Gaza's Humanitarian Emergency

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The conflict in Gaza has been a recurring topic of news since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. This attack claimed the lives of over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, and sparked Israel’s most recent military campaign in Gaza. This campaign is still ongoing and has since claimed the lives of 66,000 Palestinian people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, although a ceasefire was recently put in place on October 10, 2025.

During the 24 months of conflict, conditions in Gaza severely deteriorated. 640,000 people are in stage 5 of the acute food insecurity framework: Catastrophe/famine. This assessment, published in mid-August, 2025, is from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), where famine is the highest level of severity on the index characterized by evident levels of starvation, death, destitution and critical acute malnutrition. An additional 1,149,000 people are in stage 4 of the progression, known as the emergency stage, which is characterized by high acute malnutrition and excess mortality. 90% of Gaza’s population falls within these two categories, with the remaining 10% surviving in level 3; the “Crisis” stage. Overall, the data suggests that the entire population of Gaza is in a state of food insecurity ranging from complete destitution, to attaining small quantities of food at unsustainable monetary or asset costs. This kind of famine not only threatens immediate death, but also completely destroys one's livelihood and wealth should they survive the hunger. 

The impacts of these conditions are especially felt by vulnerable groups such as women and children. According to the IPC, life-threatening malnutrition affects 132,00o children between 6 and 59 months old in Gaza, including 41,000 severe cases with heightened risk of death. In addition, 55,500 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and 25,000 infants, suffer from severe malnourishment, which is especially dangerous in their high-risk physical states and harmful to crucial physical development. The IPC states these numbers are underestimated, as there wasn’t a sufficient amount of data retrieved from North Gaza (home to 121,500 people) for classification and inclusion. Despite this, it is expected that conditions in North Gaza are equal to or worse than the regions which were able to be surveyed. 

In the August 2025 assessment, the IPC recorded that 90% of children under two were consuming less than two food groups per day. At this level, the growth, development, and immune system response of children is severely compromised. The collapse of healthcare infrastructure also means that vaccination had halted, which exposed children who would otherwise be receiving standard regiments of immunizations to dangerous diseases. This is accentuated by the destitute housing conditions and the collapse of safe water and sewage systems, which has led to open defecation. Although more aid is being delivered following the October 1oth ceasefire, these negative consequences have already taken effect, meaning significant time and reconstruction is required before conditions can be significantly improved. 

The effects of these numerous health hazards are apparent in the children of Gaza. Part of the IPC’s data records the condition of children, saying that morbidity levels (susceptibility to disease and medical conditions) were alarmingly high. The IPC noted, “Diarrhoea affected 43 percent of children, 58 percent experienced fever, 25 percent had acute respiratory infections, and nearly half suffered from skin infections.” This means a large majority of children in Gaza are suffering from some kind of disease which would have been preventable with access to modern medicine, healthcare, and aid supplies. 

While the IPC developed this framework to encompass all food and nutrition related insecurities around the world, the situation in Gaza has many unique characteristics which are not clearly expressed in the IPC’s assessments. For example, the word “famine,” while not technically exclusive of deliberate human causation, implies an event which is the product of unfortunate natural circumstances such as an earthquake or a hurricane. This is, however, untrue of the starvation in Gaza. As articulated by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, “food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food, in a fertile land.” The UN further notes that some aid items like peanut butter are classified as “luxury items” which further prevents readily available supplies from entering the Gaza Strip. However, days after the ceasefire, on October 15, 2025, Israel cut the daily aid entering Gaza from about 600 trucks to 300, as a response to not yet receiving all the bodies of former hostages. Although this is more than the minute aid which was entering before the ceasefire, it is still far too limited for the hundreds of thousands in need. It is unclear why all the bodies have not been returned. 

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, about 66,000 Palestinians have died since the conflict began. On September 16, 2025, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that Israel’s military actions in Palestine violate international humanitarian law, and constitute a convicted genocide. According to the OHCHR, this conclusion is based on Israel commiting four of the five internationally recognized acts of genocide as established in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The OHCHR’s assessment cited evidence of widespread civilian harm, including the killing of civilians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately creating life-threatening conditions, and imposing measures to prevent births. The fifth genocidal act, forcibly transferring children of the target group, was not included in the findings.

Along with the physical conflict in Gaza, an investigation by Deutsche Welle (DW) revealed that Israel has spent $49 million on counter-journalism and propaganda campaigns. The investigation found that these funds are being used to run smear campaigns against critics of Israel’s military action in Gaza and spread misinformation which portrays the conditions in Gaza as livable and decent. The investigation found this has been executed using a variety of digital tactics. DW specifically named sponsored links on Google which are placed as the top results of searches, and targeted Youtube ads centered on viewers from the USA, UK, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Poland. Additionally, according to the Commissioner-General of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, Israel is currently blocking the access of all international press into Gaza and has been for the duration of the war. Lazzarini explains that this is part of a wider disinformation campaign to dehumanize Palestinians and deny the analysis of experts regarding Israel’s crimes; adding that Israel still denies famine and genocide in Gaza despite clear assessments from the UN and its international affiliates.

Since the ceasefire was established in Gaza on October 10, 2025, the 20 remaining living hostages who were taken by Hamas during the start of the conflict have been returned to their families. Also, as of October 12, 2025, the UN and other relief organizations have been allowed to scale-up aid delivery into Gaza, however this is a developing situation and aid is still being greatly restricted by Israel. Although the ceasefire provides cautious hope for many, the conflict is far from over. Prime Minister Netanyahu has already hinted at renewing the Israeli offensive if Hamas does not give up its weapons and return the remains of the deceased hostages—something which Netanyahu has already proven himself capable of after unilaterally ending a ceasefire in March, 2025. Even if this ceasefire holds, almost all of Gaza has been completely destroyed and it remains unclear how reconstruction will take place and who will be financially responsible for it. This process will take years and will have complex socio-economic consequences on Palestine, which will eventually need to function without international aid. It remains to be seen if Palestine will gain independent statehood and governance, something which Prime Minister Netanyahu directly opposes, however the possibility of this is mentioned in the U.S. plan which brokered the ceasefire. Furthermore, The International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former defense minister, although it’s unclear when or how this will be enforced, especially given President Trump’s support of Netanyahu and the weight of the U.S.A.’s position in UN functions.