GAZA CITY — At least 266 Palestinians, including 112 children, have died from starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, as Israel continues to block humanitarian aid from entering the enclave, amid warnings that children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, three adults have died in the past 24 hours due to severe starvation, malnutrition, and a lack of medication.
On Monday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that as of July 2025, more than 320,000 children – the entire population under the age of five in Gaza – are at risk of acute malnutrition.
Families are surviving on the bare minimum of basic foods, with almost no dietary diversity, WFP said. The agency called for an immediate ceasefire to allow large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson of United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, also warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “beyond catastrophic”.
“Hunger-related deaths continue to be reported, including among children,” Dujarric told reporters.
He cited UN agencies as saying that the amounts of food entering Gaza are insufficient to meet the needs of the population amid the Israeli blockade.
Dujarric stressed that in order to prevent hunger-related deaths, “humanitarians must be able to deliver food at scale and consistently through all available crossings and routes to reach the population of 2.1 million people”.
According to a warning issued lately by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza.
“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC warning said.
“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.”
“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
“Malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July,” the IPC said.
“Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished. Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children under five years of age, with at least 16 reported deaths since 17 July.”
The IPC called for immediate action to end the siege and allow for unimpeded access to humanitarian aid.
The last IPC analysis on Gaza, issued on May 12, forecast that the entire population would likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of September, with 469,500 people projected to likely hit “catastrophic” levels.
According to the monitor’s classification system, there are five phases of acute food insecurity, the worst is Phase 5, where a catastrophic level of hunger is detected among households. In that phase, the IPC relies on three metrics: 20 percent of households in an area suffer an extreme lack of food resulting in critical levels of acute malnutrition and death, acute malnutrition among children under five reaches 30 percent, and at least two deaths per 10,000 people per day are recorded.
On Monday, Amnesty International accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza.
In a report quoting displaced Palestinians and medical staff who have treated malnourished children, Amnesty said: “Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip.”
The group accused Israel of “systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life”.
“It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction – which is part and parcel of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty said.
Over 100 humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and Oxfam, warned that “mass starvation” is spreading across Gaza, with their colleagues in the enclave wasting away from hunger as Israel continues to block the entry of aid for more than four months.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Gaza City has been the area “worst-hit” by malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, with nearly one in five children under five there now acutely malnourished.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are “on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” with one in three people in the enclave going days without food.
Health officials in Gaza issued a stark warning lately: Hundreds of severely emaciated Palestinians are on the verge of death, their bodies too weak to resist any longer.
The Director of Al-Shifa Hospital said hospitals are dealing with hundreds suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition. “We don’t have enough beds or medicine,” he said. “We’re seeing symptoms like memory loss, exhaustion, and collapse from extreme hunger.”
He added: “We have 17,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition. This is a generation being starved to death.”
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 650,000 children under the age of five face an imminent and severe risk of acute malnutrition in the coming weeks, out of a total of 1.1 million children in the Gaza Strip.
Currently, around 1.25 million people in Gaza are living under catastrophic hunger conditions, while 96% of the population is suffering from severe levels of food insecurity, including more than one million children, according to the Office.
UNRWA warned, “The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in Gaza. Among them are 1 million children.”
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned that Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.
“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.
On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the GHF, a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques. They have also said the model would increase forced displacement in Gaza.
Moreover, mass killings of aid seekers near and at GHF aid sites have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are targeted by Israeli forces and American mercenaries.
Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death traps” and “slaughterhouses”.
In July 27, the Israeli military announced a “tactical pause” in military activity in some areas of Gaza which it claimed would make it easier to send in UN convoys.
However, attacks and killings have been reported across most of the Strip. This came following widespread condemnations, pressure and warnings.
A UN worker said the “last minute” aid windows may not be enough to treat malnourished children.
The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.
However, Israel has deliberately engineered famine and chaos in Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said on Monday, as most of the aid trucks that entered Gaza were looted in a “systematic disorder fostered by the Israeli occupation”.
“What is happening in Gaza is a clear and deliberate model of how the Israeli occupation is consciously fostering chaos and engineering starvation,” the Media Office said, adding that aid is being intentionally prevented from reaching warehouses or intended recipients.
The WFP said it is not getting the necessary volumes of humanitarian assistance into Gaza despite Israel issuing new measures to enable more supplies to enter the enclave.
“We have not gotten the authorisation, the permission to move in the volumes that we’ve requested,” Ross Smith, a senior regional programme adviser at the WFP’s Regional Bureau for East and Central Africa, said.
Ross said the disaster unfolding in Gaza is “unlike anything we have seen in this century”, adding that it was reminiscent of famines seen in Ethiopia and Biafra, Nigeria, in the 20th century.
C. QNN
