Israel Caused the Hunger Crisis in Gaza, No Matter How Much It Tries to Blame the UN
contact@ifamericansknew.org July 30, 2025 engineered famine, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, israeli war crimes, mass starvation
A demonstration in the northern Israeli town of Sakhnin calling for an end to the war, Saturday. Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters
And this is a careless document whose numbers don’t add up. Even the most lenient analysis of the figures shows that, according to the state itself, starvation must be going on in Gaza. Using basic math, in the last two months, Gazans have received, on average, only one truck for every 34,000 inhabitants per day.
Israel’s allegations are groundless. First, the UN doesn’t have any forces in Gaza; the Israeli army does. The people, humanitarian organizations, and the UN are entirely dependent on the officers’ goodwill. Every humanitarian move – like getting trucks from Kerem Shalom to the Muwasi area that’s home to displaced people, getting medical teams into Gaza, and providing fuel for hospitals – is coordinated with the army.
The permit specifies both the route and the precise time frame, while drivers must also obey orders from an app. They are required to stop at certain points until the army lets them through. Last week, the UN made 16 transit requests to the army. Only one was completed as planned by the UN. Three more requests have been completed, though with significant delays. Some of the rest have been canceled.
For example, the convoy that the GHF spokesman pointed to on July 21 carried emergency medical equipment from the World Health Organization. The convoy was approved the night before. In the morning, trucks arrived and the aid was loaded. According to UN sources, the convoy was ready to go by 9:39 A.M.
But the army delayed its departure until 6 P.M. After the convoy moved out, the army decided to change the route. Before the convoy arrived at the warehouse, the army issued an evacuation order for the area, so the trucks had to head for a different warehouse. This convoy, depicted by Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a demonstration of UN inefficiency, is proof that the army is the main problem.
Palestinians at a food distribution center in Gaza City on Saturday. Near areas of firing, these centers are death traps. Credit: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
For most of the war, the UN and other organizations have managed to feed the population of Gaza and prevent starvation, even under the most difficult conditions. Their method, learned in dozens of other conflict areas, is based on hundreds of food distribution centers, careful record keeping, and two levels of distribution – dry food packages for families, as well as public kitchens and bakeries.
On March 2, Israel moved to dismantle this distribution mechanism by blocking all aid and food to Gaza for 78 days. When food stockpiles ran out, Israel reopened the crossings – though very partially, while installing the lethal, dysfunctional mechanism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: four distribution centers near areas of firing – centers that hand out small amounts of food to anyone strong enough to come and get it. This created a death trap; hundreds of starving people were shot to death.
Israel has done all this ostensibly to prevent food from getting to Hamas. But two investigative reports published Saturday have exposed what many Gaza watchers already believed – there is no evidence of Hamas taking over large quantities of food delivered by the UN.
According to the report by Reuters, the U.S. State Department looked into 156 cases of lost U.S.-funded supplies sent to Gaza, finding no evidence that Hamas was feasting on the stolen food. According to the report by The New York Times, Israeli military sources said that the UN aid system had functioned efficiently, and that the army had no proof that Hamas had stolen humanitarian aid from the UN.
Anyone looking at the images sent by the army last week from the Kerem Shalom crossing may reach the following conclusion: To control Gaza’s food market, you can’t suffice with small warehouses in underground tunnels; you need a large building. And not one small warehouse captured by the army has been shown to the Israeli public.
Of course, Hamas has been eating food that has entered Gaza. But this is true in every such situation. Hamas gunmen will be the last to starve – long after the children, women, elderly, and Israeli hostages – because in the system created by Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, only the strong eat. This helps young men with rifles. The victims are everybody else.
Despite the countless warnings by experts in recent months, starvation crossed the threshold last week, with people starting to die from malnutrition. Of 133 deaths by hunger during the war, over 50 died last week. In recent days, images of emaciated Gazan children have appeared on the front pages of major newspapers around the world. This publicity seems to have touched a nerve in the Israeli army, which since July 24 has been trying to ease truck traffic.
The result was almost immediate. In a few hours, 45 flour trucks that arrived in Khan Yunis in the south helped drive down flour prices in the city to around 60 shekels ($18) per kilo from hundreds of shekels. The army was also quick to declare on July 26 that it would cooperate with international organizations to reopen the public kitchens and bakeries.
But the nightmare scenario is that all this may be too late for many children and adults. As one Gaza doctor explained last month, once the body passes a certain stage of starvation, the problem can no longer be resolved by food alone; close medical attention, special food, drugs, and larger medical teams are needed. Meanwhile, it was reported that six more people died of hunger over the past 24 hours.
Nir Hasson is an Israeli journalist working with Haaretz.
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