The Age/Najib Jobain, Jack Jeffery and Colleen Barr
Rafah, Gaza Strip: More than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – are starving, according to a new report by the United Nations and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ October 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 warns 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 UN’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 October 7 rampage and hostage-taking in Israel has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians. Some 1.9 million Gaza residents – more than 80 per cent of the population – have been driven from their homes, and many of them are crammed into UN shelters and camps.
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 Organisation. 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, but with Gaza’s internet and other communications cut off for a second straight day, details on the latest violence could not be confirmed.
UN 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 US to support it or allow it to pass after it vetoed an earlier ceasefire call.
The report from the UN underscored the failure of weeks of US 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 US pressure, it allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt. But UN agencies say only 10 per cent of Gaza’s food needs has been entering for weeks.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog blamed the United Nations for the small amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. He said three times as much could get in “if the UN, instead of complaining all day, would do its job”.
This week, Israel began allowing aid to enter Gaza through its Kerem Shalom crossing. But a blast on Thursday morning hit the Palestinian side of the crossing, forcing the UN to stop its collections of aid there, according to Juliette Touma, spokesperson of UNRWA, the UN 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.
Palestinians unload wheat sacks from a humanitarian aid truck into a grocery store under guard by Hamas fighters in Rafah on Tuesday.
Delivery of aid to much of the Gaza Strip has become difficult or impossible due to continued fighting, UN officials have said.
The report released on Thursday (Friday AEDT) by 23 UN and nongovernmental agencies found that the entire population in Gaza was 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.
Israel has vowed to continue the offensive until it destroys Hamas’ military capabilities and returns scores of hostages captured by Palestinian militants during their October 7 rampage. Hamas and other militants killed some 1200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured about 240 others.
Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at central Israel on Thursday, showing its military capabilities remain formidable. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
The US has continued to support Israel’s campaign while also urging greater efforts to protect civilians. It wants Israel to shift to more targeted operations aimed at Hamas leaders and the group’s tunnel network.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.
On Wednesday, the WHO delivered supplies to Ahli and Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have demolished vast swaths of the city while fighting Hamas militants.
Israeli forces have raided a series of health facilities in the north in recent weeks, detaining men for interrogation and expelling others. In some facilities, patients who are unable to be moved remain, along with skeleton staff who can do little beyond first aid, according to UN and health officials.
Ahli Hospital is “a place where people are waiting to die,” said Sean Casey, a member of the WHO team that visited the two hospitals on Wednesday. Five remaining doctors and five nurses along with around 80 patients remain in Ahli, he said.
All the hospital buildings are damaged except two buildings where patients are now being kept – the orthopedics ward and a church on the grounds, he said.