The United Nations has issued a dire warning: Gaza’s bakeries will run out of flour within days.
Food aid has been slashed in half, markets are barren, and many humanitarian workers are unable to move due to Israeli bombardment.
After four weeks of an intensified blockade, hunger grips the enclave’s 2 million residents, casting a shadow over the normally festive Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The Israeli siege, the longest of its 17-month military campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, has severed the flow of food, fuel, and medicine.
Aid workers say they are stretching dwindling supplies but warn of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.
With local food production decimated, Gaza is teetering on the edge of a full-scale famine.
In northern Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, Shorouq Shamlakh clutches a monthly food ration box from a U.N. distribution center. A mother of three, she rations meals to make the supplies last. “If this closes, who else will provide us with food?” she asks.
The World Food Program (WFP) said Thursday that its flour supply can sustain 800,000 people daily until Tuesday.
Within two weeks, all food stocks will be depleted.
As a desperate last measure, emergency rations of fortified biscuits for 415,000 people remain.
Meanwhile, hospitals ration antibiotics and painkillers.
Aid organizations juggle limited fuel supplies between keeping trucks moving, bakeries running, water desalination plants operating, and hospital equipment powered.
“We have to make impossible choices,” said Clemence Lagouardat, Gaza response leader for Oxfam International. “Everything is needed.”
The crisis is compounded by Israel’s renewed military offensive, which resumed on March 18.
Airstrikes have killed hundreds, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.
The U.N. reports strikes on humanitarian facilities and mass displacement, with over 140,000 Palestinians forced to flee once again.
Despite the worsening conditions, Israel has not reinstated coordination mechanisms allowing aid groups to notify the military of their movements for safe passage.
As a result, multiple organizations have suspended life-saving programs, including water deliveries and nutrition aid for malnourished children.
Aid groups fear venturing out without protection from bombardment.
COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing aid coordination, claims these procedures were halted during the recent cease-fire and are now implemented selectively “based on operational assessments.”
However, aid workers on the ground say the system remains largely dysfunctional.
Fresh produce has all but disappeared from Gaza’s markets.
Meat, chicken, eggs, and dairy products are nonexistent.
Prices for whatever remains have soared beyond reach for most residents – two pounds of onions now cost $14, while tomatoes go for $6 per kilo.
Cooking gas prices have surged 30-fold, forcing families to burn wood for cooking.
"It’s totally insane,” said Abeer al-Aker, a Gaza City teacher and mother of three. “No food, no services... I believe the famine has already started.”
At a Jabaliya distribution center, Rema Megat sorts through her family’s ration box: rice, lentils, a few cans of sardines, a half-kilo of sugar, and powdered milk. “It’s not enough to last a month,” she says. “This kilo of rice will be used up in one go.”
The U.N. has halved food rations to redirect resources to bakeries and free kitchens serving prepared meals, said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA. While meal production has increased 25% to 940,000 portions daily, the strategy burns through food stocks faster.
"Once flour runs out, bread production in large parts of Gaza will stop,” said Gavin Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council. The U.N.’s main Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, has only a few thousand food parcels and enough flour for a few more days, warned Sam Rose, its acting Gaza director.
Gaza Soup Kitchen, a crucial provider of free meals, struggles with dwindling ingredients.
“We can’t get any meat or fresh vegetables,” said co-founder Hani Almadhoun. “There are more people showing up, and they’re more desperate. They’re fighting for food.”
The U.S. previously pressured Israel to allow aid into Gaza after a two-week blockade in October 2023.
This time, Washington has supported Israel’s strategy.
Rights groups call the siege a "starvation policy" that could constitute a war crime.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar insisted Monday that Israel is acting within international law.
He accused Hamas of diverting aid and suggested Israel is not obligated to supply goods.
He gave no indication that the blockade would be lifted, arguing that Gaza had enough provisions from previous cease-fire shipments.
Save the Children has suspended critical nutrition programs for malnourished children, citing an inability to coordinate safe movement with Israeli forces. “We expect an increase in malnutrition rates – not just among children but also adolescent girls and pregnant women,” said Rachael Cummings, the group’s humanitarian response leader in Gaza.
During the cease-fire, Save the Children helped rehabilitate 4,000 malnourished children.
Now, their Deir al-Balah clinic sees as many as 300 malnourished children daily – on some days, none at all, as families fear leaving their homes amid bombings.
The interlinked crises of hunger, disease, and displacement continue to deepen.
Malnourished children are more vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea, and other illnesses.
Crowded conditions and a lack of clean water fuel the spread of disease.
Hospitals, already overwhelmed by war casualties, cannot divert limited resources to other medical needs.
Even aid workers are losing hope. “The world has lost its compass,” said UNRWA’s Rose. “No matter what happens here, it never seems to be enough for the world to say, ‘This is enough.’”
