Gaza Aid Left to Rot While the People Starve
Delays turn a lifeline into a biohazardous nightmare.
Letting aid at the Gaza border not only causes the region to starve, but it creates a biohazardous nightmare. Flour, baby formula, and other food items, including perishables, are left to rot at Gaza’s border. Col Abdullah Halabi has said that Israel “allows the entry of humanitarian aid beyond the standards of international law”. However, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric has said that Israel has imposed “tremendous” bureaucratic and security impediments that make food aid delivery difficult, if not impossible.
In order to get food aid to Gaza, UN trucks must obtain permission to enter a military-controlled zone, enter the zone, and then safely get to the people. This can take as long as 20 hours. Not only can crowding and criminal gangs aid with aid distribution, but witnesses have reported that Israeli troops “regularly open fire on the crowds”, causing deaths and injuries. In addition to that, routes assigned to trucks are “unsuitable” or “impassable” for long truck convoys.
Delays in coordination with Israeli forces also happen on a regular basis. Convoys often spend hours waiting for approval only to be denied. In addition to that, the UN has raised concern that the delays actually incentivize looting. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric has said that “communities have to understand that trucks will come every day”. With this in mind, Durrajic believes that a regular flow of a sufficient amount of trucks will prevent looting.
Airdropping aid has proven largely unsuccessful and, in some instances, deadly. In Mawasi, Khan Yunis, an aid box with a malfunctioning parachute killed Sami Mahmoud Ayyad, a three-year old child, in 2024 in his family’s tent. Iktimal Abu Mattar, a volunteer at a UN-affiliated refugee center, has also revealed that aid gets “seized by armed groups or desperate individuals”, leaving a majority of people in Gaza without aid. Soon, many people started “stampeding, pushing, and scrambling” to access aid, a “moment of deep humiliation” for the people there.
Reports from more than one year ago show that people in Gaza have turned to eating a plant called cheeseweed. Although cheeseweed already has a presence in the region’s culinary tradition, it has shifted from being a side dish to a staple food. This plant grows wild and many people sold it to provide for their families. Others have resorted to eating animal feed and other things not fit for human consumption while an average of only 98 trucks passed through per day.
Many people from the region as have reported that the bread in airdrops was already moldy. A Quds News Network video shows a bag of flour from an alleged aid distribution center “dried up and filled with worms” while the family who received it is trying to use it in any way possible. Meanwhile, a video by Al Jazeera shows a man hopefully opening a bag of bread only to discover that it is moldy. While the people of Gaza need a minimum of 600 trucks of aid per day, six countries airdropped around 120 total packages of aid, a move called a “PR stunt” by critics.
A current UN report has revealed that “widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease” have driven a rise in hunger-related deaths. Ross Smith, the WFP (World Food Program) director, described it as a “disaster unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of our television screens.” Additionally, he described the scenes of starvation in Gaza as “unlike anything we have seen in this century”. Tens of thousands of children were treated for acute malnutrition and 16 deaths were reported. Around 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been razed to the ground.
The IPC has anticipated that 71,000 cases of acute malnutrition will develop in the region within this year and into early 2026. Around 14,100 of those cases are likely to be severe, around 18.5% of the total. Current data places all five governorates in stage 4 food insecurity. However, the collapse of the healthcare systems in Gaza and lack of data gathering by third parties will make declaring famine difficult, if not outright impossible.
Food doesn’t wait. It rots, it reeks, and it turns from a source of nourishment into something dangerous. Many people in Gaza have resorted to eating scraps of visibly moldy bread, each bite being a gamble for survival. When bread gets moldy, it is generally advised to throw the entire loaf away, even if the mold is only visible in small amounts. Mold penetrates deeply into soft foods like bread, yogurt, soft cheeses, and fruits. Hyphae, rootlike structures, spread throughout the item, meaning that there is more mold than meets the eye.
Consuming moldy food can cause allergic reactions or other forms of illness due to the presence of mycotoxins. In addition to that, harmful bacteria can proliferate alongside mold, which presents additional hazards such as bacterial foodborne illnesses and resulting dehydration. Many foodborne illnesses cause vomiting and diarrhea, which cause significant suffering even under the best of circumstances. In a place like Gaza, such an ailment can be a death sentence, especially for a child or for someone who is already malnourished.
Delays in aid have already turned food aid into a biohazardous nightmare for people in Gaza. Each bite of moldy bread or food made with contaminated flour is a gamble between staving off starvation or contracting food poisoning. While generally undesirable, many people can recover from food poisoning with adequate medical attention, rest, and infrastructure. Those in Gaza do not have that luxury. Each bite is rolling the dice for a chance at survival and the odds get slimmer with each day that aid gets delated.
