UN says more than 1 in 4 people in Gaza are ‘starving’ because of war

RAFAH: More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report Thursday by the U.N. and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

The extent of the population’s hunger eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to figures in the report. The report warned that the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza.

“It doesn’t get any worse,” said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.’s World Food Program. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.”
Israel says it is in the final stages of clearing out Hamas militants from northern Gaza, but that months of fighting lie ahead in the south.

The war sparked by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 rampage and hostage-taking in Israel has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians. Some 1.9 million Gaza residents — more than 80% of the population — have been driven from their homes, and many of them are crammed into U.N. shelters.

The war has also pushed Gaza’s health sector into collapse. Only nine of its 36 health facilities are still partially functioning, all located in the south, according to the World Health Organization. WHO relief workers on Thursday reported “unbearable” scenes in two hospitals they visited in northern Gaza:

Bedridden patients with untreated wounds cry out for water, the few remaining doctors and nurses have no supplies, and bodies are lined up in the courtyard.

Bombardment and fighting continued Thursday, but with Gaza’s internet and other communications cut off for a second straight day, details on the latest violence could largely not be confirmed.

U.N. Security Council members are negotiating an Arab-sponsored resolution for a halt in fighting to allow for increased aid deliveries. A vote on the resolution has been postponed twice this week in the hopes of getting the U.S. to support it or allow it to pass after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call.

Thursday’s report from the U.N. underscored the failure of weeks of U.S. efforts to ensure greater aid reaches Palestinians. At the start of the war, Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory. After U.S. pressure, it allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt. But U.N. agencies say only 10% of Gaza’s food needs has been entering for weeks.

This week, Israel began allowing aid to enter Gaza through its Kerem Shalom crossing. But a blast Thursday morning hit the Palestinian side of the crossing, forcing the U.N. to stop its pickups of aid there, according to Juliette Touma, spokesperson of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

At least four people were killed, the nearby hospital reported. Palestinian authorities blamed Israel for the blast, but its cause could not immediately be confirmed.

Delivery of aid to much of the Gaza Strip has become difficult or impossible due to continued fighting, U.N. officials have said.

The report released Thursday by 23 U.N and nongovernmental agencies found that the entire population in Gaza is in a food crisis, with 576,600 at catastrophic — or starvation — levels. “It is a situation where pretty much everybody in Gaza is hungry,” Husain, the World Food Program economist, said.

“People are very, very close to large outbreaks of disease because their immune systems have become so weak because they don’t have enough nourishment,” he said.