People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 22, after receiving humanitarian aid from a distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since May while trying to get food, mostly in the vicinity of aid sites.OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty Images
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly in the vicinity of aid sites run by an Israeli-backed American contractor, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday. Israeli strikes killed 25 people across Gaza, according to local health officials.
Desperation is mounting in the territory of more than two million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and ongoing 21-month offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 80 children have died from starvation since the beginning of the war, while 21 adults have since Sunday. The ministry only recently began tracking deaths from malnutrition in adults.
The deaths could not be independently verified, but UN officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight.
Israel eased a two-and-a-half-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding UN-run system and the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, an American contractor. Aid groups say it’s not nearly enough.
Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid — without providing evidence of widespread diversion — and blames UN agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in.
In a statement, GHF rejected what it said were “false and exaggerated statistics” from the UN, saying the deadliest incidents have been linked to UN aid convoys.
Palestinian children wait for a meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22. 1,054 people were killed while trying to get food since late May.-/AFP/Getty Images
Over 1,000 killed seeking food
Of the 1,054 people killed while trying to get food since late May, 766 were killed while heading to sites run by the Israeli- and U.S.-backed GHF, according to the UN human rights office. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around UN convoys or aid sites.
Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN rights office, says its figures come from “multiple reliable sources on the ground,” including medics, humanitarian and human rights organizations. He said the numbers were still being verified according to the office’s strict methodology.
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces regularly fire toward crowds of thousands of people heading to the GHF sites. The military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its armed contractors have only fired into the air on a few occasions to try to prevent stampedes.
The UN has refused to work with the GHF, saying its model violates humanitarian principles and puts lives at risk.
A joint statement from 28 Western-aligned countries on Monday condemned the “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.”
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“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” read the statement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, France and other countries friendly to Israel. “The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.”
Israel and the United States rejected the statement, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting Israeli terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the fighting.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will keep fighting until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed.
Palestinians carry aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in May.HATEM KHALED/Reuters
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA, told reporters on Tuesday that claims that the UN has stopped working are “manifestly incorrect.”
The GHF also claimed that the “deadliest attacks” on aid distribution in Gaza have been linked to UN convoys.
At least 67 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire as they waited for UN aid trucks in northern Gaza on Sunday, the Gaza health ministry said, as Israel issued new evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.
The UN said on July 15 it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the GHF and convoys run by other relief groups. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of GHF sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry and COGAT, the Israeli military aid co-ordination agency, were not immediately available for comment.
Staff and doctors fainting from hunger, exhaustion in Gaza, UNRWA head says
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said it had received dozens of emergency messages from its staff describing grave conditions and exhaustion in the enclave, where Israel has been fighting a war against Hamas since October 2023.
“No one is spared: caretakers in Gaza are also in need of care. Doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarians are hungry,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, shared by his spokesperson at a press briefing in Geneva.
“Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties: reporting atrocities or alleviating some of the suffering.”
Fifteen Palestinians die of starvation, medics say
A six-week-old infant was among 15 people who have died of starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, with malnutrition now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war. The infant died at a hospital ward in northern Gaza, the health officials said, naming him as Yousef al-Safadi.
Three of the others were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The other two children were not named.
Palestinian health officials say at least 101 people have died of hunger during the conflict, including 80 children, with most of them in recent weeks.
People transport a man, wounded as he waited for humanitarian aid, along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on June 22, after trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the northern Gaza Strip through the Israeli-controlled Zikim border crossing.OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli strikes kill at least 25
Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people across Gaza on Tuesday, according to local health officials, as Israel pushed on with a new incursion in the central city of Deir al-Balah, an area that had largely been spared heavy fighting.
One strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in the built-up seaside Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said it was not aware of such a strike by its forces.
The dead included three women and three children, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of the hospital told The Associated Press. 38 other Palestinians were wounded, he said.
The strike tore apart tents and left some of the dead lying on the ground, according to footage shared by the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service.
An overnight strike that hit crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City killed eight, hospitals said. At least 118 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on that strike. Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
Israel renewed its offensive in March with a surprise bombardment after ending an earlier ceasefire. Talks on another truce have dragged on for weeks despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
With files from Reuters
Editor’s note: This story was first published on July 22, 2025. It was updated on July 23, 2025, to correct that all 101 deaths from starvation reported by the Gaza Health Ministry were not in recent days. They include 80 children who have died since the beginning of the war, and 21 adults who have died since Sunday.