Almost one in three people in Gaza are going days without eating, with 90,000 women and children requiring urgent malnutrition treatment, the World Food Programme has warned.
The agency reports 100% of Gaza’s population faces acute food insecurity levels, whilst 70,000 children need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition. Nine additional malnutrition-related deaths occurred on Friday, bringing the total to 122 since hostilities began in October 2023.
“People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Severe acute malnutrition is surging and almost a third of families miss meals for days at a time,” the WFP stated. “Without immediate care, many more lives will be at grave risk.”
The agency added that “only a massive scale-up in food aid can stabilise the hunger catastrophe engulfing Gaza,” noting that “humanitarian assistance is the only way for people to access any food as market prices have skyrocketed.”
Recent violence targeting aid operations highlighted security challenges facing humanitarian workers. On 20 July, crowds surrounded a 25-truck WFP convoy at the Zikim border carrying food for northern Gaza communities. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire,” the WFP reported. “Shootings near humanitarian missions, convoys and food distributions must stop immediately.”
The WFP declared that “any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable” and stressed that “WFP teams in convoys should not have to risk their own lives while trying to save others.”
The WFP requires US$265 million for Gaza and West Bank operations from March to August 2025 to address the escalating crisis. The organisation called for “a huge humanitarian scale-up” to “calm anxieties and rebuild trust within communities that more food is coming,” emphasising that “the only way forward now is a ceasefire.”
“Humanitarians must be able to reach people with critical food supplies in a consistent, predictable, orderly and safe manner – wherever they are across the Gaza Strip,” the WFP stated, adding: “We have the food, experienced teams on the ground and proven systems in place to respond at scale.”
Germany, France and the UK issued a joint statement Friday demanding Israel “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid” into Gaza. The European powers called for ending the “humanitarian catastrophe” and emphasised Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.
“Withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable,” the statement read.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the Amnesty International global assembly, criticising international “indifference and inaction” and citing over 1,000 Palestinian deaths during food access attempts since 27 May 2024.
A former US security contractor who worked for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation testified to witnessing systematic targeting of civilians at food distribution sites. Anthony Aguilar, a retired soldier, alleged Israeli Defence Forces and US contractors employed “live ammunition, artillery, mortar rounds, and tank fire” against civilian populations.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation dismissed the claims as “categorically false,” describing Aguilar as a “disgruntled former contractor terminated for misconduct.”
Israel launched its war in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed approximately 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages. Over 59,000 people have died in Gaza since then, according to Hamas health ministry figures.
Israel imposed a total aid blockade in March before resuming military operations two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire. The blockade was partially lifted after nearly two months amid famine warnings from international experts.
More than 90% of Gaza’s homes are estimated damaged or destroyed, with most residents displaced multiple times.
Experts, governments, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organisations have accused Israel of carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people.
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