Palestinians in Gaza are on the hunger crisis and are eager to help.
However, despite Israel officially forgiving and publicly saying that trucks will be able to enter Gaza after more than two months of lockdown, only five aid trucks have actually entered the territory as of Tuesday night.
And even those trucks in Gaza are prevented from distributing their internal aid, according to Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the Humanitarian Workers’ Council for Humanitarian Workers (OCHA).
Before Israel’s war with Gaza, the population of the Gaza Strip, which is more than 2 million, was on the brink of hunger, many aid agencies said. Despite enormous humanitarian costs, the siege of the Israeli strip continues. Israel says 93 trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, but even if that was true and aid was distributed, it still represents about 20% of the territory’s daily prewar needs.
How hopeless is Gaza’s humanitarian crisis?
After an 11-week unrelenting siege, the situation within Gaza has been reported to be desperate by many agencies.
Half a million people, or one in five Palestinians, face starvation. The rest of the population suffers from high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the United Nations Integrated Food Security Stage (IPC).
Since yesterday, several trucks of delivery aid have been able to enter #Gaza, but @UnreliefChief says it’s a “sea of the sea of things that need it.”
– un news (@un_news_centre) May 21, 2025
“The risk of hunger in the Gaza Strip is not possible, it is increasingly likely,” the IPC warned that official hunger could be declared as a direct result of Israel’s actions at any point from now until September.
Officially, hunger occurs when at least 20% (one fifth) of households are facing extreme food shortages. Over 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition. And at least two in 10,000 people, or four out of 10,000 children die daily from hunger-related causes.
The term hunger refers to more than just hunger. This refers to one of the worst possible humanitarian emergencies, indicating the complete collapse of access to food, water, and systems needed to support life.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week that at least 57 children have died from the effects of malnutrition since the full Israeli lockdown began on March 2.
How did the international community respond to the siege of Israel?
Gaza Emergency Coordinator for Boundaryless Doctors – MSF, known for French initials – Pascalé Koisard, described the aid granted to Gaza as “risquély insufficient.” The organisation said Israel is simply allowing food and medicines to Gaza, saying that “the smokescreen to pretend to be a siege has ended.”
“The decision by Israeli authorities to grant Gaza incredibly inadequate assistance to Gaza for months to avoid accusations of the hungry people in Gaza is actually barely alive,” Koisad said.
Israel faces intense international pressure to lift the siege of Gaza. Twenty-three countries, including many of Israel’s traditional allies, have denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza, and the UK, France and Canada are threatening sanctions if aid is not allowed to reach those trapped in enclaves.
Even the US, typically Israel’s closest allies, have admitted that aid has not entered Gaza in “sufficient amounts” to avoid the threat of hunger.
Has Israel eased its attack on Gaza?
That’s not particularly true.
Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in indiscriminate Israeli attacks last week, bringing the overall death toll to over 53,500.
Of these, more than 3,500 people have been killed since the Israeli government unilaterally broke the ceasefire on March 18th and decided to resume attacks in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Israeli forces confirmed they had expanded their ground operations in stretches in the northern and southern Gaza Strip. As part of what they said was a bolstered campaign to win concessions from Hamas, which escaped it through the fierce war of 19 months, the destruction of almost every building in Gaza, and the murder of thousands of children.
Despite humanitarian costs, the decision to allow critics to say that the amount of food and drugs to Gaza is insufficient has proven controversial within Israel.
Israeli supranational national security minister Itamar Ben Gwil condemned the decision to allow Gaza a small amount of aid, calling it a “serious and serious mistake.”
But Finance Minister Beazalel Smotrich, a fellow traveler of Ben Gwil, Hard Late, said in a televised statement that Israel would allow “the minimum necessary” that “the world will not stop us and condemn war crimes.”
