- Malnutrition has killed 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, amid aid shortages
- Israel denies blocking aid, accuses Hamas of stealing food
- UNRWA staff fainting from hunger, hospitals overwhelmed by casualties
CAIRO/GAZA, July 22 (AfrikTimes) – Six-week-old Yousef’s lifeless body lay limp on a hospital table in Gaza City, his skin stretched over protruding ribs and a bandage where a drip had been inserted into his tiny arm. Doctors said the cause of death was starvation.
He was among 15 people to starve to death in the last 24 hours in Gaza, according to doctors who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the enclave for months is now finally crashing down. Yousef’s family couldn’t find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi.
“You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do, it’s $100 for a single tub,” he said, standing over his nephew’s body.
Three of the other Palestinians who died of hunger over the last day were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in airstrikes, shelling and shooting since launching their assault on Gaza in response to attacks on Israel by the Hamas group that killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in October 2023.
Adham carries the body of his nephew, six-week-old infant Yousef al-Safadi, who died of starvation according to health officials, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City July 22, 2025.
For the first time since the war began, Palestinian officials say dozens of people are now dying of hunger. Gaza’s food stocks were depleted after Israel halted all supplies in March. Though the blockade was eased in May, new restrictions were imposed, which Israel says are intended to prevent humanitarian aid from being diverted to militant groups.
At least 101 people are known to have died of hunger during the conflict, according to Palestinian officials, including 80 children, most of them in just the last few weeks. Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, denies that it is responsible for shortages of food. Israel’s military said that it “views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance”, and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community. It has blamed the United Nations for failing to protect aid it says is stolen by Hamas and other militants. The fighters deny the allegations.
Since the end of May, the Israeli army has killed more than 350 unarmed Gazans desperately walking or running to food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
More than 800 people have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in mass shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near distribution centers of a new, U.S.-backed aid organization. The United Nations has rejected this system as inherently unsafe, and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles needed to ensure that distribution succeeds. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million residents of the Palestinian enclave a “horror show”.
“We are witnessing the collapse of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council. “That system is being denied the conditions necessary to function.”
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which provided aid to hundreds of thousands of Gazans during the first year of the war, said its supplies are now exhausted and some of its own staff are starving.
“Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,” its director Jan Egeland told reporters. “Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyze our work,” he said.
The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said Tuesday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, are fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that images of civilians killed during the distribution of aid were “unbearable” and urged Israel to deliver on pledges to improve the situation.
Palestinians gather to receive food from a Charity Kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 22, 2025.
FOOD AND MEDICINE SHORTAGES
On Tuesday, men and boys in Gaza City carried sacks of flour past destroyed buildings and tarpaulin shelters, scrambling to retrieve what little food remained in aid warehouses.
“We haven’t eaten for five days,” said Mohammed Jundia.
Israeli military statistics showed on Tuesday that an average of 146 trucks of aid per day had entered Gaza over the course of the war. The United States has said a minimum of 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza’s population
“Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can’t provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,” said Khalil al-Deqran, a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry.
Deqran added that approximately 600,000 people are suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. He noted that common symptoms include dehydration and anemia.
Baby formula is in critically short supply, according to aid agencies, doctors, and residents.
The Health Ministry reported that at least 72 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli gunfire and military strikes, including 16 people living in tents in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of any strikes or artillery activity in that area at the time.
Palestinian children fill containers with water in Jabalya, in northern Gaza, on June 3. The UN says at least 67% of water and sanitation facilities in the ravaged territory have been destroyed or damaged.
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