Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth” and facing catastrophe, the UN has warned, as aid continues to struggle to reach starving Palestinians.
The UN’s humanitarian office said Israel was allowing a “trickle” of food into the enclave when it should be a “flood”, with 300 aid trucks unable to offload due to operational bottlenecks.
It comes as hopes for a 60-day ceasefire and hostage exchange proposed by the Americans hang in the balance. Hamas said it was “reviewing” the Israel-backed plans but has already claimed the deal lacks a commitment to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, the crisis on the ground continues to mount, with Israel ordering the evacuation of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza while at least 14 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Friday.
Last week, Israel partially lifted an 11-week blockade of aid into Gaza, allowing a limited amount of aid into the territory, through a new but heavily criticised system introduced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesperson Jens Laerke said aid deliveries were still severely restricted, as hunger and malnutrition spread among the increasingly desperate 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
“It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” he said in a press briefing in Geneva. “It’s not a flood.”
Mr Laerke called for immediate changes to how aid was being allowed into the enclave so food could be delivered “directly to families”, pointing out that almost no ready-to-eat food was entering.
“Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth,” he said. “It’s the only defined area, a country or defined territory within a country where you have the entire population at risk of famine, 100 per cent of the population at risk of famine.
“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in the recent history of global humanitarian response anywhere.”
Médecins Sans Frontières secretary-general Christopher Lockyear agreed the new system was not working.
“The most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need,” he said. “The claim that this unprincipled, failing mechanism is necessary to prevent the diversion of aid is false.”
Israel’s foreign ministry rebuked criticism of the flow of aid, saying on Friday: “There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie.”
The ministry said it was facilitating the entry of aid in two ways: first, by allowing nearly 900 trucks to enter Gaza this week.
“Hundreds of these trucks are still waiting for the UN to collect and distribute them in Gaza,” the ministry said.
The ministry also said it was distributing aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and claimed the GHF had handed out more than two million meals within four days of starting operations in southern Gaza as well as “tens of thousands of aid packages”.
But Palestinians described chaos at all three of GHF’s aid hubs on Thursday; multiple witnesses reported a free-for-all of people grabbing aid, and they said Israeli troops opened fire to control crowds.
Mnawar al-Rai said she has to walk to three or four locations each day to find a plate of food to feed her children, and when her family tried to collect aid in recent days they came under fire. Fuad Muheisen from Deir a-Balah said if charity kitchens shut down “all of Gaza will die. No one will stay alive.”
Hamas is expected to respond to the US ceasefire proposal this weekend, after the White House said Israel had agreed to Washington’s new plan to halt hostilities in Gaza.
Under the new proposal, guaranteed by US President Donald Trump, Hamas would release 28 of the remaining 58 living and dead Israeli hostages in the first week of the 60-day ceasefire, in exchange for the release of 1,236 Palestinian prisoners and the remains of 180 dead Palestinians.
Humanitarian aid would flow into Gaza as soon as Hamas agrees to the deal, and the plan stipulates the militant group would release the remaining 30 hostages once a permanent ceasefire is in place. At that time, Israel would also cease all military operations in Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister – who underwent a routine colonoscopy on Friday morning in Jerusalem – has told the families of Israeli hostages that he has accepted the new ceasefire proposal presented by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, according to local media reports.
Families of the remaining hostages held in Gaza are again pleading with Netanyahu to ensure that any agreement to end the war must include their freedom.
Ayelet Samerano, the mother of Yonatan Samerano, whose body is being held in Gaza, was among the family members who met with the Israeli prime minister on Thursday. She said the news that only some hostages and several bodies would be released had once again plunged the families into indescribable uncertainty.
“It’s again a selection,” she said. “All the families, we are right now standing and thinking, is it going to be my son? Isn’t it?”
Hamas said it would respond to the ceasefire proposals by Saturday, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Thursday that the terms of the proposal echoed Israel’s position and did not contain commitments to end the war, withdraw Israeli troops or admit aid as Hamas has demanded.
Even as those negotiations continue, Israel has ordered more evacuations from the north of Gaza including from the Al Awda hospital – one of the last functioning medical centres in the area – while Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 people, including women, and injuring more.
So far Israel’s war in Gaza has killed roughly 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The war began with Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel, which left around 1,200 dead and some 250 taken hostage.
With additional reporting from Reuters, AP
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