Amid Gaza’s man-made famine, Palestinians fight to survive

Every day is filled with anxiety and exhaustion. The constant Israeli bombardment, lack of sleep and search for food are overwhelming for Gaza’s displaced population.

“The day revolves around thinking about where to find food for my family,” said Raed al-Athamna, a displaced Palestinian father in Gaza City, who spoke by phone since foreign journalists are not allowed in Gaza.

“There is nothing to eat. There is no bread, as I cannot afford to buy flour. It is too expensive. Today, we had some lentils for the kids and my mom, but tomorrow, I don’t know.”

Al-Athamna, who previously worked as a driver for foreign journalists in Gaza, said he no longer had the words to describe the situation. “There are Israeli airstrikes and shelling all the time. I’ve seen people fainting in the streets because they haven’t eaten. Social media is full of videos of people just collapsing.”

We last spoke with al-Athamna in May, just after the Israeli government first permitted some aid trucks into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade. At the time, he thought the situation could not get any worse for Gaza’s 2.1 million people.

Two months on, al-Athamna described the situation as “really bad. You cannot find a piece of bread, it is a very difficult situation. I am here with my grandkids, they are crying, they keep saying: ‘We want a piece of bread.’ And if you cannot give them anything, they don’t understand. This breaks your heart.”

International organizations sound alarm

International health and aid organizations have repeatedly sounded the alarm over conditions and the lack of vital supplies in Gaza during the 21-month conflict.

According to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, almost 88% of Gaza is now under evacuation orders or designated as military zones. These areas include most of Gaza’s agricultural land, concentrating the displaced population in increasingly limited space and complicating humanitarian access.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that a large proportion of Gaza’s population was starving. “I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, it’s man-made and that’s very clear,” he stated.

Ross Smith, emergency director at the World Food Program (WFP), said Monday that Gaza’s hunger crisis “has reached new and astonishing levels of desperation.” He said that “a third of the population are not eating for multiple days in a row, this includes women and children.”

On Thursday, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported that so far in July 48 Palestinians had died from malnutrition, with 59 dying of malnutrition since the start of 2025.

That number is up from 50 in 2024 and four in 2023 when Israel started its war against the Hamas militant group in Gaza following Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israeli officials have disputed such claims, characterising them as propaganda, suggesting all the aid agencies on the ground are wrong and the Israeli officials are right. Whilst members of Knesset are actively pushing for the IDF to starve and kill every Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank.

Food prices surge amid scarcity

Eyad Amin, a father of three young children who has found shelter in Gaza City, is desperate. “Food is unavailable, and when it is available, it’s very expensive,” the 43-year-old said.

Amin, a former stationery shop owner, managed to buy some vegetables but at prices most people cannot afford. “Today I bought two potatoes, two tomatoes, and a few green peppers. These simple items cost me 140 shekels [around €36/$42],” he said.

Like most Palestinians in Gaza, Amin has no income but gets assistance from relatives abroad. Those without such support face greater hardship.

Sherine Qamar, a mother of two children in northern Gaza City, relies on support from her parents. “We practically live without food, and what we eat is just to survive. We have all lost a lot of weight, I personally lost 15 kilograms [33 pounds] in the last four months,” she said.

Medical care presents additional challenges. “When my children get sick due to malnutrition or things like the flu, we cannot find any medicine in hospitals or pharmacies, and we have to wait long hours at international organisations and hospitals to obtain painkillers,” Qamar told EU News.

Deliveries fall far short: aid groups

In March, Israeli authorities closed Gaza’s crossing, citing concerns about aid diversion by Hamas. These restrictions were partially lifted in May, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming Israel was acting to prevent a “starvation crisis.”

Aid distribution shifted from established UN mechanisms to the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which distributes pre-packed food boxes from three locations in Israeli-controlled militarized zones.

Currently, an average of 28 aid trucks enter Gaza daily, according to UN figures, which aid organizations have said falls short of population needs.

MedGlobal, a US-based NGO operating nutrition centers in Gaza, reported that “cases of acutely malnourished children have nearly tripled” since the beginning of July.

“There is no more buffer,” John Kahler, MedGlobal co-founder and a pediatrician who worked in Gaza last year, told DW. “When you get a virus suddenly you have diarrhea, that will push you over the edge because you don’t have any physical reserve left.”

“The terrible thing in Gaza,” he added, “is that everyone knows that food supplies are just 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] away.”

Looting, casualties increase as scarcity worsens

The Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Israel’s military body overseeing crossings, told DW that “950 aid trucks are waiting on the Palestinian side” of entry points. The body claimed that Israel does not restrict humanitarian aid to Gaza, but did acknowledge “significant challenges in collecting trucks on the Gaza side.”

The UN has repeatedly said the backlog at the crossing was due to multiple difficulties, among them the coordination with the Israeli military. Trucks cannot move without their authorization, to ensure they can travel relatively safely from the crossing to the warehouse and distribution centers without coming under fire from the Israeli military.

Due to supply scarcity, looting has increased. On Sunday, a WFP convoy came under fire, resulting in casualties among people waiting for aid. In recent weeks, at least 875 people have been killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid at one of the distribution points by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or while waiting for UN trucks carrying supplies, according to the UN.

“I only went one time to get aid. But I don’t go anymore. If you are hit or injured, no one helps you. You will just die there. There is nothing in the hospitals to help you either,” said al-Athamna from Gaza City.

He added that the broader situation has become impossible. “You either die being bombed, or you die not having food. They keep talking to politicians about a ceasefire, but nothing happens, and things only get worse. What are we supposed to do?”