By Yara M. Asi
After 18 months of punishing airstrikes, raids and an increasingly restrictive siege in Gaza, the United Nations on May 20, 2025, issued one of its most urgent warnings yet about the ongoing humanitarian crisis: an estimated 14,000 babies were at risk of death without an immediate influx of substantial aid, especially food.
The assessment came a day after Israel allowed the first trickle of aid back into Gaza following its nearly three-month total blockade imposed on March 2. But on the first day of that resumption, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that only nine trucks were allowed into Gaza, when around 500 are required every day. The U.N. called it “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.”
As an expert in Palestinian public health, I and others have long warned about the potentially devastating humanitarian consequences of Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, given the preexisting fragility of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s history of controlling humanitarian aid into the territory. Many of those worst-case humanitarian predictions have now become reality.
Israel’s control of food and aid into Gaza has been a consistent theme throughout the past 18 months. Indeed, just two weeks after Israel’s massive military campaign in the Gaza Strip began in late 2023, Oxfam International reported that only around 2% of the usual amount of food was being delivered to residents in the territory and warned against “using starvation as a weapon of war.”
Yet aid delivery continues to be inconsistent and well below what was necessary for the population, culminating in a dire warning by U.N. experts in early May that “the annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza” was possible without an immediate end to the violence.
Putting Palestinians ‘on a diet’
Already, an estimated near 53,000 Palestinians have died and some 120,000 have been injured in the conflict. Starvation could claim many more.
Amid the broader destruction to lives and infrastructure, there is now barely a food system to speak of in Gaza.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombs have destroyed homes, bakeries, food production factories and grocery stores, making it harder for people in Gaza to offset the impact of the reduced imports of food.
AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo
But as much as things have worsened in the past 18 months, food insecurity in Gaza and the mechanisms that enable it did not start with Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
A U.N. report from 2022 found that 65% of people in Gaza were food insecure, defined as lacking regular access to enough safe and nutritious food.
Multiple factors contributed to this preexisting food insecurity, not least the blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and enabled by Egypt since 2007. All items entering the Gaza Strip, including food, became subject to Israeli inspection, delay or denial.
Basic foodstuff was allowed, but because of delays at the border, it could spoil before it entered Gaza.
A 2009 investigation by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz found that foods as varied as cherries, kiwi, almonds, pomegranates and chocolate were prohibited entirely.
At certain points, the blockade, which Israel claimed was an unavoidable security measure, has been loosened to allow import of more foods. In 2010, for example, Israel started to permit potato chips, fruit juices, Coca-Cola and cookies.
By placing restrictions on food imports, Israel has claimed to be trying to put pressure on Hamas by making life difficult for the people in Gaza. “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” said one Israeli government adviser in 2006.
To enable this, the Israeli government commissioned a 2008 study to work out exactly how many calories Palestinians would need to avoid malnutrition. The report was released to the public only following a 2012 legal battle. Echoes of this sentiment can be seen in the Israeli decision in May 2025 to allow only “the basic amount of food” to reach Gaza to purportedly ensure “no starvation crisis develops.”
The long-running blockade also increased food insecurity by preventing meaningful development of an economy in Gaza.
AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi
The U.N. cites the “excessive production and transaction costs and barriers to trade with the rest of the world” imposed by Israel as the primary cause of severe underdevelopment in the occupied territories, including Gaza. As a result, in late 2022 the unemployment rate in Gaza stood at around 50%. This, coupled with a steady increase in the cost of food, made affording food difficult for many Gazan households, rendering them dependent on aid, which fluctuates frequently.
Hampering self-sufficency
More generally, the blockade and the multiple rounds of destruction of parts of the Gaza Strip have made food sovereignty in the territory nearly impossible.
Even prior to the latest war, Gaza’s fishermen were regularly shot at by Israeli gunboats if they ventured farther in the Mediterranean Sea than Israel permits. Because the fish closer to the shore are smaller and less plentiful, the average income of a fisherman in Gaza has more than halved since 2017.
Much of Gaza’s farmland has been rendered inaccessible to Palestinians as a result of post-October 2023 actions by Israel.
And the infrastructure needed for adequate food production – greenhouses, arable lands, orchards, livestock and food production facilities – has been destroyed or heavily damaged. International donors hesitate to rebuild facilities, knowing they cannot guarantee their investment will last more than a few years before being bombed again.
The latest ongoing siege has only further crippled the ability of Gaza to be food self-sufficient. By May 2025, nearly 75% of croplands had been destroyed, along with significant amounts of livestock. Less than one-third of agricultural wells used for irrigation remain functional.
Starvation as weapon of war
The use of starvation as a weapon is strictly forbidden under the Geneva Conventions, a set of statutes that govern the laws of warfare. Starvation has been condemned by U.N. Resolution 2417, which decried the use of deprivation of food and basic needs of the civilian population and compelled parties in conflict to ensure full humanitarian access.
Human Rights Watch has already accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, and Amnesty International called the most recent siege evidence of genocidal intent.
The Israeli government in turn continues to blame Hamas for any loss of life in Gaza and has increasingly made clear its aim for Palestinians to leave Gaza entirely.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said publicly that Israel was permitting aid now only because allies were pressuring him over “images of mass famine.” This stance suggests that Israel will not soon increase aid beyond what his government deems politically acceptable.
While there is more evidence than ever before that Israel is using food as a weapon of war, there is also, I believe, ample evidence that this was the reality long before Oct. 7, 2023.
In the meantime, the implications for Palestinians in Gaza have never been more dire.
Already, the World Health Organization estimates that 57 children have died from malnutrition just since the beginning of the March 2, 2025, blockade.
More death is certain to follow. On May 12, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global system created to track food insecurity, released an alarming report on projections of food insecurity in Gaza.
It warned that by September 2025, half a million people in Gaza – 1 in 5 of the population – will be facing starvation and that the entire population will experience acute food insecurity at crisis level, or worse.
Editor’s note: Parts of this story were originally contained in an article published by The Conversation U.S. on Feb. 15, 2024.
Yara M. Asi is Assistant Professor of Global Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida.
Kat says
I know anything I say is going to be attacked in one way or another. But the phrase “never again“ was not meant to apply just to Jewish people. Since the holocaust of World War II, we have seen other instances of genocide (and no, I’m not talking about South Africa!). What is happening to the Palestinians is a form of genocide. So we say never again while we’re watching it happen all over again.
DaleL says
In the midst of all this Palestinian suffering, Hamas has not released all of the October 7th hostages. The food insecurity in Gaza largely began when Hamas took control of Gaza by murder in 2006. It was after Hamas’s takeover that Israel blockaded Gaza. Egypt added to the blockade a year later in 2007. For nearly two decades, Israel has had to put up with rocket attacks, cross border raids, and kidnappings. Perhaps instead of words and wringing of hands, the world, particularly the Muslim world, could put together a strong peacekeeping force to occupy Gaza, eliminate Hamas, and provide relief to the people there. Qatar seems to have plenty of money. Enough to “give” away a $400 million plane.
Kennan says
First and foremost, Dale, I’m asking, not simply let all the hostages go when Israel can continue news to walk away from the negotiating table and/or change conditions at the last minute. That has been the modus operandi of Israel. Israel has lied to the world since the beginning, they get their hostages back, which they quite obviously don’t give a damn about, and then they will continue to destroy and already destroyed Gaza.
This is the biggest story of our current century. Listen up America. Considering all our sins and grotesque imperfections, it’s been a good run. The United States of America can no longer isolate and insulate itself from realities like Gaza. This is too big. This is too real.
The vast majority of this country and the world is against this Holocaust . Yes Holocaust . I said it’s because that is what it is. In many ways, this is worse than what happened in World War II. Why? Because it’s done in front of the world with no apologies, the permission and full military support of billions and billions of our tax dollars to murder thousands and thousands of civilians, mostly children and babies with impunity.
A year and a half into this, and the fact that any of this is a debate on any level is disheartening.
Our government and media have been epically complicit and sold on an American bill of goods that is centered on Israel, lobbies, and an incessant desire to mold the Middle East in Israel’s image. We now see Israel blast through Gaza, dead civilians in its wake and the eventuality of a greater Israel. No more Gaza. Israel only. Palestinians displaced, ethnically cleansed, and killed. The Second “NAKBA”(Catastrophe), But worse. Two state solution? Never. Never. Not if you are Israel.
Israel lost the moral Highground by the second week of October 2023. Nothing happened after October 7, 2023. This is the “ Idiot sales ploy” Israel and the US have pushed for 18 months after innocent civilians that had nothing to do with October 7 or Hamas, have been systematically murdered at a rate 100 times that of the October 7 attack. Keep in mind Israel has targeted civilians from day one and used Hamas as a” Collateral excuse” To kill everyone.
Starvation is a tactic that was used Early on, but is now coming to fruition for Israel.
From day, one and through the last 18 months, Israel has turned water off, turned electricity off, killed over 225 reporters in Gaza, over 100 UN workers, killed multiple first responders and ambulance, drivers, doing nothing more than their jobs. Clearly labeled vehicle vehicles and lights on I might add. Bombing schools, mosques, hospitals, and refugee camps. Refugee camps!! Israel used a crude CGI depiction of a tunnel system under hospitals, when investigated found no evidence of Hamas. Oh, and let’s not forget Al Jazeera Offices in Israel, stormed and closed, because no news is good news if you are Israel. Israel would move civilians all over Gaza and bomb them wherever they moved. This has all happened in a territory they own and occupy. The prison warden has taken a flamethrower to the inmates. It already subjugates.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that could, and should have been handled by” Pinpoint” Incursions and strikes. A fact that was painfully obvious when Israel was able to kill a Hamas negotiator in a guest house in Iran. Instead, Israel saw an opportunity to dishonestly call this genocide a war and kill as many civilians as possible, while calling it all” Collateral damage”. A statement that holds no water, considering what the world has witnessed.
“Project Esther”: A policy blueprint to push the US and Israel‘s propaganda war at home. A movement by our friends at the Heritage Foundation To crush the” Pro-Palestinian” Movement in America.
Project Esther Was formed during the Biden administration to survey, silence, and punish pro Palestine activists. Project Ester attempts to frame critics of Israel and pro-Palestine protesters as providing material support for terrorism.
Project Esther Is very explicit in what they are doing. It’s all laid out.”ON LINE “, And it has been for months. No evidence. No charges. Nothing.
This country is being blasted from so many directions with impunitive speed, that it seems impossible to keep up. If we wanna pull ourselves out of this fascist bubble, we have to use the “Premier Event of this century”. That is Gaza. Gaza will hurt us more over the next 100 years than tariffs, Trump, civil rights, and the evasion of the rule of law. Gaza is the catalyst that intertwines all of it.
We can no longer defend the indefensible.
Kennan says
I apologize for all the typos. Sometimes talk to text. Really sucks.
john aiken says
Israel is the problem. In 1948 6% of the population (Jews) took (was given by the western governments) 60% of the land and almost all the water rights of the Palestine land. Jews forced 700,000 palestines off their land, and made Israel. Israelis still steal land today, the West Bank. So much for a two state solution. Israel is a terrorist state, it should be desolved. If you support Israel you support terrorism. I’m no fan of the towel heads but terrorism is terrorism.
BillC says
Israel is a joke always playing the victim card while they engage in genocide.
Pogo says
@DaleL
Well said, well reasoned — as is your way.
Did you vote for Josh Weil, Outreach Coordinator, Islamic Center of Orlando, 2012-present? I did.
Sadly, some didn’t vote at all. Worse still, this is one result of Mr. Weil’s defeat:
God help this world
https://www.google.com/search?q=fine+nuke+gaza
Sherry says
Thank you Kennan. . . excellent comment!
Kennan says
You were doing so well John! Even mentioned The NAKBA, 1948, 3/4 of a million people displaced…… and then you refer to Palestinians as “TOWEL HEADS”. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Hazel the maid says
Not a word about Hamas stealing the food trucks. Two sides to evert story.
Pierre Tristam says
Oh damn! Hamas stealing two shreds and a crumb while Israel starved and ethnic cleanses 2million people. Two sides my Arab ass.
Ray W, says
Hello Mr. Tristam:
Here is an Edward R. Murrow quote:
“I simply cannot accept that there are on every story two equal and logical sides to an argument.”
My take on this issue is that of the three forms of reason that were taught by American university professors in the decades preceding the American Revolution now known in academia as the Scottish Enlightenment, two of the three forms of reason did not accept the concept of two sides to an argument.
By definition, logic is utilized to select the correct outcome to the exclusion of any other outcome, i.e., there cannot be two sides to an argument on an issue after the issue is settled by logic. At logic’s most basic level, five times five is always twenty-five, to the exclusion of any other possible number. Logic, having settled the issue, no longer accepts competing arguments. In this way, both inductive and deductive reasoning is designed to lead one to only one outcome to the exclusion of any other possible outcome and once settled neither form of reasoning accepts competing arguments. Therefore, judges are no longer needed. For nearly 400 years, Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, once proved, have yet to be successfully debated.
Only the third form of reason, that known as legal reasoning, also known as argumentation, accepts the idea of two or more sides to an argument. Argumentation, by definition, is designed to allow one to either choose a good argument over a bad argument, or to choose the best argument among two or more good arguments, or to choose the least bad argument among two or more bad arguments.
Since human beings are prone to select whichever argument they wish to believe on any issue, regardless of the validity of the argument or whether the argument is either good or bad, we need judges to settle these types of disputes. Without judges, people might forever argue the merits of an issue. This is why it is critically important to honor a judge’s ruling or a jury’s verdict, if upheld on direct appeal.
Allow me to provide an example of argumentation.
Some time ago, a commenter posted the argument that America was sitting on enough oil to meet worldwide demand for 300 years. At the time of the comment, American had proven crude oil reserves sufficient to meet worldwide demand for 10 years. One its face, the commenter’s claim lacked validity. If one starts an argument with an invalid claim, he or she always loses the argument, due to the concept of burden of proof. Any proof that undermines the claim is the undoing of the claim.
But there is a difference between proven “reserves” and theoretical “resources.”
In the context of crude oil, a “proven reserve” is oil that has been located that can also be profitably extracted using the technology currently available to exploration companies.
In the context of crude oil, a “resource” is defined as all theoretical deposits of crude oil, regardless of whether they have been found or whether, if already found, the oil can be profitably extracted.
It very well may be that the theoretical maximum quantity of American crude oil “resources”, if eventually found, and if eventually deemed profitably extractable, might meet worldwide demand for the next 300 years. But we haven’t yet found all of the oil hidden away in the cracks and crevices of the depths, perhaps due to limitations in current technology, such as 3D seismic imaging or metallurgical limitations, and even if we did find it, most of our newly found oil “resources” might be in pockets of oil too tiny and existing at such depths that we will never attempt to extract any of it, due to exorbitant costs. No oil company would dream of drilling four miles down into a one-million-barrel pocket of oil for one simple reason. If West Texas Intermediate crude oil continues to sell for the roughly $60 per barrel as it sells for today, no company will spend tens of millions of dollars to drill four miles down just to find out whether it might be able to extract $60 million worth of oil. The risk-reward scenario just doesn’t meet financial muster.
This risk-reward scenario is the big problem with Ukrainian rare earth metals.
Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the technologically limited drilling efforts of the day revealed the existence of rare earths in the Ukraine, but not the concentrations of those rare earths. After the fall of the Soviet Union, limited exploration efforts have occurred, if any. What if the rare earth metals in certain areas of the Ukraine are eventually deemed too insufficiently concentrated to make the mining of them profitable?
Long-time News-Journal readers may remember a Daytona-area company that pitched the idea of profitably processing gold-laden sand dredged from the beaches of a Central American country. Amid claims that gold in large quantities was soon to be harvested, people took a chance and invested their money in the company. It turned out that it took too many tons of sand to extract each ounce of gold and the company folded, costing many their investments. The gold was there amidst the grains of sand. Just not enough of it was there to make it profitable.
There may be huge quantities of rare earth metals hidden in the bowels of war-torn Ukraine. Maybe not. Rare earth metals are in great worldwide demand right now, what with China controlling the majority of the rare earth metal marketplace and with China recently restricting the flow of its refined rare earth metals to the United States. There may come a time when an American president deems the need for rare earth metals a question of national emergency. If so, existing mining regulations and anti-pollution legislation may be set aside until the national emergency passes. This will likely turn out to be an issue for argumentation before neutral and detached magistrates, not one for logicians.