Gaza is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. United Nations (UN) agencies and aid monitors warn that the entire population of 2.1 million Gazans now faces acute food insecurity classified in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) or above, and nearly 470,000 face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) category. Due to this extreme food shortage, many families subsist on one or two small meals per day. Simultaneously, over 116,000 metric tons of food assistance– which is enough to feed one million people for up to four months– remain stalled at Gaza’s borders.
Gaza’s hunger crisis is rooted in war. After Hamas’s October 7 cross-border attack, Israel launched a military invasion, leaving over 56,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis dead. The Israeli campaign left less than 5% of Gazan cropland available for cultivation, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization as of April 2025. In addition, a blockade imposed by Israel has severely restricted access to vital supplies, including food and fuel, in Gaza. Though some aid is now allowed into Gaza, international groups continue to call for greater access.
Currently, most food relief is now funneled through a few heavily guarded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) hubs. Since the introduction of the Israel and US-backed GHF as the primary aid distributor, replacing most of the United Nations’ operations, the act of seeking food has become increasingly dangerous. Unlike neutral humanitarian actors, GHF operates through a handful of distribution hubs that are heavily guarded by Israeli troops and located near areas of ongoing conflict. Following the start of GHF’s operation, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reports that over 410 Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 have been injured by the Israeli military trying to reach distribution points. The OHCHR explained that Palestinians face the choice of either starving or risking their lives to obtain food.
On June 1, a sixty-bed Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received 179 patients–all stating they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site. In the following two weeks, that hospital declared twelve mass-casualty incidents, treating 933 cases. The majority of those patients said they had been injured while trying to reach aid hubs, and Palestinians have said Israeli troops repeatedly open fire on crowds trying to reach distribution sites run by the GHF. UN officials have bluntly called these distribution hubs “death traps,” and Israeli soldiers told the news outlet Haaretz they have become “a killing field.”
The OHCHR added that “Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution. It endangers civilians and contributes to the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
The International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants for several Israeli officials, citing accusations that civilian access to food and aid has been deliberately obstructed. In a letter sent to GHF and the affiliated Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions in late June, fifteen human rights and humanitarian groups urged them to cease their operations or face legal consequences. The letter warns that private contractors working alongside the Israeli government to distribute aid may risk “aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in” war crimes under international law.
Ultimately, the crisis in Gaza is not the result of limited food supplies, but the deliberate denial of access. Humanitarian groups argue that aid must be distributed more safely, more widely, and in a way that is free from political or military interference. Doctors are treating hundreds of gunshot wounds in food lines, and children are dying of hunger while hundreds of thousands of tons of aid trucks are stalled at the borders of Gaza. With hundreds injured and killed trying to access food and many more going hungry while supplies wait at the border, the humanitarian toll continues to grow.