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For decades, the Gaza Strip has faced a worsening food crisis as a result of a systematic Israeli policy that uses the siege and starvation for political pressure, and the disaster deepened unprecedentedly in conjunction with the 2023 war, then Israel destroyed the agricultural infrastructure completely, and paralyzed animal production and fishing activities, in light of a suffocating siege that prevents food and medicine.
History of food crises in the Gaza Strip
Since the early 1990s, Israel has used a policy of starvation to a system of systematic pressure on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The features of this policy began in 1991 when the occupation imposed a system of work permits, threatening a source of livelihood 40% of the population of Gaza, who relied on work inside Israel, and used the “right to work” a political bargaining paper.
With the escalation of the Palestinian uprisings, Israel imposed increasing restrictions on the movement and supplies, and the number of closing days reached more than 70 days a year, which led to an increase in unemployment to 70% and food insecurity, and prompted the World Food Program to launch the first emergency operation in 1996.
With the beginning of the third millennium, the crisis increased again due to the closures and escalating violence, which prompted a million Palestinians to the food insecurity circle.
After the victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the 2006 legislative elections and the imposition of a comprehensive blockade on Gaza in 2007, the Strip entered into a chronic food crisis.
Israel has followed the policy of “forced diet” by introducing limited quantities of food with the aim of suffering without reaching the point of full famine, according to Dove Weesglas, adviser to Israeli Prime Minister at the time.
By 2010, poverty rates reached 79%, and “extreme poverty” reached 66%, and in 2020 the United Nations revealed that more than 75%of families suffer from concern about food availability, while more than half of the population was forced to borrow or reduce basic expenses for food.
After the Flood of Al -Aqsa
On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian resistance launched the Al -Aqsa Flood operation, and the Israeli occupation has a comprehensive aggression on Gaza, with a suffocating siege, massacres, and systematic destruction of infrastructure, including food, agriculture and fishing sources.
Since the early days, the occupation prevented the entry of aid, which led to the escalation of the food crisis, and the World Health Organization has ranked half of Gaza population in a state of “urgent” food security, and a quarter of them in a “catastrophic” state.
In February 2024, “UNICEF” announced that one out of every 6 children under the age of two suffers from acute malnutrition, including 3% in the case of “severe wasting” life.
With the resumption of the aggression in March 2025, the occupation stressed the siege and preventing the entry of aid, prompting the United Nations to warn of “complete suffocation” in the relief process, and considered the use of aid as a “weapon” to force people to move as a serious violation of international law.
In May 2025, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa Gaza announced a “Fajah Zone” and called for urgent international intervention.
On the other hand, Hamas accused Israel of committing a “dual war crime” through starvation, and criticized the failure of the Arab and Islamic countries about confronting the worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
The World Health Organization said that since the beginning of 2025, nearly 10,000 children were reported in Gaza with acute acute malnutrition, including more than a thousand children who suffer from severe acute malnutrition, and have been entered for treatment in outpatient and internal clinics.
Economic collapse and its impact on food security
Since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza in 2023, the occupation adopted a systematic destruction policy targeting agricultural infrastructure, which caused a severe blow to food security for more than two million Palestinians. More than 90% of agricultural lands were swept away, and turned large areas into buffer areas, which led to almost complete paralysis in the agricultural sector.
According to the statements of the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, Israel destroyed about 167 thousand dunums of cultivated lands, which resulted in the loss of about 459 thousand tons of vegetarian production at a value exceeding 325 million dollars, in addition to export losses amounting to 67 million dollars.
The Israeli army also removed the entire animal production sector from service after the destruction of 2,500 chicken farms, more than 36 million chickens and 850 thousand chickens producing eggs, which led to the stoppage of eggs, milk and meat.
This was accompanied by the destruction of 33% of the plastic houses and 46% of the wells, in addition to the destruction of the Gaza port and fishing boats, which led to a comprehensive collapse in the food system in the sector.
The health status associated with famine
Since the closing of Israel on the second of March 2025, it coincided with the resumption of the Israeli aggression, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have lived under the weight of a suffocating humanitarian crisis, with the aggravation of starvation and the deprivation of more than two million people of food, medicine and basic aid.
According to government reports, the number of hunger deaths has risen to more than 57 people since October 2023, the majority of whom were children, the elderly and the patients, while the Oromatic Human Rights Organization described the situation as a “silent death wave” that accelerates day by day.
In the same context, the United Nations affirmed that more than 9,000 children were admitted to hospitals for acute malnutrition since the beginning of 2025, at a time when the health sector suffers from a near -complete collapse.