‘We are wasting away’: Over 100 aid organizations warn of mass starvation in Gaza

CAIRO – 23 July 2025: More than 100 aid organizations have warned about the escalating humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, stating that "mass starvation" is spreading and that their own colleagues are suffering from severe shortages, the AFP reported on Wednesday.

In a statement, the signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Save the Children, stated that "our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away."

They emphasized that aid workers themselves are now joining food lines, risking their lives to feed their families.

The organizations are calling for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings, and the unrestricted flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

The UN reported that Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 Palestinians seeking food aid since the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began distributing aid in late May after months of Israeli blockade.

The aid groups expressed frustration over warehouses filled with supplies that remain inaccessible, stating, "It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the situation in Gaza as unprecedented, calling the suffering faced by Palestinians under Israeli military action a "horror."

The health ministry in Gaza is reporting daily deaths by Israeli gunshots shot at starving Palestinians near the GHF distribution sites.

The ministry called these sites “death traps” and accused the Israeli occupation and the GHF of “deliberately committing massacres against the starving in a systematic manner using various methods.”

Last week, the GHF admitted deaths near one of its distribution units in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

Israeli forces on that day fired tear gas on starving Palestinians at starving Palestinians, killing 21 people, mostly due to suffocation and stampede, according to the health ministry.

The UN World Food Programme issued a statement this week, noting that countless Gazans were shot dead after encountering a convoy of 25 aid trucks on Sunday, trying to get food for themselves and their families.

WFP condemned the incident, stating that the victims “were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation”.

According to the WFP statement, surging malnutrition in Gaza has left 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment with nearly one in every three persons not eating for days.

Hunger has killed at least 101 people in the enclave, including 80 children, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing Palestinian officials. Most of these fatalities were reported in the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, Israel has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians since the start of the war in October 2023, devastated infrastructure, left most of health facilities inoperable and pushed the enclave toward imminent famine.