The hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip has soared “alarmingly” in recent weeks, health workers have warned, with a growing number of children dying of malnutrition while thousands of people across the besieged Palestinian enclave suffer from a dire lack of adequate food.
“Even we, the young ones, can barely walk due to lack of food,” said Walid Abu Mohsen, a father of seven from Khan Younis. He told NBC News’ crew on the ground Sunday of his relief after plucking a sack of flour from the few trucks that arrived to offer relief to rushing crowds in the city. In another desperate corner of Gaza, footage captured the deadly aftermath after scores were killed waiting for supplies that might have let them feed their families.
“Famine is now striking Gaza alarmingly and terrifyingly,” Dr. Mohammed Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, told NBC News’ crew as he warned of hospitals being “overwhelmed with waves of patients suffering from malnutrition.”
He said that at least two children had died at Al-Shifa on Saturday alone.
Nineteen deaths were recorded in Gaza due to malnutrition within the last 24 hours, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the territory said Monday. NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the figures.
They add to more than 70 deaths related to malnutrition since the war began, according to Salmiya, with more than 50 children dying of malnutrition since Israel launched a blockade restricting aid into Gaza in early March, according to the World Health Organization.
While that blockade was lifted in May, Israel has since allowed only limited aid into the enclave, largely distributed by the controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under a system that has seen hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while making their way to collect food.
According to Dr. Travis Melin, an anesthesiologist from Oregon volunteering in Gaza, the evidence of widespread hunger is clear in hospitals, where malnourishment runs close to "100 percent" among patients.
United Nation Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also pointed to the ongoing breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza where the “last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," according to Stéphane Dujarric, his spokesman.
Sunday appeared to mark the deadliest day of aid-related deaths yet, with more than 90 people reported killed as they tried to reach food, Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director of field hospitals, told NBC News.
Most were killed while trying to reach aid entering through a crossing with Israel, Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Health Ministry’s records department, told The Associated Press.
The incident did not appear directly related to the distribution system operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — the controversial American and Israel backed humanitarian organization that has been criticized by the United Nations and most humanitarian groups.
The World Food Programme said in a statement Sunday that a 25-truck WFP convoy had been carrying vital food supplies from the Zikim border point when it encountered “large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting.”
It said that as the convoy approached, the crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire, resulting in “the loss of countless lives.”
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a post on X on Sunday that the incident was being examined, but that "the number of casualties reported does not align with the information held by the IDF."
The United Nations human rights office, OHCHR, said earlier this month that nearly 900 people had been killed in the enclave trying to access food.
'Worse than I've ever seen'
In a news release Sunday, GHF said it had distributed more than 82 million meals through its handful of aid distribution points in the enclave since it began operations in late May. But among a population of roughly 2.1 million people, that amount equates to less than one meal per person per day over the more than 50 days since the organization launched its program.
While other aid efforts are also underway in the enclave, humanitarian experts have warned that not nearly enough food is reaching Palestinians, while food prices in local markets have skyrocketed amid the shortage of goods.
Nearly 1 in every 3 people in Gaza is “not eating for days at a time,” the WFP warned Friday.
“The situation is worse than I’ve ever seen it before,” WFP Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Carl Skau told journalists in a briefing earlier this month. Skau shared how some mothers had described urging their kids not to play to avoid draining their energy given the lack of food.
A spokesperson for GHF acknowledged to NBC News in an email on Monday that “there isn’t enough aid coming into Gaza.”
“GHF is the only organization that has been able to get aid in and that needs to change fast which we have been saying for weeks now,” they said.
A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News on Monday on concerns about the lack of adequate food reaching families in Gaza.
Israel has maintained that there are hundreds of aid trucks sitting inside Gaza awaiting distribution, with IDF spokesman Shoshani saying in a post on X on Sunday that there were over 700 trucks in the enclave.
Before the war, around 500 trucks carrying aid entered the enclave daily, according to the British Red Cross. Aid workers have previously described the task of trying to distribute aid in the enclave amid Israel’s offensive as a logistical “nightmare.”
