Months after stopping all supplies from entering Gaza, Israel has airdropped a few aid cartons and allowed some trucks to enter the Strip, following immense international pressure. Israel says it’s also begun 10-hour pauses in fighting in three locations ‘for humanitarian purposes’, but continuing attacks killed more than 50 Palestinians on Sunday.
Published On 27 Jul 202527 Jul 2025
The hunger that has been building among Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians has passed a tipping point and is accelerating deaths, aid workers and health staff say.
Not only Palestinian children – usually the most vulnerable – are falling victim to Israel’s blockade since March, but also adults.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme says nearly 100,000 women and children urgently need treatment for malnutrition, and almost a third of people in Gaza are “not eating for days”. Medical workers say they have run out of many key treatments and medicines.
The World Health Organization reports a sharp rise in malnutrition and disease, with a large proportion of Gaza’s residents now starving.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon”.
A roundup of some of last week’s events.
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At least 62 people have been killed, including 19 who were seeking aid, in Israeli attacks across Gaza, hospital sources told Al Jazeera, and two people died from malnutrition amid growing international outrage over Israel’s conduct in the war.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that at least 115 Palestinians have starved to death in the enclave since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. Most of the deaths, which include many children, have been in recent weeks.
Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza in March and has only allowed a trickle of aid into the territory since late May, triggering a dire humanitarian crisis and warnings of mass starvation.
In a statement on Thursday, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned that “families are breaking down” amid the hunger crisis.
“Parents are too hungry to care for their children,” agency head Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X. “Those who reach UNRWA clinics don’t have the energy, food or means to follow medical advice”.
The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, added that Israel has been preventing it from verifying aid waiting at distribution centres.
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the situation was deteriorating, with Palestinians clamouring for any aid they can find.
“Enforced starvation, enforced dehydration, and hunger are gripping the Gaza Strip, with more people reported with malnutrition and a severe, acute shortage of food supplies and other basic necessities,” he said.
“According to what we hear from health sources, people’s immune systems are falling apart. They’re unable to fight the many diseases that are spreading because their bodies are unable to fight,” he said.
With dire conditions on the ground largely unchanged, international condemnation has continued to grow.
On Thursday, more than 60 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) demanded an emergency meeting to push actions against Israel in a letter sent to European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Lynn Boylan, an Irish member of the European Parliament, accused EU leaders of a double standard when it comes to Palestinian lives.
“Clearly, Palestinian lives are not seen by the elite in the EU as equivalent to, for example, Ukrainian lives,” Boylan told Al Jazeera.
“There’s a chilling effect, that if you dare to speak up against Israel, if you dare to call out the war crimes that you’re witnessing, there is immediately a backlash and an attack,” she said.
Outrage among European leaders has also soared in recent days, with 28 countries earlier this week condemning the aid blockade, while calling for an immediate end to the fighting.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom’s government announced Prime Minister Keir Starmer would hold a call with his German and French counterparts, to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need”.
As the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to spiral, negotiations to end the war again broke down, with US envoy Steve Witkoff announcing that his team was leaving negotiations in Qatar early.
That came shortly after Israel announced it was withdrawing its delegation from the talks.
In a statement, Witkoff accused Hamas of showing “a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire”.
“We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza,” Witkoff said, without elaborating.
Hamas, which has repeatedly accused Israel of blocking a ceasefire agreement, said it was surprised by Witkoff’s remarks.
“The movement affirms its keenness to continue negotiations and engage in them in a manner that helps overcome obstacles and leads to a permanent ceasefire agreement,” said Hamas in a statement released late on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has continued to push for a deal, while simultaneously supporting the displacement of Palestinians from the enclave to nearby countries, in what would potentially constitute ethnic cleansing.
Late on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced he would officially recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Macron said the decision was “in keeping with [France’s] historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.
The move will make France the largest and arguably most influential country in Europe to recognise a Palestinian state.
The move was hailed by the deputy of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who said it showed France’s “commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and the establishment of our independent state”.
Israeli officials swiftly condemned the move, with Defence Minister Israel Katz calling it a “disgrace and a surrender to terrorism”.
“We will not allow the establishment of a Palestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence, and undermine our historical right to the Land of Israel,” he said.
WASHINGTON — As the United Nations and global aid groups sound the alarm of widening starvation resulting from U.S.-backed Israeli food distribution policies in the Gaza Strip, the Trump administration said Thursday it is cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks and bringing its negotiating team home from Qatar to discuss next steps.
The apparent derailing of the talks comes as Israel’s blockade and military offensive have driven Gaza to the brink of famine, according to aid groups. The U.N. food agency says nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition, and the Gaza Health Ministry has reported a rise in hunger-related deaths.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would hold an emergency call Friday with officials from Germany and France to discuss how to urgently get food to people in need and pursue a plan to build a lasting peace.
“The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,” he said in a statement. The three European countries “all agree on the pressing need for Israel to change course and allow the aid that is desperately needed to enter Gaza without delay.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France would recognize Palestine as a state, saying, “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved.
“Given its historic commitment to a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine,” Macron posted. “Peace is possible.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
Israel has come under mounting pressure, with 28 Western-aligned countries calling for an end to the war and harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out. More than 100 charity and human rights groups released a similar letter, saying even their own staff are struggling to get enough food.
In an open letter, 115 organizations, including major international aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”
The letter blamed Israeli restrictions and “massacres” at aid-distribution points. Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on crowds seeking aid, killing more than 1,000 people. Israel says its forces have only fired warning shots and that the death toll is exaggerated.
The Israeli government’s “restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” the letter said.
The U.S. and Israel rejected the allegations and blamed Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting their terms for a ceasefire.
Hamas’ latest response “shows a lack of desire” to reach a truce, President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday.
“While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith,” Witkoff said in a statement. “We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.”
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott would not offer details on what “alternative options” the U.S. is considering to free hostages held by the militant group.
A breakthrough on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas following 21 months of war has eluded the Trump administration as humanitarian conditions worsen in Gaza. Thursday’s move is the latest setback as Trump has tried to position himself as peacemaker and vowed to broker agreements in conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza.
Israeli troops Wednesday at the border with the Gaza Strip.
(Jack Guez / AFP / Getty Images)
Israel says it is allowing in enough aid and blames U.N. agencies for not distributing it. But those agencies say it is nearly impossible to safely deliver it because of Israeli restrictions and a breakdown of law and order, with crowds of thousands unloading food trucks as soon as they move into Gaza.
A separate Israeli- and U.S.-backed system run by an American contractor has also been marred by chaos.
“Of course, we want to see the end of devastation that is taking place in Gaza,” Pigott said. “That is why we have supported the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. That is why we’ve seen those 90 million meals being distributed.”
When pressed on whether and how the U.S. would proceed on seeking a truce in Gaza, Pigott did not offer clarity and told reporters that “this is a very dynamic situation.”
He said there’s never been a question of the U.S. commitment to reaching a ceasefire and faulted Hamas.
The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.
Witkoff said the U.S. is “resolute” in seeking an end to the conflict in Gaza and it was “a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way.”
The White House and representatives for Hamas had no immediate comment.
Macron, in making his announcement Thursday recognizing Palestinian statehood, posted a letter he sent to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about his decision.
The French president offered support for Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and frequently speaks out against antisemitism. But he has grown increasingly frustrated about Israel’s war in Gaza, especially in recent months.
France is the biggest and most powerful European country to recognize Palestine. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.
France has Europe’s largest Jewish population and the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, and fighting in the Middle East often spills over into protests or other tensions in France.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s office recalled his negotiating team in light of Hamas’ response. In a brief statement, Netanyahu’s office expressed appreciation for the efforts of Witkoff and other mediators Qatar and Egypt but gave no further details.
The deal under discussion was expected to include an initial 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting ceasefire.
The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war. Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and end to the war. Israel says it will not agree to end the conflict until Hamas gives up power and disarms. The militant group says it is prepared to leave power but not surrender its weapons.
Hamas is believed to be holding the hostages in different locations, including tunnels, and says it has ordered its guards to kill them if Israeli forces approach.
Trump has made little secret of the fact he wants to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. For instance, he has promised to quickly negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, but little progress has been made.
On the war in Gaza, Trump met with Netanyahu at the White House this month, putting his weight behind a push to reach a deal.
But despite a partnership further solidified by their countries’ joint strikes on Iran, the Israeli leader left Washington without any breakthrough.
The State Department had said earlier in the week that Witkoff would be traveling to the Middle East for talks, but U.S. officials later said that Witkoff would instead travel to Europe. It was unclear if he held meetings there Thursday.
Price and Krauss write for the Associated Press. Krauss reported from Ottawa, Canada. AP writers Josef Federman and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
The Director-General of the World Health Organisation has warned more than two million people in Gaza are facing starvation, as deaths from malnutrition surge. His comments come as Israel continues to prevent aid supplies, including baby formula, from reaching the enclave.
Published On 24 Jul 202524 Jul 2025
This is not a warning.
Famine has already arrived in Gaza. It is not a metaphor, nor is it a prediction. It is daily.
It is the child who wakes up asking for biscuits that no longer exist. The student who studies for exams while faint from hunger.
It is the mother who cannot explain to her son why there is no bread.
And it is the silence of the world that makes this horror possible.
Noor, my eldest sister Tasneem’s daughter, is three; she was born on May 11, 2021. My sister’s son, Ezz Aldin, was born on December 25, 2023 – in the early months of the war.
One morning, Tasneem walked into our space carrying them in her arms. I looked at her and asked the question that wouldn’t leave my mind: “Tasneem, do Noor and Ezz Aldin understand hunger? Do they know we’re in a famine?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “Even Ezz, who’s only known war and ruins, understands. He’s never seen real food in his life. He doesn’t know what ‘options’ are. The only thing he ever asks for is bread.”
She imitated his baby voice: “Obz! Obza! Obza!” – his way of saying “khobza” (a piece of bread).
She had to tell him, “There’s no flour, darling. Your dad went out to look for some.”
Ezz Aldin doesn’t know about ceasefires, borders, or politics. He doesn’t care about military operations or diplomatic statements.
He just wants one small piece of bread. And the world gives him nothing.
Noor has learned to count and recite the alphabet from her mother. Before the war, she loved chocolate, biscuits. She was the first grandchild in our family, showered with toys, snacks, and little dresses.
Now, every morning, she wakes up and turns to her mother with wide, excited eyes. “Go buy me 15 chocolates and biscuits,” she says.
She says 15 because it’s the biggest number she knows. It sounds like enough; enough to fill her stomach, enough to bring back the world she knew. But there’s nothing to buy. There’s nothing left.
Where is your humanity? Look at her. Then tell me what justice looks like.
I watched a video that broke my heart. A man mourned over the shrouded bodies of seven of his family. In despair, he cried, “We’re hungry.”
They had been starving for days, then an Israeli surveillance drone struck their tent near al-Tabin School in Daraj, northern Gaza.
“This is the young man I was raising,” the man in the video wept. “Look what became of them,” as he touched their heads one last time.
Some people still don’t understand. This isn’t about whether we have money. It’s about the total absence of food. Even if you’re a millionaire in Gaza right now, you won’t find bread. You won’t find a bag of rice or a can of milk. Markets are empty. Shops are destroyed. Malls have been flattened. The shelves are not bare – they are gone.
We used to grow our own food. Gaza once exported fruits and vegetables; we sent strawberries to Europe. Our prices were the cheapest in the region.
A kilo (2.2 pounds) of grapes or apples? Three shekels ($0.90). A kilo of chicken from Gaza’s farms? Nine shekels ($2.70). Now, we can’t find a single egg.
Before: A massive watermelon from Khan Younis weighed 21 kilos (46 pounds) and cost 18 shekels ($5). Today: The same watermelon would cost $250 – if you can find it.
Avocados, once considered a luxury fruit, were grown by the tonne in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis and Rafah. They used to cost a dollar a kilo. We had self-sufficiency in dairy, too – cheeses and yoghurts made in Shujayea by local hands.
Our children were not spoiled – they just had basic rights. Breakfast meant milk. A sandwich with cheese. A boiled egg. Now, everything is cut off.
And no matter how I explain it to the children, they cannot grasp the words “famine” or “price hike”. They just know their bellies are empty.
Even seafood – once a staple of Gaza’s diet – has disappeared. Despite strict fishing restrictions, we used to send fish to the West Bank. Now, even our sea is silent.
And with all due respect to Turkish coffee, you haven’t tasted coffee until you’ve tried Mazaj Coffee from Gaza.
It had a strength you could feel in your bones.
This is not a forecast. Famine is now. Most of us are displaced. Unemployed. Mourning.
If we manage one meal a day, we eat it at night. It’s not a feast. It’s rice. Pasta. Maybe soup. Canned beans.
Things you keep as backup in your pantries. Here, they are luxury.
Most days, we drink water and nothing more. When hunger becomes too much, we scroll through old photos, pictures of meals from the past, just to remember what life once tasted like.
As always, our university exams are online, because the campus is rubble.
We are living a genocide. And yet, we are trying to study.
I’m a second-year student.
We just finished our final exams for the first semester. We studied surrounded by hunger, by drones, by constant fear. This isn’t what people think university is.
We took exams on empty stomachs, under the scream of warplanes. We tried to remember dates while forgetting the last time we tasted bread.
Every day, I talk with my friends – Huda, Mariam, and Esraa – on WhatsApp. We check on each other, asking the same questions over and over:
“What did you eat today?”
“Can you even concentrate?”
These are our conversations – not about lectures or assignments, but about hunger, headaches, dizziness, and how we’re still standing. One says, “My stomach hurts too much to think.” Another says, “I nearly collapsed when I stood up.”
And still, we keep going. Our last exam was on July 15. We held on, not because we were strong, but because we had no choice. We didn’t want to lose a semester. But even saying that feels so small compared to the truth.
Studying while starving chips away at your soul.
One day, during exams, an air strike hit our neighbours. The explosion shook the walls.
A moment before, I was thinking about how hungry I felt. A moment after, I felt nothing.
I didn’t run.
I stayed at my desk and kept studying. Not because I was OK, but because there is no other choice.
Let me be clear: The people of Gaza are being starved on purpose. We are not unlucky – we are victims of war crimes.
Open the crossings. Let aid enter. Let food enter. Let medicine enter.
Gaza doesn’t need sympathy. We can rebuild. We can recover. But first, stop starving us.
Killing, starving, and besieging are not just conditions – they are actions forced upon us. Language reveals those who try to hide who is responsible.
So we will keep saying: We were killed by the Israeli occupation. We were starved by the Israeli occupation. We were besieged by the Israeli occupation.
At least 10 more Palestinians have starved to death in the besieged Gaza Strip, health officials say, as a wave of hunger crashes over the enclave.
The latest starvation deaths bring the death toll from malnutrition since Israel’s war began in October 2023 to 111, most of them in recent weeks.
At least 100 other Palestinians, including 34 aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 21 children under the age of five were among those who died of malnutrition so far this year. It said it had been unable to deliver any food for nearly 80 days, between March and May, and that a resumption of food deliveries was still far below what is needed.
In a statement, 111 organisations, including Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Refugees International, said that “mass starvation” was spreading even as tonnes of food, clean water and medical supplies sit untouched just outside Gaza, where aid groups are blocked from accessing them.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said that “hunger has become as deadly as the bombs. Families are no longer asking for enough, they are asking for anything”.
He said that Gaza residents have described “a slow, painful death playing out in real time, an engineered famine that the Israeli military has orchestrated”.
Israel cut off all goods from entering the territory in March, but has allowed in a trickle of aid starting in May, mostly distributed by the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The United Nations and aid groups trying to deliver food to Gaza say Israel, which controls everything that comes in and out, is choking delivery, while Israeli troops have shot dead hundreds of Palestinians close to aid distribution points since May.
“We have a minimum set of requirements to be able to operate inside Gaza,” Ross Smith, the director of emergencies at the UN World Food Programme, said. “One of the most important things I want to emphasise is that we need to have no armed actors near our distribution points, near our convoys.”
Recurring attacks on aid seekers have turned the few remaining hospitals in Gaza “into massive trauma wards”, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, said.
The food scarcity is so extreme that people cannot do their work, including journalists, teachers and even their own staff, Peeperkorn added.
Nour Sharaf, an American doctor from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, also warned that people “haven’t eaten anything for days and are dying of hunger”.
“Doctors sometimes don’t get food, but they still do their jobs,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that medical workers often work long hours.
Israeli strikes have continued to pound various parts of the enclave, including Gaza City, where the Israeli army said it was “intensifying operations”.
The area has come under intense bombardment in recent days.
Gaza’s Government Media Office also announced the Israeli killing of two Palestinian journalists, Tamer al-Za’anin and Walaa al-Jabari, raising the number of media workers killed in the enclave since October 2023 to 231.
The statement said that al-Za’anin was a photojournalist with various media organisations, while al-Jabari worked as a newspaper editor with several media outlets.
Meanwhile, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Europe for “very sensitive negotiations” over a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal, the White House said.
During the visit, Witkoff “will meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the ongoing ceasefire proposal to end this conflict in Gaza and to release the hostages”, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Talks on a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which would include the release of more of the 50 captives still being held in Gaza, are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with Washington’s backing.
A Palestinian official close to the Gaza ceasefire talks and the mediation efforts said that Hamas had handed its response on the ceasefire proposal to mediators, declining to elaborate further.
Successive rounds of negotiations have achieved no breakthrough since Israel broke a ceasefire in March.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog told soldiers during a visit to Gaza that “intensive negotiations” about returning the captives held there were under way and that he hoped that they would soon “hear good news”, according to a statement.
A senior Palestinian official earlier said that Hamas might give mediators a response to the latest proposals in Doha later on Wednesday, on the condition that amendments be made to two major sticking points: details on an Israeli military withdrawal and how to distribute aid during a truce.
The famine we’re seeing in Gaza now is the most horrific stage of Israel’s starvation campaign, a UN expert on food has told Al Jazeera. He’s calling on countries to stop Israel starving Palestinians to death.
Published On 22 Jul 202522 Jul 2025
We look at the struggle of people in Gaza to avoid starvation when even aid carries the risk of death.
Starvation or bullets. That’s the grim choice facing many in Gaza today. Since late May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has led aid distribution, operating just four centres, compared with the UN’s former network of more than 400. At least 900 Palestinians have been killed in attacks at these GHF sites. Critics say GHF is nothing but a front for genocide, offering a deadly illusion of help. As Gaza’s people scrape for food, they face an impossible question: Risk the “death trap” for a few sacks of flour, or watch loved ones starve?
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests:
Tamara Al Rifai – UNRWA director of external relations and communications
Eman Hillis – Fact-checker and writer
Afeef Nessouli – Journalist
A Palestinian baby has died of starvation in Gaza as Israel maintains its blockade on aid supplies and fires on people forced to seek food at controversial United States-backed aid sites described as “death traps”.
The 35-day-old infant died of malnutrition at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. The unnamed infant was one of two people who succumbed to starvation in the facility on Saturday.
The deaths occurred as Gaza’s Ministry of Health warned that hospital emergency wards were overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of starving people, with officials saying that 17,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to pound the Strip, with medical sources reporting that at least 116 people were killed across the enclave since dawn, including 38 who were shot dead while seeking food from aid sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to “Israeli gunfire”.
The Health Ministry says almost 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and private military contractors near dangerous GHF sites since the foundation began distributing aid in late May, opening four points that replaced about 400 centres run by United Nations agencies and charities.
Witness Mohammed al-Khalidi told Al Jazeera the shots fired at aid seekers on Saturday were “meant to kill”.
“Suddenly, we saw the jeeps coming from one side and the tanks from the other, and they started shooting at us,” he said.
Another witness, Mohammed al-Barbary, whose cousin died in the shootings, said the GHF sites are “death traps”.
“Anyone can get killed. My cousin was innocent. He went to get food. He wanted to live. We want to live like everyone else,” said al-Barbary.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said families hoping for something to eat are instead burying their loved ones.
The GHF denied that Saturday’s killings happened at its site, claiming they occurred “several kilometres away” and “hours before our sites opened”.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned that Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.
“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.
Basic supplies are not available in markets or distribution points, while the cost of essentials such as flour skyrocketed, making it impossible for the population of 2.3 million to meet their daily nutritional needs.
No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance.
Recent weeks have seen desperate people risking their lives just to receive basic aid in Gaza.
The population is facing an acute risk of famine, with continuously worsening conditions. Basic food…
— Jagan Chapagain (@jagan_chapagain) July 19, 2025
Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), rejected assertions made earlier in the week by European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who noted “some good signs” regarding aid distribution in Gaza.
“For NRC and many others no relief has entered for 142 days. Not one truck. Not one delivery,” Egeland wrote on X. He noted that 85 percent of aid trucks never reach their destination because of looting or other issues fuelled by the Gaza starvation crisis.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which Israel has banned from operating in the Palestinian territory, including in occupied East Jerusalem, said it had “enough food for the entire population of Gaza” waiting at the border crossing in Egypt.
“Open the gates, lift the siege and allow UNRWA to do its work,” the organisation said on X.
At least 116 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Saturday as Israel continued its ruthless onslaught, bombing tents for the displaced and homes across the enclave.
Four bodies were recovered from the site of Israeli strikes on Bani Suheila near southern Khan Younis, sources at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera.
At least one person was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a tent housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis.
Further north, Israel struck a residential home in the town of az-Zawayda in central Gaza, killing the director of the Nuseirat police, Colonel Omar Saeed Aql, along with 11 of his family members, according to the Interior Ministry.
In Gaza City, three people were killed in two Israeli air attacks on the Zeitoun neighbourhood, according to a source at al-Ahli Hospital.
Also in the city, five people were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Medical sources said two people were killed in Israeli shelling in the Jabalia an-Nazla neighbourhood, in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces also opened fire on and arrested three Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza coast, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office.
The Israeli military has maintained a naval blockade on Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took over the enclave, which has been tightened since the start of the war in October 2023.
I have a big Palestinian family. I grew up in a household full of children: We are eight brothers and sisters. As my older siblings started getting married and having children, our family grew even bigger. Every weekend, our family home would fill up with children’s laughter.
I used to wait impatiently for Thursday to come, the day my married sisters would come to visit us with their children. My father would be out shopping, my mother – busy cooking her daughters’ favourite dishes, and I would be playing with the kids. I have nine nieces and nephews in total, and I have beautiful memories playing with and cuddling each one of them. They are the treasure of my family because a home without children is like a tree without leaves.
Despite the difficult life of occupation and siege in Gaza, my sisters and brothers did their best to provide for their children and give them the best opportunity to study and pursue their dreams.
Then the genocide started. The relentless bombing, the constant displacement, the starvation.
I do not have children of my own, but I feel the excruciating pain of my sisters when they face the cries of their hungry children.
“I no longer have the strength to endure. I am tired of thinking about how to fill my children’s empty stomachs. What can I prepare for them?” my sister Samah shared recently.
She has seven children: Abdulaziz, 20, Sondos, 17, Raghad, 15, Ali, 11, twins Mahmoud and Lana, 8, and Tasneem, 3. Like most other Palestinian families, they have been displaced so many times that they have lost most of their possessions. The last time they saw their home in Shujayea neighbourhood, its walls were blown off, but its roof was still standing on the pillars. The plot of land in front of their house, which was planted with olive and lemon trees, had been bulldozed.
Samah’s family has relied on canned food since the beginning of the war. Since Israel blocked aid in early March and aid distribution stopped, they have struggled to find cans of beans or chickpeas. Now, they are lucky if they manage to find a bowl of lentil soup or a loaf of bread.
Day after day, Samah has had to watch her children suffer, losing weight and falling sick.
Lana is suffering the most. She is 110cm (3 feet 7 inches), but weighs just 13kg (28.7 pounds). Her parents took her to a clinic where she was examined and confirmed to have severe malnutrition. She was registered in a programme for the distribution of nutritional supplements, but she has not received anything yet. There are none available.
Lana’s yellow body is so weak that she is unable to stand for long periods or walk in the event that they are suddenly forced to flee. All she wants is to sleep and sit without being able to play with her brother. I cannot believe what has become of her: she used to be a red-cheeked girl full of energy, who used to play with her siblings all the time.
We regularly hear news about children dying from malnutrition, and this is Samah’s worst fear: that she could lose her daughter.
Despite struggling to feed her family, Samah refuses to allow her husband, Mohammed, to go to one of the aid distribution points of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. She knows this is a death trap. She would not have him risk his life for a parcel of food he may not even be able to obtain.
Amid the starvation, my other sister, Asma, gave birth to her second child, Wateen. She is now two months old, and because of a lack of nutrition, she is suffering from jaundice. I have only seen Wateen in photos. She weighed two and a half kilograms (5.5 pounds) when she was born. She looked yellow and sleepy in all her photos.
The doctors said her mother, who is breastfeeding, cannot provide her with the nutrients she needs because she herself is undernourished. Wateen needs to be fed with highly saturated formula milk, which is not available because Israel has been blocking the delivery of all baby formula into Gaza.
Asmaa is now worried that Wateen may develop malnutrition because she is unable to provide her with nutritious milk. “I’m melting like a candle! When will this suffering end?” she told me recently.
My heart is tearing apart when I talk with my sisters and hear about their pain and the hunger that is ravaging their children.
The Israeli occupation forces have already killed more than 18,000 children since it embarked on the genocide. Some 1.1 million are still surviving. Israel wants to make sure they have no future.
This is not an unfortunate consequence of war; it is a war strategy.
Malnutrition is not just a severe loss of weight. It is a devastating condition that damages the body’s vital internal organs, such as the liver, kidneys, and stomach. It affects the growth and development of children and results in higher predisposition to disease, learning difficulties, cognitive impairment and psychological issues.
By starving Palestinian children, depriving them of education and health care, the occupier aims to achieve one goal: creating a fragile generation, weak in mind and constitution, unable to think, and with no horizon other than searching for food, drink, and shelter. This means a generation that is unable to defend the right to its land and stand up to the occupier. A generation that does not understand the existential struggle of its people.
The war plan is clear, and the goal has been stated publicly by Israeli officials. The question now is, will the world let Israel destroy Gaza’s children?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
George Orwell’s dystopian foresight could easily find new expressions in the ongoing Israeli wars of genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. Much like “war is peace”, the Biden administration and the European Union have contributed to creating phrases such as “aggression is self-defence,” “murder is collateral damage”, “safe areas are death traps” and “humanitarian aid is a starvation diet.”
After enduring a full year of Israeli terror, extreme torment and military occupation, fear never conquered Gazans. Despite the complete Israeli blockade – abetted with the help of the Egyptian regime – and the stark imbalance in military power, Gaza’s collective resistance, by all means necessary, remained steadfast and resilient.
Notwithstanding the above, Benjamin Netanyahu has not succeeded in achieving any of his declared objectives. For instance, less than seven per cent of the freed Israeli captives were recovered by force. Perhaps because the Israeli prime minister’s undeclared Zionist objectives, such as land grabs in the West Bank under the shadow of the Gaza genocide, took precedence over pursuing a proven venue for the release of Israeli prisoners.
Netanyahu’s war success can be only measured by Israel’s scale of vengeance, as the toll of the murdered and injured has reached 150,000. Gaza has been turned into a living hell. A war that pervasively and systematically diminished Gaza’s economic capacity, following an 18-year blockade that crippled the economy and forced upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency.
Yet, Israel failed to bring any part of Gaza into submission. As a result, several Israeli generals, led by former national security adviser Israeli Maj-General Giora Eiland, contrived a new approach, the “General’s Plan”, to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza.
The General’s Plan is not exclusively a military strategy but rather an orchestrated noncombatant action, euphemistically termed to mask its true intention: genocide and ethnic cleansing through starvation. It calls first for the complete isolation of northern Gaza from the rest of the Gaza Strip. Second: compartmentalise northern Gaza into separate quarters and declare each section a war zone, forcing civilians to leave or become legitimate military targets.
The initial phase, which began in early October, blocked aid trucks from reaching the north and then segregated the Jabalia camp from its surroundings. In other words, genocide by attrition, one quarter at a time, in a slow motion.
READ: Israel is playing even more dirty to force people out of Jabalia
As part of the General’s Starvation Plan, Israel bombed the only UN distribution center in Jabalia camp on Monday, murdering ten civilians queuing to receive food aid. Since last October, around 400,000 civilians remain in northern Gaza out of the original 1.2 million. Many refuse to evacuate despite the unbearable conditions. They know from historical experience that evacuation is an Israeli alias for ethnic cleansing. Once they leave, they may never return, as happened in 1948. They also saw what happened to those who evacuated, many were killed as they “moved south”, while others were murdered in the Israeli death traps, otherwise known as designated “safe areas.”
The Biden administration has been whitewashing Israeli use of starvation as a method of warfare since 9 October, 2023 when the Israeli minister of war declared “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” However, on Tuesday, a little over a year after the minister’s declaration, the American secretaries of state and defence sent Israeli officials a letter giving them another grace period of 30 days to allow food aid into north Gaza or risk a restriction of US military assistance to Israel.
The new warning feels like a classic case of a déjà vu. In April 2024, the Biden administration issued a similar warning to Israel ahead of a report that was being prepared by American officials examining Israel’s violation of the Leahy Law, particularly subsection 6201(a). The law stipulates that the US should not provide assistance to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
Following that warning, US government agencies and officials concluded that Israel was blocking American humanitarian aid to Gaza. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) notified the State Department of Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction and impediments” of American aid to Gaza residents. In addition, the State Department’s refugee bureau issued a similar opinion stating that “facts on the ground indicate US humanitarian assistance is being restricted.”
Even after those palpable reports from the two US agencies, the Israeli Sayanim and American Secretary of State, told Congress on 10 May that Israel does not restrict “the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.
Empowered by Washington, the General’s Starvation Plan aims to block the delivery of medical aid, food, fuel and water to the besieged quarter, currently Jabalia camp where more than 20,000 people live. This is part of what appears to be a gradual genocide, while creating the illusion of allowing aid trucks into the northern area, as the US ambassador informed the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
The entry of aid trucks does not guarantee the delivery of food to the starving population. It means that Israel retains complete control over what section is fed and who is left to starve. It also confirms that American officials continue to be Israel’s willing enablers to carry on with its General’s Starvation Plan in a systematic and phased mini-genocide.
READ: UN: 345,000 Palestinians in Gaza face ‘catastrophic’ hunger levels this winter
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali face immediate risk as extreme hunger rises in 13 locations.
Extreme hunger will intensify in 13 global hotspots over the coming months, with five states facing the immediate risk of starvation, according to a United Nations report.
The report, Hunger Hotspots, released on Monday by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), blamed conflict, economic shocks, and climate-related hazards for the threat of starvation in Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali.
The report, which predicts food crises in the next five months, calls for investment and help to ensure aid delivery, which it said was being undermined by insecurity and funding gaps.
The people living in the five worst-hit countries face “extreme hunger and risk of starvation and death in the coming months unless there is urgent humanitarian action”, warned the UN agencies.
“This report makes it very clear: hunger today is not a distant threat – it is a daily emergency for millions,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu. “We must act now, and act together, to save lives and safeguard livelihoods.”
“This report is a red alert. We know where hunger is rising and we know who is at risk,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “Without funding and access, we cannot save lives.”
For famine to be declared, at least 20 percent of the population in an area must be suffering extreme food shortages, with 30 percent of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
In Sudan, where famine was confirmed in 2024, the crisis is likely to persist due to conflict and displacement, with almost 25 million people at risk.
South Sudan, hit by flooding and political instability, could see up to 7.7 million people in crisis, with 63,000 in famine-like conditions, the report said.
In Palestine, Israel’s continued military operations and blockade of Gaza have left the entire population of 2.1 million people facing acute food shortages, with nearly half a million at risk of famine by the end of September, the report said.
In Haiti, escalating gang violence has displaced thousands, with 8,400 already facing catastrophic hunger. In Mali, conflict and high grain prices put 2,600 people at risk of starvation by the end of August.
Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, and Nigeria are also flagged as hotspots of very high concern. Other hotspots include Burkina Faso, Chad, Somalia, and Syria.
“Preemptive interventions save lives, reduce food gaps, and protect assets and livelihoods,” the report stresses.
In contrast to worsening conditions in the 13 states identified, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been removed from the list.
The United States has vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that called for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, as Israeli strikes across the enclave have killed nearly 100 Palestinians in the past 24 hours amid a crippling aid blockade.
The US was the only country to vote against the measure on Wednesday while the 14 other members of the council voted in favour.
The resolution also called for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza, but Washington said it was a “non-starter” because the ceasefire demand is not directly linked to the release of captives.
In remarks before the start of the voting, Acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea made her country’s opposition to the resolution, put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council, painfully clear, which she said “should come as no surprise”.
“The United States has taken the very clear position since this conflict began that Israel has the right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel,” she told the council.
China’s Ambassador Fu Cong said Israel’s actions have “crossed every red line” of international humanitarian law and seriously violated UN resolutions. “Yet, due to the shielding by one country, these violations have not been stopped or held accountable.”
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara noted that the US veto makes it “so isolated.”
“Clearly there is a gathering storm … with so many countries” that are standing against the US at the UNSC. “It’s only the US that is trying to block this converging and rising current against Israel and what it’s doing in Gaza … Israel is not defending itself in Gaza, Israel is defending its occupation and siege in Gaza,” Bishara added.
Despite global demands for a truce, Israel has repeatedly rejected calls for an unconditional or permanent ceasefire, insisting Hamas cannot stay in power, nor in Gaza. It has expanded its military assault in Gaza, killing and wounding thousands more Palestinians and maintaining a brutal blockade on the enclave, only allowing a trickle of tightly-controlled aid in where a famine looms.
At least 95 Palestinians have been killed on Wednesday and more than 440 injured, according to health officials in Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said, “There has been a clear surge of attacks.” He said there were relentless Israeli strikes there in central Gaza and throughout the territory.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military warned starving Palestinians against approaching roads to the US-backed aid distribution sites run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), saying the areas will be “considered combat zones” while it halted aid for a whole day.
That move came after Israeli forces opened fire at aid seekers several times, killing more than 100 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more since the GHF started operating on May 27.
Witnesses said Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds that massed before dawn to seek food on Tuesday. Images of starving Palestinians scrambling for paltry aid packages, herded in cage-like lines and then coming under fire have caused global outrage.
The Israeli military admitted it shot at aid seekers on Tuesday, but claimed that they opened fire when “suspects” deviated from a stipulated route.
At a hospital in southern Gaza, the family of Reem al-Akhras, who was killed in Israel’s mass shooting on Tuesday, mourned her death.
“She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her,” her son Zain Zidan said through tears. Her husband, Mohamed Zidan, said “every day unarmed people” are being killed. “This is not humanitarian aid – it’s a trap.”
The new aid distribution process – currently from just three sites – has been widely criticised by rights groups and the UN, who say it does not adhere to humanitarian principles. They also say the aid model, which uses private US security and logistics workers, militarises aid.
Ahead of the UNSC vote, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher again appealed for the UN and aid groups to be allowed to assist people in Gaza, stressing that they have a plan, supplies and experience.
“Open the crossings – all of them. Let in lifesaving aid at scale, from all directions. Lift the restrictions on what and how much aid we can bring in. Ensure our convoys aren’t held up by delays and denials,” Fletcher said in a statement.
The UN has long blamed Israel and lawlessness in the enclave for hindering the delivery of aid and its distribution in Gaza. Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group vehemently denies, and the World Food Programme says there is no evidence to support that allegation.
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesman James Elder, currently in Gaza, described the “horrors” he witnessed within just 24 hours. Speaking from al-Mawasi, Elder told Al Jazeera that Gaza’s hospitals and streets are filled with malnourished children. “I’m seeing teenage boys in tears, showing me their ribs,” he said, noting that children were pleading for food.
The UNSC has voted on 14 Gaza-related resolutions and approved four since the war began in October 2023. Wednesday’s vote was the first since November 2024.
Hamas is still holding 58 captives, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in previous short-lived ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Arab states are accusing Israel of weaponising hunger in Gaza, rejecting its new aid system as illegal. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said UAE envoy Mohamed Abushahab, speaking on behalf of 22 Arab League members at the UN.
Published On 30 May 202530 May 2025
Claude fears he may soon die – either from starvation or violence – as he waits at a food distribution tent in a refugee camp in Burundi.
He is among thousands of Congolese refugees trapped between a brutal conflict across the border and severe reductions in international food assistance.
A former bouncer from Uvira, a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Claude fled after violence erupted in the east, sparked by the rapid advance of the Rwanda-backed M23 group.
Armed groups “were shooting, killing each other, … raping women,” recalled the 25-year-old, who escaped across the border into Burundi in February.
In the overcrowded Musenyi camp, Claude now faces a different struggle as food rations dwindle.
Hunger has fuelled new tensions within the camp, prompting Claude to join volunteers who patrol the area to prevent theft of what supplies remain.
“When I arrived here, I was given 3.5kg [7.7lb] of rice per month. Now it’s a kilo [2.2lb]. The 3kg [6.6lb] of peas have dropped to 1.8kg [4lb]. What I get in tomato sauce lasts one day. Then it’s over,” said Claude, whose name has been changed for security reasons, as have the names of other refugees interviewed.
Some of the most desperate resort to slashing neighbours’ tents in search of food, he added, while gangs “spread terror”.
“The reduction of assistance will lead to many crimes,” he warned.
Oscar Niyibizi, the camp’s deputy administrator, described the cut in food rations as a “major challenge” that could “cause security disruption”.
He urges refugees to cultivate land nearby but said external support remains desperately needed.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump slashed its aid budget by 80 percent, and other Western nations have also reduced donations. As a result, many NGOs and United Nations agencies have been forced to close or significantly scale back their programmes.
These cutbacks have come at a “very bad time” as fighting escalates in the DRC, according to Geoffrey Kirenga, head of mission for Save the Children in Burundi.
Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, has received more than 71,000 Congolese refugees since January while still hosting thousands from previous conflicts.
Established last year to accommodate 10,000 people, the Musenyi camp’s population is now nearly twice that number.
In addition to food shortages, the reduction in aid has led NGOs to discontinue support services for survivors of sexual violence, who are numerous in the camp, Kirenga said.
His gravest concern is that “deaths from hunger” may become inevitable.
The World Food Programme has halved rations since March and warned that without renewed US funding, all assistance could end by November.
According to the UN, hundreds of Congolese refugees are compelled to risk returning across the border in search of food.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in intense Israeli attacks across Gaza, including attacks on hospitals and refugee camps. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher says Israel is using mass starvation as a weapon by deliberately blocking aid deliveries.
Published On 14 May 202514 May 2025