Some officers in the Israeli military have concluded that Gaza could face widespread starvation if the delivery of food aid is not restored in the coming weeks, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing three Israeli defense officials familiar with conditions in the Strip.
Israel Defense Forces officers who monitor the humanitarian situation have privately warned their commanders that, unless aid starts flowing again soon, parts of the Strip will have too little food to meet residents’ minimum daily nutritional needs, the report said.
The IDF officers stressed that resuming the flow of aid would take time, and that immediate steps must be taken to replenish supplies before they run out, according to the report.
Last week, an IDF general briefed the cabinet on the humanitarian situation, telling political leaders that supplies would run out within weeks, the Times said, citing an Israeli defense official and a senior government official and echoing a previous report by Channel 13.
Israel cut off aid to Gaza on March 2, following the collapse of a hostage-ceasefire release deal, amid an effort to pressure the Hamas terror group into releasing more captives. Israel reportedly assessed that enough aid had already accumulated inside the Strip to last several months.
Israel has said it will resume the flow of aid, and Israeli and US officials have in recent days outlined a plan to control the distribution in order to avoid supplies being seized by Hamas. The model would see IDF troops securing the perimeter of aid distribution sites, with private, US-backed security contractors patrolling the sites themselves.
Meanwhile the IDF has been gearing up for a planned major offensive in the Gaza Strip, which officials said would be launched if no hostage deal is reached with Hamas by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region on May 16.
According to Israeli officials, the offensive would see the IDF “conquering” Gaza and retaining the territory, moving the Palestinian civilian population toward the south of the Strip, attacking Hamas, and preventing the terror group from taking control of humanitarian aid supplies.
The United Nations and international organizations have said they won’t cooperate with the planned US-Israeli aid initiative, which is to be managed by a new entity called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A GHF memo, obtained by The Times of Israel last week, said that civilians in Gaza are currently “enduring extreme deprivation.”
The United Arab Emirates refused to bankroll the GHF’s plan, saying it failed to address the humanitarian crisis, a senior official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel. A Western diplomat said the initiative was meant to be rolled out two weeks ago, but has faced a lack of international support.
In a statement, the UN and nonprofit groups alleged the GHF plan doesn’t sufficiently address the crisis and “weaponizes” aid.
The Trump administration, however, is pressuring international humanitarian organizations to cooperate with the new plan, threatening to slash their funding if they don’t, an Israeli official and a senior Western diplomat told The Times of Israel earlier this month.
On Monday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) organization said “the Gaza Strip is still confronted with a critical risk of famine,” and that “the entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people [one in five] facing starvation.”
Citing the report, UN World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain said “families in Gaza are starving” and that it was “imperative” to get aid flowing again.
A calculation by the WFP regarding the amount of aid currently waiting at the Gaza border and how long it would feed Gazans appeared to indicate, however, that the food that entered Gaza between January 19 and March 2 should suffice for the population’s needs until the middle of July.
Israel said in response that “even according to the IPC’s own analysis,” there is currently no famine in Gaza, and noted that previous IPC projections about impending famine have “repeatedly failed to materialize.”
The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when some 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Fifty-eight hostages — 23 believed to be alive, and the bodies of 35 confirmed dead — are still held by terror groups in the Strip, including a soldier killed in 2014.
Jeremy Sharon and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.