Gaza Faces Worsening Famine as Israel Tightens Blockade and Denies Humanitarian Crisis

Every individual in the Gaza Strip, without exception, has endured severe food shortages. Although it may have appeared otherwise at times in recent months, all people are human beings. The daily struggle of Gaza’s residents to secure food is awakening the conscience of an increasing number of individuals who had previously remained silent throughout Israel's ongoing actions.

A Worsening Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza

Since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18 and imposed its blockade, 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza have been cut off from essential food and aid. With food increasingly scarce, much of the population relies on tekia, communal kitchens providing a single daily meal, often limited to lentils, pasta or rice. Due to Israeli restrictions on food and cooking gas, implemented in early March, these facilities have had to reduce portions.

Following the resumption of bombardments, the humanitarian situation has drastically worsened, leading to the closure of numerous communal kitchens.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), many bakeries subsidized by the World Food Program have also ceased operations due to a lack of supplies. Furthermore, several tekia have been directly hit by attacks; Gaza’s government press office reported the bombing of dozens of these facilities since the conflict began.

With the recent announcement by the World Food Program and UNRWA that their flour and food stocks are depleted, the risk of widespread famine grows daily.

Palestinians are trying to resist this famine by any means. The more fortunate families manage to grind pasta and lentils to prepare improvised bread for their hungry children once their flour runs out. In this way, they have something to eat, but for them, lentil bread is not a choice. It is the last resort in a starvation diet imposed by the Israeli occupation.

Insufficient Aid and Punitive Israeli Policies

On Monday, May 19, Israel allowed a minimal number of humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. These were the first aid deliveries after more than two months of a complete blockade imposed by the military in the territory. The United Nations called this a "welcome development" but stressed, as anyone could easily understand, that it was a negligible amount compared to the needs of the Palestinian population, exhausted by a year and a half of war.

It is evident, then, that Israel’s deliberate policy of starvation continues, albeit subtly, to strengthen its grip on the enclave. This occurs despite humanitarian organizations repeatedly raising the alarm, warning that Gaza is on the brink of widespread famine.

For this reason, videos of desperate people with empty plates remain a daily sight, filling mobile devices. Every day, footage circulates of individuals queuing, scrambling and children crying to receive a small meal. Such heartbreaking scenes constitute undeniable proof of Israel’s weaponization of hunger.

The Weaponization of Hunger and Israeli Disinformation

Despite the obvious severity of the situation and repeated pressure from the international community, corroborated by specific studies like one from late December 2024 documenting how Gaza residents have lost an average of 18 kilograms due to extreme food insecurity during the conflict, Israeli authorities persist in denying the reality. The Israeli government has rejected criticism by asserting the absence of famine in the enclave and emphasizing how repeated warnings issued by humanitarian organizations have not materialized. This stance appears particularly cynical given the numerous patently false statements released by government officials.

One example occurred on July 24, 2024, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his address to the United States Congress, categorically denied any Israeli responsibility in hindering humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Despite his speech being riddled with misleading claims, it received applause from American lawmakers who chose to ignore the severe humanitarian crisis unfolding.

If the Israeli claims were true, it would be difficult to explain why numerous Gaza residents have resorted to consuming all sorts of animals, such as sea turtles, horses and hedgehogs, in a desperate attempt to obtain necessary protein for survival. Among these, Al Jazeera has reported the consumption of sea turtles, while The Intercept has documented instances of people turning to sea urchins and horses.

Faced with these images, every denial vanishes. Videos depicting Palestinians butchering sea turtles, families slaughtering horses and men roasting hedgehogs over coals are not scenes from a dystopian movie, but the last desperate act of resistance from a people Israel is deliberately starving.

The evidence of famine appears undeniable, making it particularly unsettling that numerous Israeli supporters have decided to engage in massive hasbara, or propaganda, campaigns aimed at denying the tragic reality afflicting Gaza. Such attempts at obfuscation continue despite repeated warnings from international bodies regarding imminent famine and widely available visual documentation.

On April 20, for example, an X account known for disseminating pro-Israel propaganda shared a video depicting a man on a Gaza beach, presented as an example of a citizen enjoying a luxurious kebab meal despite the crisis. The narrative deliberately omitted a crucial detail: The individual was eating horse meat, a last-resort food source in the absence of alternatives.

During the initial hours when some humanitarian aid timidly resumed entering the Gaza Strip, the BBC reported a United Nations statement that, despite some trucks crossing the border after an 11-week total blockade, no aid had actually been distributed to the population. The article also included remarks from Tom Fletcher, a senior U.N. humanitarian official, who warned that thousands of children in Gaza risked dying if Israel continued to obstruct aid access.

An X user distorted the meaning of these statements, claiming that the BBC had spread “fake news” about the alleged imminent death of 14,000 children. In reality, the U.N.’s warning was not an apocalyptic assertion, but a projection based on epidemiological data and the real conditions of famine in Gaza. The user then instrumentally compared this legitimate humanitarian denunciation to the Al-Ahli hospital explosion in 2023, a tragically real event that killed dozens of civilians fleeing bombardments.

Not content with his defamatory campaign against the BBC, the same user also targeted NBC, accusing it of spreading fake news for reporting the same alarming humanitarian scenarios regarding Gaza’s children. The American network, in the same article, had reported a particularly shocking statement from a former Israeli general who openly denounced that the Israeli government was treating the killing of children in Gaza as “a pastime.”

Through similar media operations, the children of Gaza continue to die twice: in the reality of the genocide and in the battle for truth that should at least guarantee them justice in collective memory. Every attack on media documenting this tragedy only aggravates this double violence, while the international community struggles to find the words — and especially the actions — to stop what increasingly appears to be a foretold massacre.

Behind the efforts of individual users lies a broader, more organized system. Numerous organizations linked in various ways to the Israeli government have conducted a systematic campaign to spread false information about the famine in Gaza. Prominent among these is HonestReporting, an Israeli propaganda group that, under the guise of an independent media watchdog, primarily dedicates itself to denouncing alleged anti-Israeli bias in international media. This group has made denying the Gaza famine one of its main objectives, actively working to dismantle evidence of the food crisis and attack the credibility of experts and humanitarian organizations.

Faced with human suffering, every justification crumbles, leaving only the raw truth of pain. Malicious insinuations not only betray this reality but also obscure its most tragic core, particularly concerning the plight of children, whose fragility intensifies under the weight of famine. Their bodies, deprived of essential sustenance, rapidly and cruelly give way, while the statistics from humanitarian organizations transform numbers into stories of difficult survival. Gaza today is the theater of methodical agony, where hunger becomes a weapon, inflicted without proclamations or fanfare — only the slow dissolution of existences in a complicit silence.

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