Humanitarian organisations on the ground in Gaza have issued dire warnings that international aid operations are on the verge of total collapse as Israel’s two-month-long full blockade continues to restrict the flow of essential supplies. Aid groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations, and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), are reporting horrific scenes of starvation, deadly violence over scarce water, and complete breakdowns of civil infrastructure.
“This blockade is deadly,” said Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), speaking via video link from Gaza City. “Food stocks have now mainly run out. Community kitchens have begun to shut down, and more people are going hungry.”
With water access virtually impossible and hospitals overwhelmed and undersupplied, humanitarian leaders are calling for urgent international intervention to prevent what they describe as an accelerating humanitarian catastrophe for Gaza’s 2.4 million residents.
Collapse of Aid Infrastructure
The humanitarian crisis deepened after Israel halted aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip on March 2, just days before a temporary ceasefire collapsed. This halt came after 15 months of war, during which Gaza’s infrastructure, food supply chains, and civil systems had already been extensively damaged.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the last available food stocks have already been dispatched, and the 25 bakeries it supports have ceased operations due to the lack of flour and fuel. The NRC’s humanitarian access manager in Gaza, Gavin Kelleher, warned that “thousands of people will die” if food and medical supplies are not allowed to enter immediately.
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The ICRC echoed this alarm, stating that “without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.” Their deputy head of operations, Pascal Hundt, noted that civilians in Gaza are enduring “an overwhelming daily struggle to survive,” amidst continuous conflict and multiple displacements.
Children Starving, Hospitals Collapsing
The blockade’s toll on Gaza’s youngest and most vulnerable has been particularly severe. Cherevko described seeing children die from malnutrition, and reported first-hand accounts of fights breaking out over limited water resources. “There’s a water truck that has just arrived, and people are killing each other over water,” she said.
In one chilling account, a friend told Cherevko that due to the lack of water, there was nothing available to extinguish flames engulfing people injured in explosions. Hospitals, she added, were running out of blood as they received waves of mass casualties.
Mike Ryan, Director of Emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO), condemned the situation as an “abomination.” Speaking in Geneva, he said, “We are breaking the bodies and the minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza.”
No Way to Grow, Fish, or Flee
The NRC’s Kelleher accused Israel of deliberately engineering the current humanitarian collapse. “Israel is not only preventing food from entering Gaza but it has also engineered a situation in which Palestinians cannot grow their own food, they cannot fish for their own food, and they continue to attack or deny access to the little left food stocks in Gaza,” he said.
He described a rising trend of “needs-based looting” — acts of desperation driven by sheer hunger — and condemned the manufactured collapse of civil order that now characterises life in Gaza.
Mass Displacement and Civilian Trauma
The population of Gaza has been subjected to repeated mass displacement. Nearly all of Gaza’s residents have been forced to flee at least once during the conflict, and following the recent collapse of the ceasefire, another 420,000 people have been forced to move again. Many fled “with only the clothes on their backs,” Cherevko said, and were fired upon as they attempted to reach overcrowded shelters.
Gaza’s urban landscape has been decimated. “Gaza lies in ruins. Rubble fills the streets,” said Cherevko. “Many nights, blood-curdling screams of the injured pierce the skies following the deafening sound of another explosion.”
International Silence and Outrage
Aid organisations are also expressing deep frustration with the lack of international response to the unfolding crisis. Cherevko criticised global decision-makers for their continued silence: “They have watched in silence the endless scenes of bloodied children, of severed limbs, of grieving parents move swiftly across their screens, month after month after month.”
“How much more blood must be spilled before enough becomes enough?” she asked.
Ryan from the WHO supported the call for global accountability, adding that Gaza’s situation has moved beyond crisis into a systemic violation of human rights. “The cost of this blockade is being paid in the lives of children, in the collapse of public health, and in the irreversible trauma inflicted on an entire population,” he said.
A Manufactured Humanitarian Emergency
Humanitarian leaders have consistently warned that the collapse of services in Gaza is not simply the result of war but a deliberate policy of denial and deprivation. The halting of humanitarian aid, destruction of water and energy infrastructure, and prevention of agricultural and fishing activity have effectively cut Gaza off from all means of self-sustenance.
The UN has previously warned of famine conditions. Now, with food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies nearly gone, and no aid allowed in, experts say the crisis will soon reach a level where even emergency international support may be too late to stop mass death.
The ICRC, WHO, NRC, and OCHA have urged the international community to apply immediate pressure on Israeli authorities to allow safe, unimpeded humanitarian access — and to support a permanent ceasefire agreement.
Until then, aid workers say, Gaza’s suffering will only intensify. As Ryan concluded, “We are watching, in real time, the systematic dismantling of the conditions for life in Gaza. This is not just a humanitarian emergency. This is a collapse of humanity.”
