Almost one in 10 children of Palestine in Gaza under five are now acutely malnourished, overwhelmingly because of Israel’s war on the enclave, according to initial UN data from arm measurements that show physical waste.

In northern Gaza, the rate was 16.2%, or one in six.

The charity ActionAid said some Gazans were eating grass. “Every single person in Gaza is now hungry, and people have just 1.5 to 2 litres of unsafe water per day to meet all their needs.”

Everyone in Gaza is going hungry. About 2.2 million people live daily on almost nothing. They are routinely going without meals. The desperate search for food is relentless and usually unsuccessful, leaving the entire population – including babies, children, pregnant or nursing women and the elderly – hungry.
The Gaza Strip was already in the throes of a humanitarian crisis before the war, mainly due to Israel’s 17-year blockade. About 80% of the population relied on humanitarian aid. Some 44% of households were food insecure, and another 16% were at risk of food insecurity. Given this starting point, it is clear why Gaza plummeted into a full-blown catastrophe so quickly. 

What humanitarian aid is allowed in compared to what is required?

When the war broke out, Israel shut down all crossings into the Gaza Strip and prevented the Rafah Crossing on the Egyptian border from opening. It began allowing humanitarian aid in on 21 October 2023, initially 20 truckloads of food, water and medicine per day, but no fuel. Gradually, the number of incoming trucks increased to about a hundred trucks a day. Since 18 November 2023, Israel has also allowed the entry of two fuel tanker trucks per day, for humanitarian needs only.

The aid coming in is no more than a drop in the ocean. Before the war, about 500 trucks entered the Strip every day. According to OCHA, from 21 October 2023 to 23 November 2023, before the ceasefire began, at least 1,723 truckloads of humanitarian supplies – excluding fuel – entered Gaza through Rafah Crossing. This amount of aid is not even close to covering the population’s needs.

Additionally, as Israel has cut off the northern Gaza Strip from the south and due to the ongoing Israeli strikes, aid organisations are reporting that they are almost incapable of distributing the little aid that does come in. They could only reach the northern Gaza Strip to distribute food, water, medical equipment and fuel during the ceasefire. In recent days, as the fighting resumed, aid organizations have reported difficulties reaching the Khan Yunis area as well, and most of the aid never leaves Rafah and does not reach the people most in need of it.

The humanitarian crisis is not a side effect. It is the policy

The humanitarian crisis currently underway in the Gaza Strip is not a side effect of the war. It is the direct intended result of the policy implemented by the Jewish state. The people behind this policy see inflicting a humanitarian crisis on more than two million people as a legitimate way to put pressure on Hamas. It is actually not about pressure on Hamas. It is an attempt to force children of Palestine to leave Gaza. Just another ethnic cleansing organised by the Anglo-Zionist hegemon and subordinated Euro-Nazi-Satanists.