Half of Palestinians in Gaza Strip could die of hunger, UN warns

Walaa Zaiter's four children have been hungry for weeks, but she can barely find food for them.

They order sandwiches, fruit juice and Palestinian dishes like the ones she cooked before the war. In a fleeting moment of Internet access, she said, she once saw children gathered around her phone watching a video of someone eating French fries.

The most they can hope for these days, he said in a recent telephone interview, is a can of peas, some cheese and an energy bar distributed as family rations by the United Nations once a week in Rafah, a city in the south. from Gaza where they fled in early December to escape Israeli bombing further north. It is not enough to feed his family of seven.

“It's a daily struggle,” said Zaiter, 37, whose children range in age from 9 months to 13 years.

Israel's war in Gaza has created a humanitarian catastrophe, with half the population of some 2.2 million at risk of starvation and 90 percent saying they routinely do not eat for an entire day.the UN said in a report.

Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme, said the humanitarian disaster in Gaza was among the worst he had seen. The territory appears to meet the first criteria for a famine, as 20 percent of the population faces an extreme lack of food, he said.

“I've been doing this for 20 years,” he said. “I've been in practically every conflict, whether it's Yemen, South Sudan, Ethiopia, all of them. And I have never seen anything like it, both in terms of its magnitude, but also the pace at which it has developed.”

Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, maintained that Israel is not standing in the way of humanitarian assistance and blamed Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, for any shortages. He accused Hamas of seizing some of the aid for its own uses. He did not provide evidence, but Western and Arab officials have said Hamas is known to have a large stockpile of supplies, including food, fuel and medicine.

The war began on October 7 after Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. In retaliation, Israel launched an aerial bombardment of the impoverished enclave, followed by a ground invasion that has displaced around 85 percent of the population.

Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 20,000 Palestinians have died in the war, and it has destroyed much of the territory's civilian infrastructure and economy. Israel has also imposed a months-long siege on Gaza, ceasing supplies of most water, food, fuel and medicine.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of collectively punishing Gaza civilians for Hamas's actions and “using civilian starvation as a method of warfare.” Both are potential war crimes.

At the start of the war, Israeli officials vowed to deny humanitarian aid to Gaza. “I have ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip: there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel,” said Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defense, on October 9.

Nothing was allowed in for the first two weeks. Some deliveries then began to arrive, but fuel was not allowed in until November 18.

In recent weeks, Israel has allowed between 100 and 120 trucks to enter Gaza daily, said Guillemette Thomas, medical coordinator for Jerusalem-based Doctors Without Borders. That falls far short of what is needed, she said.

Levy, the government spokesman, last month rejected the idea that Israel was preventing or slowing the flow of aid. “We categorically reject the despicable and defamatory accusations that Israel is in any way obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza“, said.

“If they want more food and water to come to Gaza, they should send more food and water to Gaza,” he added, referring to aid groups. But Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency helping the Palestinians, said recently that deliveries were “limited in quantities and plagued by logistical obstacles” imposed by Israel.

These include a long and complicated verification process, a veto on the delivery of commercial goods to markets and private companies, and restricted access to much of Gaza, whether by airstrikes, fighting or Israeli military checkpoints.

Gaza quickly entered a spiral of humanitarian catastrophe when the war began because it had already been mired in a deep crisis for many years.

Israel and Egypt imposed a siege on the territory after Hamas took power in 2007, largely cutting off Gaza's economic activity with the outside world. The siege left up to 80 percent of Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid even before the war, the UN said.

Azmi Keshawi, an analyst at the research organization International Crisis Group, said that even if Israel says it does not consider its war a war against the people of Gaza, it is civilians who are paying the highest price.

“Our daily nightmare is going to look for food,” said Keshawi, who fled Gaza City in the north and now lives in a tent on a sidewalk in Rafah with her children. “You can't find flour,” she said. “You can't find yeast to make bread. You can’t find any kind of food.”

When food can be found for sale, he said, prices have skyrocketed. In Rafah, a bag of flour that might have cost $13 before the war now sells for between $138 and $165.

Thousands of displaced people who fled to Rafah, one of the few “safe” areas in Gaza Today, they now struggle to pay for a can of tuna, which used to cost less than 30 cents and now costs more than $1.50, he said.

“These people left their homes without money,” he said. “Surviving becomes a challenge.”

LIAM STACK, GAYA GUPTA AND ABU BAKR BASHIR. THE NEW YORK TIMES