[News] Gaza officials say only small fraction of required aid enters strip as Israeli-made famine worsens

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Gaza officials say only small fraction of required aid enters strip as
  Israeli-made famine worsens

Most aid was stolen due to Israeli-orchestrated sabotage, while UNICEF 
warns that 320,000 children face famine

News Desk <https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9>

AUG 2, 2025 - 
https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-officials-say-only-small-fraction-of-required-aid-enters-strip-as-israeli-made-famine-worsens

(Photo credit: Fatima Shbair/AP Photo)

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on 2 August that only 73 trucks of 
humanitarian aid entered the besieged enclave on Friday, accusing the 
Israel of deliberately engineering chaos and starvation to block aid 
distribution 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/over-1300-palestinian-aid-seekers-in-gaza-killed-by-israeli-army-since-ghf-opened-un>.

In a statement, the media office confirmed that the majority of trucks 
were “looted and stolen as a result of the security chaos deliberately 
perpetuated by the occupation,” which it described as part of a 
systematic campaign of “engineering chaos and starvation.”

It warned that the strip requires at least 600 trucks 
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/08/1165552>daily to meet basic 
health, food, and fuel needs, citing the “complete collapse of the 
infrastructure as a result of the genocidal war.”

The office called for the “immediate opening of the crossings and the 
entry of sufficient quantities of food aid and baby formula,” stressing 
that the blockade constitutes “a systematic starvation crime being 
perpetrated before the eyes of the world.”

“The Israeli occupation and the countries involved in the war are fully 
responsible for the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the 
statement added.

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 
warned on Saturday that “Gaza faces a grave risk of famine,” stating 
that “one in three people” are now going days without food.

“Today, I want to keep the focus on Gaza, because it’s in Gaza where the 
suffering is most acute and where children are dying at an unprecedented 
rate,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF deputy executive director.

“Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute 
malnutrition,” he added. “The malnutrition indicator in Gaza has 
exceeded the famine threshold.”

“We are at a crossroads, and the choices made now will determine whether 
tens of thousands of children live or die.”

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 162 Palestinians have died of 
starvation, including 92 children. On Saturday, 17-year-old Atef Abu 
Khater reportedly died of malnutrition 
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-teen-starved-to-death-in-gaza-amid-israeli-aid-restrictions/3648847>at 
Al-Shifa Hospital.

Journalist Ahmed al-Najjar described the situation 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/2/one-in-three-palestinians-in-gaza-going-days-without-food-unicef-says>as 
“engineered Israeli genocidal chaos,” noting that people risk their 
lives just to buy flour. “There is not any sort of presence of police or 
security forces in the streets,” he told /Al Jazeera/.

A 2024 study published in /The Lancet/ estimated that life expectancy in 
Gaza fell by 35 years during Israel’s war, dropping from 72.9 to around 37.

The report, titled ‘Life expectancy losses in the Gaza Strip during the 
period October 2023 to September 2024,’ found the decline sharper than 
that recorded during the Rwandan genocide, when life expectancy dropped 
from 42.9 years in 1993 to 12.2 in 1994.

The findings were cited in a letter titled ‘Break the selective silence 
on the genocide in Gaza,’ underscoring the unprecedented scale of 
Israel’s destruction and the enduring impact of the war on Gaza’s 
overwhelmingly young population.

As of 2020, the median age in Gaza was 18, with over 40 percent of 
residents aged 14 or younger.

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