For nearly two months, Israel has been preventing humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. And stocks of food and medicine for over two million Palestinian people are running out.

The World Food Programme (WFP), the UN agency responsible for food assistance, has announced that it has exhausted its food parcels in Gaza. Meanwhile, 116 tonnes of new supplies are waiting at the border, which Israeli authorities are refusing to allow into the Strip. Bakeries have closed due to a lack of flour and fuel, the prices of the few foods still available in shops are out of reach for most people, and Gaza's residents are now surviving on an average of one meal a day.

A year and a half after the start of the Israeli offensive on the territory, the Gaza Strip is living through its most difficult phase, caught between the longest blockade of humanitarian aid and relentless bombardments. The matter has now come before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

On 2 March, during the ceasefire period established in January, Israel imposed a blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. This is not the first time it has happened. In the weeks following 7 October 2023, Israeli authorities had already imposed the so-called "total siege" on Palestinian territory, which had prevented the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other essential goods. In the months that followed, some humanitarian trucks managed to enter in a trickle, providing sustenance to only a small percentage of the population. Over the past two months, however, the situation has deteriorated drastically, in what the UN has described as the longest blockade of humanitarian aid since the start of the Israeli offensive.

By the end of March, all 25 bakeries in the Gaza Strip linked to the World Food Programme had been forced to close due to the inability to operate ovens and produce bread. The failure of new goods to enter as a result of the Israeli blockade has also caused the supply of food in shops to collapse relative to demand, with a surge in prices that is unsustainable for the vast majority of the population. A sack of flour in the north of the Strip reached a price of 500 dollars, and according to data released by the UN, food prices have risen by as much as 1,400 per cent compared to the early weeks of the ceasefire. Products such as meat and dairy are simply nowhere to be found.

On 25 April, the World Food Programme announced that it had exhausted all food stocks inside the Strip. This means that hundreds of thousands of people will soon stop receiving their food parcels, further worsening their already precarious state of food insecurity. The 47 community kitchens linked to the WFP had already been forced for weeks to drastically reduce the portions of food distributed. The majority of the Palestinian population now eats an average of one meal a day, and as the NGO ActionAid points out, in March alone 3,700 children were admitted in a state of acute malnutrition — an 80 per cent increase compared to February. It is not only food that is lacking, but also the tools needed to provide healthcare to the population. Fuel to power hospital generators, medicines, but also sterile gloves and even body bags. For two months, Israel has been letting nothing through.

Israel is blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in order to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages in its hands. In effect, Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war — even though the complete release of the hostages was already stipulated under the very same ceasefire that Israel itself unilaterally violated. At Israeli checkpoints outside the Strip, at least 116,000 tonnes of food aid that could save thousands of lives are meanwhile sitting idle, refused passage by border officials.

In this context, hearings have begun at the International Court of Justice — at the request of the UN General Assembly — to investigate Israel's failure to comply with its humanitarian obligations. "Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians, while targeting and blocking the humanitarian organisations trying to save their lives," stressed Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, before the court. No Israeli representative appeared at the hearing.