Still starving in Gaza
FOR Abdelhalim Awad, who runs a bakery in the central Gaza Strip, the hope of food arriving for hungry Palestinians was like the endless reports of an approaching ceasefire: constantly rumoured to be just around the corner yet always out of reach.
Weeks after Israel announced that it would ease its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, little of the desperately needed food, fuel, and medicine has reached hungry Palestinians.
Dozens of trucks ferrying supplies have crossed into Gaza at the Israeli-controlled border crossing of Kerem Shalom, according to Israel. But they were only be a dent in the daily hunger that has become widespread in Gaza under the Israeli blockade.
'Even if we get some flour today, it seems we won't have anything close to what's needed to feed people,' Awad said.
In the meantime, Palestinians reeling from Israel's almost three-month ban on food, fuel, and other supplies have been left waiting.
'Today we will mostly eat lentils or pasta,' Riyadh al-Housari, a 25-year-old in Gaza City, said in a phone interview. 'We eat one meal in the late afternoon. It is one meal, and there is no other.'
Israel's blockade has rendered the situation so dire that Palestinians in Gaza are at 'critical risk of famine', a panel of United Nations-backed experts said in May. They projected that tens of thousands of children could suffer from acute malnutrition if the restrictions continue. Israel argued the report was based on faulty data and assumptions.
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has ignited growing international opprobrium against the Israeli campaign against Hamas. Even Israel's allies – which offered vigorous support after the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, attacks started the war – have voiced frustration and even anger over the conflict and its cost to ordinary Palestinians.
Last month, Britain, France, and Canada denounced the Israeli blockade and planned ground offensive in unusually stark and harsh terms, labelling them 'disproportionate' and 'egregious'. The British government said it was suspending negotiations on expanding the countries' free-trade agreement in protest.
The newly anointed pope, Leo XIV, has also joined the chorus calling for aid to be allowed into the Gaza Strip. He described the situation as 'increasingly worrying and painful' and urged 'the entry of dignified humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities'.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the international criticism and reiterated his threat of a huge escalation of the war in Gaza. He described the coming ground offensive as the final and decisive blow against Hamas, adding that by the end of it, 'all of Gaza's territory will be under Israeli security control'.
The Israeli ban on humanitarian aid began in early March, as the initial phase of a two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended. Both sides were supposed to be negotiating the next steps in the truce. Israeli officials argued the restrictions aimed to pressure Hamas to compromise.
The impact on ordinary people in Gaza is immense: Aid organisations suspended their operations as food stockpiles dwindled, and the price of food skyrocketed. In late March, Israel ended the truce with a massive bombardment and resumed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
By May, relief officials were warning that widespread hunger had become a daily reality. But for weeks, Israel refused to allow aid agencies to resume operations unless they agreed to new Israeli conditions, purportedly to prevent supplies from falling into Hamas' hands.
Israeli leaders publicly insisted that Gaza still had plentiful stockpiles of food. But behind closed doors, some military officials privately concluded that Palesti-nians there could face starvation within weeks.
Even the United States – one of Israel's most stalwart supporters throughout the conflict – began suggesting that the humanitarian crisis was spiralling out of control. Even US President Donald Trump said that 'a lot of people are starving' in the Gaza Strip and that the United States was working to alleviate the situation.
After those comments by Trump, Israeli authorities relented, announcing that they would begin allowing in small amounts of food.
On June 4, however, US vetoed a United Nations security council resolution calling for an 'immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire' in Gaza while the 14 remaining countries on the council voted in favour.
Meanwhile, the US backed Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has paused food distribution after soldiers opened fire on Palestinians trying to get some of the aid.
With new aid slow to arrive, many in Gaza are trying to make whatever provisions they have last as long as possible.
'We don't plan meals anymore,' said Sabah Abu al-Roos, 63, in the central city of Deir al-Balah. 'We just work with whatever we can find.'
Produce like eggplants and tomatoes is often hawked at eye-watering prices, according to several Palestinians.
Iman Jundiyeh, a mother of four in Gaza City, said she could only dream of the regular meals she used to enjoy before the war: fragrant sliced lamb; chicken, potatoes and rice; and maftoul, a kind of Palestinian couscous.
She now relies almost exclusively on soup kitchens run by charities that still manage to stew pots of lentils and other staples for crowds of displaced Palestinians. Everything else is either unavailable or too expensive, she said.
'Just yesterday, my son begged me for watermelon,' Jundiyeh said. 'I started to cry with him.' – 2025 The New York Times Company
This article was first published on The New York Times.
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