Experts React: Starvation in Gaza

Editor’s Note: Additional expert perspectives were added on July 29, 2025.

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How Did Gaza Descend into Mass Starvation and What Is the Path Out?

Mona Yacoubian, Director and Senior Adviser, Middle East Program

Gaza’s accelerated descent into mass starvation dates to Israel’s decision to impose a full blockade on the territory on March 2. The move was intended to pressure Hamas to release additional hostages. Instead, the existing ceasefire collapsed two weeks later, and Gaza began its downward spiral into the worst humanitarian crisis since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror attack. Today, Gaza is facing unprecedented levels of hunger and acute malnutrition. The World Food Program estimates that a third of Gazans do not eat for days at a time amid alarming reports of mounting deaths from starvation.

Following growing criticism, Israel implemented a new humanitarian aid system centered on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—a controversial organization whose aid delivery model does not follow established humanitarian principles of neutral, independent, impartial, and safe aid distribution. Israel long criticized the previous UN-led system, citing significant aid diversion to Hamas, although Israeli military officials say no evidence exists that backs those charges. The GHF currently operates four distribution centers (as opposed to hundreds under the previous UN system), where Gazans must traverse dangerous conflict zones to access aid that is available only in paltry amounts. The result has been a dramatic uptick in those killed while seeking food, due to the chaotic conditions and attendant violence around the distribution centers. The Gaza Health Ministry—operating in Hamas-controlled Gaza—estimates that more than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli troops in the disorderly conditions.

With international outcry at a crescendo, Israel recently announced new measures to improve the aid flow, including pauses, corridors, and airdrops. However, these measures will not remedy Gaza’s widespread hunger. Indeed, airdrops are both dangerous and ineffective. Instead, the path out of starvation in Gaza must entail Israel’s immediate willingness to allow sufficient food aid levels to feed Gaza’s 2 million people. Allowing safe, unrestricted food assistance must be decoupled from all other challenges in Gaza. It must be allowed to proceed immediately, even in the absence of a ceasefire. Going forward, the provision of lifesaving humanitarian assistance in Gaza must be insulated from the most dire effects of the war as necessitated by the Law of Armed Conflict. Ultimately, only a ceasefire will ensure against continued humanitarian suffering in Gaza.

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Netanyahu Tries to Balance International and Domestic Pressures

Will Todman, Senior Fellow, Middle East Program

Building international condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis in recent weeks forced Israel to announce its “humanitarian pause.” On July 21, 30 states from the Global North condemned Israel’s denial of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, days after 12 Global South states announced measures to pursue accountability for Israel’s “illegal policies and practices.” France also became the first G7 member to declare its intention to recognize Palestine as a state. Then, 109 humanitarian organizations warned of “mass starvation.” These moves, along with growing public outcry around the world at images from Gaza, prompted Netanyahu’s fears that Israel was losing the support of even its traditional allies.

However, the United States’ ongoing support for the Israeli government has cushioned Israel from international pressure. The United States withdrew from ceasefire talks on July 24, blaming Hamas’s intransigence, and President Trump criticized France’s pledge to recognize Palestinian statehood. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Trump believes there is no way to negotiate an end to the war and Israel must “take the place by force then start over again.” While U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel continues, the Israeli government is unlikely to shift its strategic priorities in Gaza.

Domestically, Netanyahu’s policies are largely popular. A survey conducted in late May found that two-thirds of Israeli Jews opposed increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, while another survey found that 64.5 percent of Israelis were “not at all” or “not very” concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Unless public opinion shifts more decisively, Netanyahu will feel public pressure to continue military operations in Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu is also leading a fragile coalition government, with some members staunchly opposed to increasing aid to Gaza. Yet, some domestic criticism is growing. On July 28, two leading Israeli human rights groups—B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel—concluded that Israel is committing genocide.

For now, international and domestic pressure is producing a change in Israel’s tactics, not strategy, in Gaza.

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This Was Israel’s 9/11. Will Gaza Be Its Iraq?

Jon B. Alterman, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy

“This was our 9/11,” Israelis often say when the topic of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks comes up. The part of the attack they think about was the shock, the pain, the anxiety, and the solidarity that 9/11 evoked among Americans. The part many Israelis think less about is how the 9/11 attacks pushed the United States into two drawn-out wars that confounded three presidents and ended in something much less than a clear victory.

For the George W. Bush administration, the 9/11 attacks were a consequence of tyranny in the Arab world. While the administration fought both a conventional war against Saddam Hussein and widespread counterinsurgencies in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. path to victory was spreading “freedom” in the Middle East. Vanquishing tyrants and empowering populations would unleash forces of moderation throughout the region.

While the U.S. military ground out victories, freedom proved harder to secure. Expectations dropped again and again. The political program proved impractical, and arguably impossible. While many war aims were met, the wars’ strategic goals were not.

As it began its war in Gaza, the Israeli government pledged to destroy Hamas, and it has repeated its pledge in the months and years since. That, too, is a fundamentally political objective. The Israeli government has been adamant that the Palestinian Authority should not take its place, and it has been skeptical of efforts to allow a technocratic government to take root in Gaza. Rather than support a Palestinian alternative, it has used relentless military assault to force a Palestinian surrender. While tens of thousands of Hamas fighters have been killed, there are few signs surrender is close. Even Gazans who have come to hate Hamas have few reasons to think surrender would improve their lives. Meanwhile, Israel’s enemies have deepened global narratives of Israeli inhumanity and indifference to suffering.

Insurgents always have an advantage. Their mere survival represents a defeat for the army fighting them. The eradication of a group with deep political, economic, and social ties throughout Gazan society (and not incidentally, West Bank society) is easy to pledge but hard to achieve. Like the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israelis have stumbled meeting their political goals through warfare.

Israel’s challenge now is to end the war despite its oft-proclaimed war aim being unmet. It can claim victory in the release of hostages, and it can force the exile of some portion of the Hamas leadership, but ultimately Israel will need to find some sort of compromise. The costs of the war are rising sharply for Israel, and the benefits of continuing it are rapidly diminishing.

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It May Never Be Declared, but Famine Is in Gaza

Caitlin Welsh, Director, Global Food and Water Security Program

Zane Swanson, Deputy Director, Global Food and Water Security Program

This entry has been updated to reflect the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s Famine Alert issued on July 29, 2025.

“The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

Today, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published an alert confirming that the worst-case scenario of famine in Gaza, which the IPC warned of in May, has become a reality. This alert represents the IPC’s strongest confirmation of famine conditions since the start of the war and comes at the end of a month where at least 82 people have died of starvation, bringing total starvation-related deaths to 147, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. This rapid increase in malnutrition-related deaths describes what are likely the most catastrophic humanitarian conditions yet experienced in Gaza and indicates what many, until now, were only speculating—famine.

The IPC applies consistent standards to classify food insecurity crises around the world, classifying an area as in famine when three thresholds are met or surpassed:

1. ≥20 percent of households face acute food insecurity or an extreme lack of food
2. ≥30 percent of children are acutely malnourished
3. ≥2 adults (or 4 children) die per 10,000 daily due to starvation or malnutrition related mortality.

Following Israel’s blockade of food and fuel into Gaza in October 2023 and the ensuing conflict, conditions in parts of Gaza deteriorated to levels consistent with famine by April 2024. Though some officials have used the word, the IPC never formally classified famine in Gaza. Since then, levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in Gaza have remained dire. Conditions worsened in early March 2025, when Israel blocked aid into Gaza, and announced the creation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an independent regime, to distribute food assistance. Since then, aid flowing into Gaza has been sporadic, ineffective, and in many cases, deadly.

As used by the IPC, the term famine carries significant emotional and political weight. While the importance of the IPC’s recent confirmation of famine in Gaza should not be understated, it is neither an official classification nor formal declaration of famine. Famine declarations are not made by the IPC; rather, they come from governments or international agencies. Such a scenario remains unlikely, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to claim there is “no starvation in Gaza.”

World leaders cannot wait for a declaration to act while Gazans, including children, are dying each day of starvation. Starvation will continue to kill Gazans until there is a sustained ceasefire and an unincumbered influx of humanitarian assistance, including food, clean water, medical and sanitation supplies, and malnutrition treatments. And even if such assistance were allowed, Gazans will continue to require long-term support following the provision of such aid, as today’s starvation will burden children with lifelong physical and cognitive deficits.

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Gaza Needs More Than Food to Fix a Health Catastrophe

Michaela Simoneau, Associate Fellow, CSIS Global Health Policy Center

Sophia Hirshfield, Research Associate, CSIS Global Health Policy Center

Starvation is the most urgent face of Gaza’s desperate health crisis. In the last month, acute malnutrition rates have more than doubled in the most vulnerable populations, reaching nearly 20 percent in children under five. Over 40 percent of breastfeeding and pregnant women are severely malnourished, raising rates of dangerous pregnancy complications and infant mortality. Only four specialized malnutrition treatment centers remain in Gaza, which are expected to run out of supplies by mid-August. The resumption of food aid or even a ceasefire would not mark the end of Gaza’s health catastrophe—Gazans face a generational crisis. And the capacity they will need for civilian recovery no longer exists.

Widespread malnutrition driven by Israeli aid restrictions is one of many interrelated and devastating health consequences of the conflict in Gaza. The lack of a nutrient-rich diet weakens the immune system, leaving Gazans today more vulnerable to illness and unable to heal properly. Infectious diseases including hepatitis, scabies, vomiting, and diarrhea spread rapidly in overcrowded shelters as water and sanitation systems break down. Over 140,000 Gazans have been injured by Israeli tank shells, shrapnel, bullets, and bombs. Overwhelming numbers of patients with gunshot wounds and amputations will require long-term rehabilitation. Repeated bombardment, displacement, and loss of family members take a damaging psychological toll on Gazans, many of whom already faced lifelong post-traumatic stress disorders with no access to psychosocial support.

As conditions continue to deteriorate, these extraordinary challenges have overwhelmed what little is left of Gaza’s health infrastructure. Since October 7, 2023, over 1,921 attacks against healthcare workers, services, and infrastructure have been reported in Gaza. Compared to the war in Ukraine, Gazan healthcare workers face 46 times higher rates of injury and 143 times higher rates of death. At least 94 percent of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been damaged or destroyed, with North Gaza losing nearly all access to healthcare. The minority of health facilities that remain partially functional have been pushed to the brink from severe supply shortages, a dearth of healthcare workers, and persistent security threats. Healthcare workers are underfed and exhausted. Patients and staff routinely collapse from severe dehydration and malnutrition and face a rapidly dwindling supply of anesthetics, antibiotics, infant formula, and other essential medications. New evacuation orders and fuel shortages regularly disrupt access to existing services.

The resumption of food aid alone is insufficient to address the health disaster in Gaza. The international community needs to prepare to surge resources to rebuild Gaza’s health system capacity, including targeted nutrition interventions—and the staff to deliver them—to lessen the immediate and generational impacts of starvation.

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How Can the U.S. Government Still Influence Israel in Gaza?

Hadeil Ali, Chief of Staff, Global Development Department

Andrew Friedman, Senior Fellow, Human Rights Initiative

On Monday, July 28, during a press conference in Scotland, President Trump acknowledged for the first time in 21 months that Gaza is experiencing “real starvation.” He was asked if he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there was no starvation in Gaza, and he responded, “I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.” Trump added, “I want him to make sure they get the food.” He was also asked about civilian casualties in the war, to which he replied that “[he] told Israel maybe they have to do it a different way” even after his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff withdrew from peace talks, accusing Hamas of not “acting in good faith.” President Trump’s remarks come in the midst of international outrage over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The U.S.–Israel alliance has been strong for decades, with the United States providing foreign military financing (FMF) upward of $3 billion annually. The United States also serves as a key supporter of Israel in multilateral fora, vetoing Security Council resolutions targeting Israel, including ceasefire resolutions under both President Biden and President Trump. The strength of the alliance and bipartisan support for Israel have historically led to decisionmaking that has been perceived as politically driven.

In most bilateral relationships, many of the more granular aspects of diplomacy are conducted by technical experts serving in career roles. This is particularly important in the human rights sphere, where sensitivities are common. Such human rights diplomacy has been far less prevalent following the hollowing out of parts of the U.S. government where it was traditionally conducted, including USAID and the State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL).

Even before this institutional change, the U.S. relationship with Israel was different and often appeared driven by political considerations. Take, for example, the Leahy Laws, aimed at restricting security cooperation with security forces credibly accused of a gross violation of human rights (GVHR). While the office tasked with Leahy vetting survived the State Department’s reorganization (albeit with a new name), many mandates are currently unclear. Even in a more functional moment, a previous head of the office described Leahy vetting for Israel as “a complex process that doesn’t work.” One of the major reasons he cited was the involvement of political appointees rather than career staff, something that is “true for no other country in the world.”

Such political involvement has traditionally been seen as an insurmountable impediment to U.S. pressure and policy change toward Israel. The centralization of nearly all foreign policymaking processes in the Trump administration may create an opening for policy change where none existed in administrations where consensus and data-driven processes were prioritized. In this moment, there may be greater room for change in an administration where such political involvement and rapid change in decisionmaking is the norm, not the exception. However, given the loss of key capabilities in the U.S. government, any political decisionmaking will have to be done without the expert analysis and input that has traditionally come from DRL, USAID, and other now hollowed-out areas of the federal government.

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Time for President Trump to Distance Himself from Prime Minister Netanyahu

J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy Center

Len Rubenstein, Senior Associate (Non-resident), Global Health Policy Center

President Trump, while in Scotland in recent days, acknowledged starvation in Gaza, putting distance between himself and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump complained that his administration had not been adequately thanked for its humanitarian response and appealed to the Israeli government to cooperate in opening humanitarian channels. In and of themselves, the change in the Israeli position, the president’s remarks, and the administration’s activism to seek a negotiated conclusion to the war are innately positive developments amid extraordinary bleakness in Gaza.

A few facts are helpful in understanding the current situation.

Up until President Trump’s inauguration, the Biden administration had invested roughly $1.2 billion in humanitarian emergency assistance to Gaza, accounting for over half of the international response. That followed the October 7, 2023, Hamas slaughter of 1,200 inside Israel, Hamas’s taking of 250 hostages, and the subsequent onset of the Israeli offensive against Hamas, which has led to over 60,000 deaths, the majority of them women and children.

The Trump administration, upon coming into office, terminated the U.S. humanitarian mobilization, dealing a profound shock to the foundational UN emergency programs led by the World Food Program (WFP) and UNICEF. At the same time, the administration withdrew from the World Health Organization, which has been playing a leading—and courageous—role in supporting a health system under siege. It is also important to note that under the recent $8 billion recission in foreign aid, proposed by the Trump White House and voted through by Congress, the Trump administration ended $142 million in previously appropriated funds for UNICEF’s core operating costs.

When the Israeli government imposed a complete blockade on humanitarian relief on March 2, the Trump administration stood by it. That included siding with Isreal’s unsubstantiated claims that Hamas was diverting or blocking significant levels of international relief. Recent analyses by the Israel Defense Forces, European Union, and an internal U.S. study have confirmed that there is no evidence to support those claims.

The Trump administration sided with actions taken by Israel to curtail humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). It sided with the creation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which soon came to be seen as a U.S.-backed enterprise, with $30 million in direct U.S. support. The GHF performance has been nothing short of catastrophic: It militarized delivery of aid, limiting it to 3–4 hard-to-reach sites predominantly in the south, fueling suspicion that distributions were being used to support the military objective of relocating and concentrating populations in the south of Gaza. Over 1,000 desperate Gazans have been killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid, and thousands more have been gravely wounded.

In the meantime, the Trump administration has dismantled USAID and reorganized the State Department, radically reducing U.S. humanitarian emergency capabilities. As UN leadership criticized the GHF, the Trump administration responded by vilifying the United Nations and threatening further retribution.

What is there left to say? 

The United States under President Trump is overtly complicit in the unspeakable suffering in Gaza and the current reality of surging famine and starvation. U.S. credibility is badly frayed, and operationally the United States is in a self-imposed, much-reduced position to be able to do good by Gazans.

The Israeli government’s recent announcement that it would allow humanitarian pauses is a response to UK and European revulsion, including threats that the United Kingdom and European Union would take steps to further isolate Israel that would have significant economic and security implications. It is prudent to assume the Israeli shift is likely a temporary and unsustainable step.

If the United States is to regain credibility and have meaningful and lasting impact, it needs to end its support of GHF and press Israel to dismantle the GHF. The administration needs to take emergency steps to restore support to OCHA, the WFP, UNICEF, and the WHO on a sustainable basis, and guarantee that aid corridors and pauses extend across all of Gaza to achieve humanitarian ends, not military objectives.

And the administration needs to speak coherently to the larger picture and deliberately put greater distance between itself and Prime Minister Netanyahu. It needs to up the pressure for a ceasefire and peace settlement that defines a future for Palestinian self-governance and recovery in Gaza, while winning the release of hostages. It needs to join—not boycott—international deliberations on a Palestinian state. It needs to condemn violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, reimpose sanctions on individuals perpetrating violence that President Trump removed upon taking office, and use its votes in the United Nations to increase pressure on Israel.