An international group of experts said in late July that famine thresholds had been reached across much of Gaza. Health officials there say scores of people have died from malnutrition, including dozens of children, though aid workers say that is probably an undercount.
Gaza reached that point after Israel escalated its prior siege of the territory to block virtually all aid from March to May, aiming to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages still in Gaza. When Israel allowed aid back in, it did so mostly under a contentious new aid delivery system that resulted in the killings of hundreds of Palestinians and kept all but the strongest and luckiest from getting food.
Aid workers say that number could potentially climb to the tens or hundreds of thousands without a rapid surge in aid.
To have a real impact, aid agencies say Israel needs to allow in the hundreds of thousands of pallets of aid languishing outside Gaza — enough to cover around 100 soccer fields, they say — and help ensure that the aid can be distributed safely. Letting in small numbers of trucks and airdropping supplies is little more than a public relations stunt, aid officials contend.
“We’re talking about two million people. It’s not 100 trucks or a pausing or a few hours of calm that is going to meet the needs of a population that has been starved for months,” Ms. Khalidi said. “Starvation has a long-term impact, and it affects growth of children, and it’s not something that you can reverse by throwing energy bars from the sky.”
It is too late to reverse developmental and cognitive harm to young children who have been malnourished for months, experts say.
“The damage is already done, and that’s going to be a lifelong impact for a lot of people,” said Beckie Ryan, the Gaza response director for CARE. “What we can do is mitigate that going forward and stop it getting worse. But it does require a huge amount of supplies and aid to be able to come in as soon as possible.”
Weakened by months of extreme deprivation, people have few defenses left to stop illnesses as ordinary as diarrhea from killing them.
And those diseases are rampant. The number of people with acute watery diarrhea increased by 150 percent from March to June, and those with bloody diarrhea by 302 percent, health data from aid agencies shows. Those figures, which include only people who can reach medical centers, are most likely an undercount, according to Oxfam.
Staving off famine therefore depends not only on food, but also on fuel to run hospitals, cooking gas to make meals and clean water and sanitation to keep waterborne diseases in check — all of which are absent or nearly absent from Gaza, aid workers say.
Aid agencies have received 200 to 300 trucks in Gaza each day for the past several days, the Israeli agency coordinating aid said. They mainly carried flour along with prepared meals, infant formula, high-energy biscuits, diapers, vaccines and fuel, the United Nations said. Before the war, Gaza received 500 to 600 trucks a day of aid and goods for sale.
The flour provides calories, but will not save those who are severely malnourished after nearly two years of deprivation, aid workers say. Malnourished people need specialized feeding and care. Yet hospitals have few supplies left.
Israel says that the level of hunger has been exaggerated and that it is doing its best to lessen it. Israel’s military spokesman has said there is no starvation in Gaza. The Israeli agency coordinating aid for Gaza did not respond to a request for comment.
The death toll from the war has passed 60,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.