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THE POPULATION OF Gaza is starving and cut off from access to food and medicines as Israel continues to completely block any supplies from entering Gaza in what is the longest total blockade that it has imposed.
The dire situation on the ground is growing more and more disastrous each day.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed in late April that it has depleted all of its food stocks that it had held in Gaza since the latest blockade started in March.
Gaza residents have described the horrors they are facing and the tragic impacts of Israel cutting them off from all supplies.
Aya al-Skafy, a resident of Gaza City, told AFP her baby died because of malnutrition and medicine shortages last week.
“She was four months old and weighed 2.8 kilogrammes, which is very little. Medicine was not available,” she said.
“Due to severe malnutrition, she suffered from blood acidity, liver and kidney failure, and many other complications. Her hair and nails also fell out due to malnutrition.”
Umm Hashem al-Saqqa, another Gaza City resident, fears her five-year-old son might face a similar fate, but is powerless to do anything about it.
“Hashem suffers from iron deficiency anaemia. He is constantly pale and lacks balance, and is unable to walk due to malnutrition,” she told AFP.
“There is no food, no medicine, and no nutritional supplements. The markets are empty of food, and the government clinics and pharmacies have nothing.”
Israel’s security cabinet approved plans yesterday to capture the entire Gaza Strip and remain there for an indefinite period of time, prompting international outcry.
Several Gaza residents told AFP they feel the move is worrying but that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is already an all-out disaster.
“Israel has not stopped the war, the killing, the bombing, the destruction, the siege, and the starvation – every day – so how can they talk about expanding military operations?” Awni Awad, 39, told AFP.
Awad, who lives in a tent in the southern Gaza City of Khan Younis after being displaced by Israeli evacuation orders, said that his situation was already “catastrophic and tragic”.
“I call on the world to witness the famine that grows and spreads every day,” he said.
Gaza City resident Mohammed al-Shawa, 65, said that Israel’s new military roadmap changes little as it already controls most of Gaza.
“The Israeli announcement about expanding military operations in Gaza is just talk for the media, because the entire Gaza Strip is occupied, and there is no safe area in Gaza,” he said.
“There is no food, no medicine, and the announcement of an aid distribution plan is just to distract the world and mislead global public opinion,” Shawa said, referring to reports of a new Israeli plan for humanitarian aid delivery that has yet to be implemented.
“The reality is that Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza by bombing, shooting, or through starvation and denial of medical treatment,” he said.
“I came to get the flour from under the shelling and the bombing, just so I could feed myself and my children… But it’s all scattered on the ground,” describes Insherah from Jabalia, #Gaza. The situation is desperate as people scramble to find something to eat. The siege must be lifted.
— UNRWA (@unrwa.org) 5 May 2025 at 15:02
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The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a statement at the weekend detailing the disaster unfolding in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade and persistent strikes.
“For nine weeks now, Israeli authorities have blocked all supplies from entering Gaza, no matter how vital to people’s survival. Bakeries have shut. Community kitchens have closed. Warehouses stand empty. Children have gone hungry,” the OCHA statement said.
“Israeli officials have sought to shut down the existing aid distribution system run by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners and have us agree to deliver supplies through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military, once the government agrees to re-open crossings,” it said.
The design of the plan presented to us will mean large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.
“It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy.
“It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.”
Tánaiste Simon Harris has said that “what is happening to the people of Gaza is despicable and unconscionable”.
“This is a humanitarian catastrophe. We need to see an immediate cessation of hostilities, release of remaining hostages and the resumption of humanitarian aid at scale into Gaza,” Harris said.
The OCHA estimates that 69% of Gaza has either been incorporated into one of Israel’s ‘buffer zones’ or is subject to evacuation orders.
That rises to 100% in Rafah, where over 230,000 people lived October 2023 and where many displaced Palestinians fled to earlier in the war but which Israel has since declared a ‘no-go zone’.
Additional reporting by AFP.
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