After 18 months of punishment, attacks and increasingly stringent siege in Gaza, on 20 May 2025, the United Nations issued one of the most urgent warnings about the ongoing humanitarian crisis: an estimated 14,000 infants are at risk of death over the next 48 hours, with no direct assistance, especially food, especially food.

The assessment comes the day after Israel imposed a nearly three-month total lockdown on March 2, when it returned to Gaza the first aid to aid. But on the first day of recovery, the United Nations Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs reported that only 500 vehicles needed nine trucks to enter Gaza every day, about 500. The United Nations calls it “a drop in the ocean of desperate need.”

As an expert in Palestinian public health, I and others have long warned that Israel’s military response to Israel’s attack on Hamas has had devastating humanitarian consequences in light of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s history of controlling humanitarians to the territory. Many of these worst humanitarian predictions are now a reality.

Israeli control of food and aid in Gaza has been a stable theme for the past 18 months. Indeed, just two weeks after the start of a massive Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip in the second half of 2023, Oxfam International reported that only about 2% of the usual food was delivered to residents of the territory and warned against “using hunger as a weapon of war.”

However, the delivery of aid is still inconsistent, much less than the aid required by the population, and ultimately, in a terrible warning by UN experts in early May, “annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza” was possible without immediately ending the violence.

"Diet" Palestinians

An estimated 53,000 Palestinians were killed and about 120,000 were injured in the conflict. Hunger can ask for more.

In the wider destruction of life and infrastructure, there is now little food system that can be spoken in Gaza.

Since October 2023, Israeli bombs have damaged houses, bakeries, grain production plants and grocery stores, making it harder for the Gaza people to offset the impact of reducing food imports.

But despite the worsening situation in the past 18 months, the food insecurity in Gaza and the mechanisms that enabled it to begin did not begin with Israel's response to the October 7 attack on Hamas.

A 2022 UN report found that 65% of Gaza in Gaza are unsafe and are defined as not being able to obtain sufficient safe and nutritious food regularly.

Several factors have led to this still food insecurity, especially the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel and the Gaza imposed by Egypt since 2007. All items entering the Gaza Strip (including food) are subject to Israeli inspection, delay or rejection.

Basic food is allowed, but due to border delays, it may be destroyed before entering Gaza.

A 2009 investigation conducted by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz found that the use of foods with cherries, kiwis, almonds, pomegranates and chocolate was completely banned.

At some point, Israel claimed it was an inevitable security measure lockdown that had been loosened to allow more food to be imported. For example, in 2010, Israel began to allow potato chips, juices, Coca-Cola and biscuits.

Through restrictions on imports of imported food, Israel claims to be trying to put pressure on Hamas by making life difficult for the people of Gaza. "The idea is to let Palestinians go on a diet, but don't let them die of hunger," an Israeli government adviser said in 2006.

To achieve this, the Israeli government commissioned a 2008 study to determine exactly how many calories Palestinians need to avoid malnutrition. The report was released to the public only after the legal battle in 2012. In the Israeli decision in May 2025, the echo of this sentiment can be seen, allowing only "basic food" to arrive in Gaza to ensure "no hunger crisis."

The prolonged lockdown also increases food insecurity by preventing meaningful development of Gaza's economy.

The United Nations cites the “overproduction and transaction costs and trade barriers with the rest of the world” imposed by Israel as the main reason for the severe underdevelopment of occupied areas, including Gaza. As a result, by the end of 2022, the unemployment rate in Gaza was about 50%. This combined with the steady rise in food costs has made it difficult for many Gaza families to provide food-dependent assistance, which has caused them to fluctuate frequently.

Obstructing self-sufficiency

More generally, blockades and multiple rounds of destruction in the Gaza Strip have made food sovereignty in the territory nearly impossible.

Even before the latest wars, Gaza fishermen were often shot by Israeli gunboats, if their adventures in the Mediterranean were farther than what Israel allowed. Since 2017, the average income of Gaza fishermen has dropped by half due to smaller and fewer fish near the coast.

Due to Israel's operations in October 2023, most of the farmland in Gaza is unable to access Palestinians.

Sufficient infrastructure required for food production - greenhouses, arable land, orchards, livestock and food production facilities - has been damaged or severely damaged. International donors are reluctant to rebuild facilities, knowing they can’t guarantee their investment will last for more than a few years before being bombed again.

The latest siege will only further undermine Gaza’s ability to be self-sufficient. By May 2025, nearly 75% of the farmland will be destroyed and a large amount of livestock will be large. Less than one-third of the agricultural wells used for irrigation are still valid.

Hunger as a weapon of war

Under the Geneva Convention, hunger is strictly prohibited as a weapon, which is a set of regulations that rule the laws of war. UN resolution 2417 condemned hunger, which condemned the use of poverty and deprivation of basic needs of civilians and forced political parties to ensure full humanitarian opportunities in conflict.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon of war, Amnesty International called the latest evidence of siege for genocide intentions.

The Israeli government, in turn, continues to accuse Hamas of any loss of life in Gaza and increasingly makes clear the goal of Palestinians leaving Gaza altogether.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly stated that Israel now allows aid simply because allies put pressure on the "image of mass famine." This position shows that Israel will not soon provide assistance beyond what his administration thinks is acceptable.

Although there is more evidence than ever that Israel uses food as a weapon of war, I believe there is enough evidence to suggest that this is the reality before October 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, the impact on Palestinians in Gaza has never been more terrible.

The World Health Organization has estimated that 57 children have died of malnutrition starting from March 2, 2025.

There will definitely be more deaths. On May 12, the Integrated Food Security Stage Classification, a global system designed to track food insecurity, released a shocking report on the forecast for food insecurity in Gaza.

It warns that by September 2025, 500,000 people in Gaza (one fifth of them) will face hunger and the entire population will experience acute food insecurity at crisis levels, or worse.

Editor's Note: Some parts of the story were originally included in an article published on February 15, 2024 in The Talk.