The escalating violence has hit a population on the brink, for whom searching for food means risking their lives: more than 1,000 people have died and at least 6,000 have been injured trying to get food, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
No one in the Gaza Strip has stable access to sufficient food, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. Furthermore, nearly half a million people are at immediate risk of starvation, and among them, more than 70,000 children under five require treatment for acute malnutrition. Below, we review the factors that have contributed to this crisis.
The damage is widespread throughout the Strip: by April, 83% of agricultural land had been affected. In Gaza City, the destruction reached 91%. Rafah is the least affected area, but still exceeds 70%.
Farming these dwindling lands is becoming increasingly difficult: eight out of ten agricultural water wells and seven out of ten greenhouses have been damaged.
Humanitarian aid has been blocked since March.
Unable to provide for themselves, the more than two million Gazans remaining in the Gaza Strip depend on humanitarian aid that has been halted since the end of the ceasefire on March 18.
The population is now at the mercy of the controversial distributions by the Israeli-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Fund and the limited supplies that humanitarian organizations manage to bring in. The World Food Program (WFP) denounced in a recent statement that, while its warehouses in Gaza remain empty, 116,000 tons of food are waiting across the border—enough to feed one million people for four months. “Our kitchens are empty; right now they are serving water with a bit of pasta floating in it,” warned Carl Skau, executive director of the WFP, after a visit to Gaza in early July.
Flour, chicken or eggs, 20 times more expensive
The lack of access to agricultural resources and humanitarian aid overlaps with virtually nonexistent trade: in April, 85% of households had difficulty accessing retail outlets. The only markets that remain operational are informal: they only accept cash and sell a few basic goods at sky-high prices. Since the start of the conflict, prices have increased elevenfold, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics.
The truce only briefly contained inflation, and the blockade only exacerbated the rise in prices. Today, a kilo of flour costs around €50 in Gaza. Prices of other staple foods have increased by up to 60 times, such as white sugar and dried onions; flour, chicken, and eggs are 20 times more expensive. Meanwhile, without means of earning an income, Gazans' purchasing power plummets.
From 400 distribution points to just four
The latest report from the UN refugee agency for Palestine (UNRWA), dated July 18, depicts the bottleneck in the flow of humanitarian aid. During the ceasefire, food was distributed to more than two million people. From the end of the truce until April 8, only about 77,000 were reached. By the end of the same month, its warehouses were empty.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's centers force Gazans to travel dozens of kilometers for distributions that are not only inadequate, but can also cost them their lives. On July 16, at least 20 people died in a stampede at a distribution point near Khan Yunis.
Between March 18 and July 15, Israeli forces issued 55 evacuation orders, forcing the displacement of 737,000 people. With more than 80% of the Gaza Strip in militarized zones or under evacuation orders, the population is concentrated in increasingly smaller makeshift shelters.
Since the end of the truce, Insecurity Insight has recorded seven incidents that compromise food security, even in areas considered safe.
Furthermore, the extreme concentration of the population increases the lethality of the attacks."Any bombing often results in the death of entire families," warns a statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
