The bombs have ceased in Gaza, and trucks with food have been able to enter after months with all access routes closed, but only on paper. After 18 days of ceasefire, it has been cancelled and reactivated several times. Today, the Strip suffered another 12 hours of bombardments that left a hundred dead. On the other hand, to date, only 986 trucks of humanitarian aid have accessed Gaza, out of the 6,600 agreed upon in the truce, 89 trucks daily, far below the 600 scheduled.
Half a million displaced persons returned to northern Gaza on the first day of the agreement, and many of them, children and adults, were seen rushing desperately towards the first vehicles that arrived with food. All humanitarian organisations that have been working in the Middle East for decades agree that a famine has never before occurred in this part of the world.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), supported by the United Nations, Gaza crossed the famine threshold in August. More than 500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip - nearly a quarter of the population - were in Phase 5, characterised by hunger, destitution, and death. Another 1.07 million people (54% of the population) were in emergency status (Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20%) were in crisis situation (Phase 3). It is assumed that these figures worsened up to the day of the ceasefire agreement.
In the specific case of child malnutrition, Action Against Hunger, for example, has documented a 700% increase in cases since October 2023. Before that date, the NGO did not have to implement nutrition activities in the Strip. “Our teams treated between 300 and 400 children under five years old in September alone, when just a few months ago, the cases barely reached 100,” explains the organisation's operations director, Vincent Stehli.
But it is not just famine. It is also rubble. The UN estimates that 85% of Gaza's civil infrastructure is completely destroyed: housing, roads, electricity and water distribution systems, as well as commercial and economic facilities. Gaza has been buried.