Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri

“Gaza edges closer to famine as Israel’s total blockade nears its third month” (CNN, May 1, 2025).

“Starvation looms as Israel’s total blockade on Gaza enters its third month” (NBC News, May 4, 2025).

“Israel is starving us in Gaza. This is what that feels like” (The Guardian, May 6, 2025).

Once again, various media headlines and NGO press releases are teeming with the news that Gaza is on the brink of famine and mass starvation. In many cases, these forecasts of doom are laying the blame squarely at the feet of Israel and its two-month-old blockade of the coastal enclave.

But is this accurate? Is Israel’s ongoing blockade about to cause a mass famine across the Gaza Strip?

The answer is more complex and nuanced than the sensationalist media headlines would have us believe.

When reading news stories about the alleged ongoing food crisis in Gaza, it’s important to bear in mind that:

• Enough aid entered the Gaza Strip during the second ceasefire in early 2025 to keep Gaza’s two million residents nourished for at least 5 to 6 months.
• The inequality in the distribution of food among the people of Gaza is due to a variety of complicating factors on the ground, including the hijacking of free food aid by Hamas and the exploitation of it for profit.
• The Israeli leadership is currently devising plans to restart the distribution of food to Gaza’s Palestinians without it falling into the hands of Hamas.
• Throughout the war, there have been several claims that a famine caused by Israeli restrictions on aid was imminent. However, none of these famines have ever occurred as forecasted.
• The rate of malnutrition among children in Gaza is roughly equal to the rate of malnutrition that existed prior to the start of the war.

Markets, Restaurants & Food Lines: The Food Aid Situation in Gaza

Following a six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in January and February 2025, Israel imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, hoping to pressure Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages and accepting more favorable conditions for a renewed ceasefire.

Under this blockade, no aid and materials (including food) are allowed to enter the embattled Strip.

However, in the six weeks between the beginning of the ceasefire and the imposition of the blockade, Israel facilitated the delivery of 338,676 tons of food into Gaza.

According to the World Food Programme’s estimate, this amount of food would be enough to sustain all 2 million residents of Gaza for between 5 to 6 months, while, according to the UN’s estimate, this amount should last the people of Gaza between 6 to 8 months.

Funny how UNRWA suddenly stopped reporting the amount of aid entering Gaza right after the ceasefire began and the number of daily trucks shot up to 600.

Maybe they realized their “starvation” narrative had completely collapsed, with the quantities of food being enough to… pic.twitter.com/hjCXeAvHuk

— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) April 29, 2025

Now, less than four months since the beginning of the ceasefire, it is clear that there should still be ample supplies of food available across the Gaza Strip.

If so, what accounts for the disturbing images of Palestinian civilians waiting in long food lines?

According to Times of Israel journalist Lazar Berman, the existence of long and chaotic food lines alongside images of Gazans patronizing markets and restaurants (which have yet to receive the attention of the mainstream media) likely points to an imbalance in the distribution of aid within the Strip. While some areas have adequate access to food, other areas either have little access to food or only have food available at inflated and restrictive prices.

One of the main factors contributing to this discrepancy in access to food aid is Hamas itself, which has commandeered a significant amount of this free food aid, either to hoard it or to sell it at inflated prices and to fill its coffers with the profits.

Malnutrition in Children

Alongside stories and images of long food lines, another aspect of the alleged food crisis in Gaza that has received a considerable amount of attention from the media is malnutrition among local children.

In the first half of April 2025, 32,000 children were screened for acute malnutrition. Of those screened, 984 were diagnosed with severe or moderate malnutrition.

While any level of malnutrition among children is lamentable, analyst Mark Zlochin has noted that this level of malnutrition among children (3%) is actually slightly lower than the rate that existed in Gaza prior to the war.

Given the renewed hysteria about alleged “starvation” in Gaza, here are two critical facts:

1) Out of 92,000 children screened for malnutrition in March, only 3,722 were diagnosed as malnourished and enrolled in a malnutrition management program.

That’s 4% – exactly the same…

— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) April 28, 2025

As part of the media’s focus on malnutrition in children, news outlets will focus on certain examples to provide a human face to this issue.

However, in many cases, the children represented in these stories suffer from pre-existing conditions that can contribute to their ill state. For example, NBC News, CBC News, and CNN all profiled Osama Al-Raqab, a 6-year-old Gazan boy diagnosed with malnutrition. Unlike the description of him as having been “full of life” and “once-healthy,” Osama suffers from cystic fibrosis, a disorder that can lead to malnutrition in even the best circumstances. To blame Osama’s condition on Israel’s blockade is both misleading and manipulative.

In sum, while many media organizations and NGOs seek to portray Israel’s two-month-long blockade of Gaza as the sole cause of impending famine and mass starvation in the region, the reality is much more complex.

It’s time the media acknowledge the complexity, and — above all — stop falling for the Hamas narrative of a non-existent famine in Gaza.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.