How Food Supplies in Gaza Have Dwindled Under the New Israeli Aid Plan

Palestinians across the Gaza Strip are facing a daily struggle to find food as supplies entering the besieged enclave have diminished since Israel overhauled the aid-distribution system in May.

As a result, there has been an increase in malnutrition cases in Gaza, which was already running low on food after Israel blocked aid shipments in early March.

A malnourished baby receives care at a hospital in Gaza City.

The new Israeli-backed program, operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, was designed to eventually replace the United Nations-led distribution system. But GHF so far has struggled to bring in the same amounts of aid and distribute it across the enclave. Shortages of food, which for much of the war affected parts of Gaza, are now spreading across all of the enclave, Palestinians and aid organizations say.

Amid growing international pressure, Israel on Sunday announced a tactical pause in military activity in parts of Gaza and the establishment of safe routes for aid. The Israeli air force also resumed airdrops of aid overnight, parachuting seven packages, including flour, sugar and canned food, the military said.

Some U.N. trucks are still entering Gaza, though in much lower numbers. Aid agencies say Israel impedes their ability to safely carry out their work, and that food scarcity is contributing to a breakdown in law and order. U.N. agencies and other aid groups have boycotted GHF because they say it violates humanitarian principles.

GHF and Israel say the U.N. has been refusing to deliver aid piling up on Gaza’s border. International organizations resumed picking up humanitarian aid from the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the past week, an Israeli security official said.

Food prices have surged in recent months beyond levels reached during other periods of fighting, and well above what Gazans paid during better-supplied periods like the cease-fire earlier this year and before the war.

“The crowds are huge and the quantities are tiny,” said Jameel Al-Nahhal, a 21-year-old from Rafah, who went recently to a GHF site in southern Gaza. “I am responsible for my father, mother and sisters. The amount I bring back lasts a day or two at most.”

“What I get depends on the day. If I am really lucky, I get flour, lentils and cooking oil,” said Al-Nahhal.

GHF says its boxes contain enough food to feed six people for four days. A spokesperson said a box can contain flour, pasta, sugar, rice, cooking oil, beans, tuna, tea and cookies, and that the organization has begun bringing potatoes and onions into Gaza in recent weeks.

GHF is operating far fewer aid-distribution sites than the U.N.-led program it supplanted.

Gazans carry scarce sacks of flour through the northern city of Beit Lahia.

Palestinians dispute that, saying the contents of the GHF boxes vary and are often missing key items, including animal protein and nutrient-rich foods.

Palestinians carry GHF aid supplies through the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.

Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at [email protected], Anat Peled at [email protected] and Andrew Barnett at [email protected]