Israel’s nearly two-year war has pushed parts of Gaza into “mandibular” hunger, deepening the Palestinian struggle for survival under merciless bombing, mass displacement and spreading disease, according to a report released in August by a UN-backed initiative.
Reports by the Integrated Food Security Stage (IPC), a panel of non-supported experts assessing global food insecurity and malnutrition, helped to promote international protests against Hamas-led Israeli campaign on October 7, 2023. The IPC predicts that almost a third of Gaza’s total population will face a hunger situation by the end of September, but no updates on that forecast have been provided yet.
In Gaza Province alone, more than half a million people, the largest in the Gaza Strip of five, have been criticised for the cycle of “hunger, poverty and death,” the IPC added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is targeting one of Hamas’ “remaining bases,” and rights workers say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is targeting it.
Michael Fakri, the UN Special Rapporteur on Food Rights, accused Israel of using hunger “as a weapon against Palestinians” in violation of international law.
“Israel has built the most efficient hunger machine you can imagine.”
Michael Fakri, United Nations Special Republic Reporter on Food Rights
“Israel uses food and aid as weapons to humiliate, weaken, move and kill Palestinians in Gaza,” Fafri told CNN on August 28th.
Israel rejected the IPC findings, and Israeli agencies oversee the entry of aid to Gaza, which they claimed the report was “false” and is based on “partial and biased” data “derived from Hamas.” In a statement from his office, Netanyahu denounced the unsupported report, adding that “Israel has no hunger policy.”
Israel has since argued that it has strengthened the entry of aid to Gaza. But aid agencies say they exacerbated the misery faced by Palestinians, particularly around Gaza city. See how the situation explained by the IPC came to fruition in five charts.
The IPC predicted that hunger would spread south in Khan Younis’ Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza and even further south by the end of September, affecting nearly 641,000 people.
By June 2026, at least 132,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, including cases of more than 41,000 severe children with increased risk of death, the IPC added.
Under IPC, the five-phase indicator used to measure the severity of food insecurity – hunger can only be declared if three thresholds are met. At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, and the proportion of children rated as acute malnutrition reaches a certain threshold, with at least two people dying from starvation and illness for every 10,000 people.
Israel accused the IPC of lowering the second threshold for acute malnutrition children due to the hunger declaration that the IPC denied.
Researchers use three methods to assess child malnutrition either around the child’s height and weight, BMI, or circumference of the child’s middle arm, known as MUAC. Using the latter, a metric adopted since 2019, IPC determined that at least 15% of children aged 6-59 months have a circumference of a middle arm of less than 125mm or edema, the agency told CNN. The hunger classification threshold is “standard and has not been changed due to Gaza,” the IPC told CNN, adding that the MUAC metric was “the measurements are most frequently available and have a strong correlation with mortality outcomes,” and was also used in the hunger classification in Sudan and South Sudan.
Human rights advocates say the destruction of Israel’s health infrastructure and increased hostility are hampering efforts to document the full scope of Gaza’s hunger.
After more than 700 days of war, 455 Palestinians died of malnutrition or starvation, including 151 children. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported on October 1.
Israel’s vast web of bureaucratic obstacles narrows the amount of aid that reaches the other side of the border, including delays in approval, painstaking border checks, and arbitrary denials of items, and raises food costs.
After visiting the area in late August, US Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley both are Democrats and warned that the Netanyahu government is “in implementing a plan to cleanse Palestinian Gaza ethnically,” accusing Israel of using food “as a weapon of war.” Israel denied the allegation.
“The discoveries from our trip lead to the inevitable conclusion that Netanyahu’s government war in Gaza will impose collective punishments on Palestinians, with the goal of not being able to have life for them, far beyond Hamas’ targets,” the report, released on September 11th, stated.
Israeli authorities say the trucks are “still collected” at the Gaza border.
But Sam Rose, executive director of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, says Israel, which has roughly aligned jurisdiction over what goes into and out of Gaza, controls the amount, type and overall flow of food to infusing “calories.” “This system is designed to not function smoothly,” he said.
Israeli authorities “know and analyze each truck that enters Gaza, weight and calories,” said a senior official from Cogat, an Israeli agency that manages aid invasions into the Enclave, said in September. According to a Cogat statement released in response to the IPC Hungry Declaration, “an analysis of the content of food aid trucks that entered the Gaza Strip reveals that 4,400 calories per day have been in Gaza since the beginning of August.”
However, as of May, Palestinians were burning just 1,400 calories per day. In other words, “67% of what the human body needs to survive” is 2,300 calories, and was reported in June.
Last October, the Israeli government banned activities in areas under its control. This was a prohibition that came into effect in January, and accused him of not stopping the alleged theft of Hamas aid. A review within the US government found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
When rescue trickles enter the strip, workers face intense hostility, damaged roads, limited fuel supply, hampering internal distribution efforts, minimizing viable routes and blocking access to evacuated Palestinians.
Israel says it only makes up for the UN’s relief that enters Gaza. A Cogat official briefed that 27% of trucks entering Gaza in early September were UN vehicles, claiming that the UN brought 600 aid trucks a day before the war was a “lie.”
“There is no hunger in Gaza, a period of time,” the official said, adding that “Israel and the IDF are trying to strengthen the humanitarian situation in Gaza with their partners.”
In May, the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) established a program that currently plans to operate up to five distribution sites in southern Gaza.
Relief and health workers say these other ways of feeding in Gaza, including pallet drops from GHF sites and planes, are dehumanized and inaccessible to many Palestinians, and are subject to injury and death.
At least 1,172 people were killed “near militarized supply sites” between May 27 and September 9, the United Nations said on September 10 that a further 1,084 deaths were killed along the fleet supply route. In August, UN experts called for the immediate closure of GHF manipulation sites in Gaza, accusing Israeli forces of opening a “indiscriminatory fire” to those seeking assistance there. Advocates warned that the hub is “particularly difficult” for women, children, people with disabilities and older Palestinians to access.
The GHF defended its work in Gaza, saying it was the only organization that could deliver “large scale” food in Gaza in early September. The organisation also said they “are lined up to assist and repeatedly seek cooperation with UN agencies and international NGOs,” but the UN said they “rejected these offers.” Israeli forces have admitted to fire warning shots on crowds in some cases, denied liability for other victims near the aid hub.
Israeli officials told CNN in August that the US and Israel are planning to set up 12 additional sites throughout the Enclave. However, there is no indication that a new site has been established. In September, the GHF asked for permission to open the site in northern Gaza, but Israel said it did not grant it.
“People are stepping into the death trap to try and get their aid back.”
Mohamed Carell, an American surgeon deployed in Gaza
“Many teenagers and young adults are taking risks as their parents are injured and their siblings are starving,” Mohammed Carell, an American surgeon deployed in Gaza earlier this year, told CNN in August.
“I’ve heard some people report that they’re going to their destiny and accepting them. Dying from gunshots may be more desirable than dying from starvation,” he added.
Farmland is shrinking and increasingly unaccessible
As of July 28, Israel’s two-year attacks in Gaza were largely ineffective and were ineffective, with only 1.5% of the farmland accessed as of July 28.
That destruction, coupled with Israel’s ban on fishing and increased attacks in the North, further limiting the source of food available to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
“It’s no coincidence that Israel focused on starvation tactics in northern Gaza,” said the UN Special Rapporteur Fakli. “They announced their intention to push people from the north to the south of Gaza. Just as they are now, the focus of the hunger campaing campaign in Gaza is correlated with their plans for invasion.”
The military’s invasion of Gaza city will disrupt the “already fragile” aid supply chain, warned Arif Hussain, chief economist of the World Food Programme.
Relief agencies need ceasefires, unobstructed humanitarian access, large-scale multi-sector aid, civilian protection, and the recovery of commercial and local food systems to reverse Gaza’s hunger.
“We are already on the brink of sight, and another escalation, especially in Gaza city, could push the situation into an unimaginable catastrophe,” he added. “It will not only bring about more deaths, but will destroy the foundation for future recovery.”
