Israel
Israel denies Gaza famine claims as aid shortage blamed on UN distribution failings
An Israeli security officials claimed that international organisations are delivering supplies at around half the promised rate
July 23, 2025 09:38
An Israeli security officials claimed that international organisations are delivering supplies at around half the promised rate
July 23, 2025 09:38Israel has denied claims that Gaza is on the brink of widespread famine and blamed failures in the UN’s distribution network for food shortages.
A group of over 100 aid groups have made the claim, saying people are "collapsing in the street" from hunger and dehydration.
According to the UN’s humanitarian agency (Ocha), more than a dozen people died in the Strip due to hunger or dehydration, citing “local health officials” – though this figure may be from the Hamas-run health ministry.
An Israeli security official, though, briefed Hebrew media that Jerusalem has not identified any famine in the Strip, but said action was needed to "stabilise the humanitarian situation".
Israel has confirmed that there has been a drop in the amount of aid reaching people on the ground, but insisted it was sending enough supplies and that they were simply not being distributed.
COGAT, the department responsible for non-military Israeli activity in Gaza, said that it had around 950 trucks on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, waiting to be collected by UN agencies.
According to the same official, these trucks contain enough supplies to meet the Strip's needs for two and a half weeks.
They blamed the UN for a bottleneck in distribution claiming that, during recent meetings with COGAT, the global body said it could receive up to 80 trucks a day.
In practice, however, the rate is currently around 30 trucks, they added.
The official also claimed that the UN had made unacceptable demands about the delivery of aid, such as requiring an escort from Hamas' police force.
Similar claims have been made before about widespread hunger in Gaza, though no famine has yet been declared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the international agency that monitors global food security.
Indeed, Ocha’s director Tom Fletcher was forced to retract a claim he made in May, citing an IPC report, that 48,000 Gazan children were at risk of severe malnutrition in a 48-hour period.
The report, released in March, actually provided that figure as the number of children at risk of severe malnutrition over an entire year if the restriction of aid supplies continued.
Since then, Israel has ended its blockade of humanitarian supplies into the Strip and backed a new, third-party aid distribution system that has given out over 82 million meals since May, according to the US firm operating it.
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