distribute it in a way that is dangerous for the population. As Steve Hewitt points out, European immigrants did this to American Indians, Bashar al-Assad did it to Syrians and Nazis used starvation of a besieged people at Leningrad, as well. This episode looks awfully similar. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that:

1. Families in Gaza are now living on just one meal a day, and not a very nutritional one at that. Some people go a whole day without eating. Some people fast to stretch out the time between eating. Some cut down on the size of their meals. Some ration bread for their children. Some people are scavenging for food in garbage.

I repeat: People are scavenging in garbage for food.

2. According to Haaretz, Gaza health officials estimate that some 17,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition. Being severely malnourished in childhood contributes, even if the child survives, to health problems later in life, including heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure with its risk of strokes. Severe malnutrition is marked by lack of fat on the body and by wasting of the muscles.

3. Over all, OCHA says, about 500,000 people in Gaza are in starvation, and the condition is spreading.

“I met many of those families who told me that there are days that their children are not eating at all, and I heard mothers telling me how they’re trying to have kids not play so that they don’t draw more energy than they are able to provide them with through food,” according to Carl Skau, the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director and chief operating officer. About 470,000 people are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, as defined by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The IPC’s Phase 5 is defined as when households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic
needs. More than 30% of children suffer extremely critical acute malnutrition levels, and mortality rates exceed 2 deaths per day for every 10,000 people.

I repeat, mothers are telling children not to play so as to conserve calories.

4. OCHA: “One million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4).” At Phase 4, at least 20% of households face extreme food consumption gaps, resulting in very high levels of acute malnutrition and excess mortality.

5. According to Haaretz, Dr. Suhaib al-Hams, the field hospital director in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, predicted that very soon we will see a “wave of deaths” among internally displaced people because their organs will fail. “The cases reaching us are of people who collapsed in the streets from lack of nutrition,” he said. “All of them need food even before medicine.”

I repeat, people are fainting from hunger in the streets.

6. Some family members tried to get something to eat from the militarized food disbursal sites set up by the Israeli military with U.S. support, but that is at risk to their lives, and they often come back empty-handed. Israeli troops allegedly have been ordered to fire on aid-seekers by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

7. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams say that they see a significant and never-before-witnessed rise in acute malnutrition among people in Gaza. In Gaza City and environs, “more than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and nearly 500 children with severe and moderate malnutrition, are currently enrolled in outpatient therapeutic feeding programs at both clinics.” MSF saw 293 cases of severe malnutrition in May, but 983 in early July.  Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseb, the MSF deputy medical coordinator in the Strip said, “This is the first time we have witnessed such a severe scale of malnutrition cases in Gaza.”

8. OCHA further reports that the IPC projection for the rest of this summer and fall in Gaza is that 100% of the analyzed population (2.1 million) is projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity classified at IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) or above.

I repeat: This is going toward 100%.

9. In the week ending July 15, aid organizations and NGOs tried to coordinate 66 aid movements across the Gaza Strip. Only about 30 of them succeeded. The Israelis turned down 17% out of hand. An additional third seemed as though they were accepted but were blocked later. In 5% of cases, the organizers had to withdraw the attempt for security or logistical reasons. The Israelis are constantly bombing the Strip, destroying buildings and facilities, and forcing thousands of people to relocate for a sixth or seventh time, making it hard to plan relief efforts even in the minority of cases where the Israeli authorities will permit them. There is enough food at the border to feed everyone, but the Israelis are not letting it into Gaza in sufficient quantities to avert starvation.

10. Some last sad statistics that prove the point, from OCHA:
• More than 92% of children age 6 months to 23 months, and pregnant and breastfeeding women are not meeting their nutrient requirements due to lack of minimum dietary diversity (as of February)
• 290,000 children under 5 and 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require feeding and micronutrient supplements.
• About 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are estimated to require treatment for acute malnutrition between April 2025 and March 2026 (source: IPC Gaza Strip Special Snapshot).

I repeat: Pregnant and breastfeeding women.