Why is aid not reaching people?published at 10:40 British Summer Time 23 July

10:40 BST 23 July

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, EPA

The new statement from more than 100 NGOs says that an average of only 28 lorryloads of aid is being distributed daily in Gaza.

Yet dramatic footage posted on X by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani on Tuesday shows huge quantities of goods – he says from 950 lorries – stacked up just inside Gaza’s crossings. “This after Israeli facilitated the entry of aid,” he writes.

So why is so much aid stuck?

During the war, the UN has repeatedly said it struggles to get the necessary Israeli authorisation to collect incoming supplies with Gazan drivers from inside the crossing points and transport it through military zones.

The ongoing hostilities, badly damaged roads and severe fuel shortages have exacerbated problems. Criminal looting by armed gangs has sometimes stopped operations. These issues remain.

But currently we are hearing from the UN that its key problem is that it's struggling to get commitments from the IDF that desperate Palestinians will not be killed while getting life-saving aid. Each time their teams try to collect aid from crossings, UN workers say, civilians approach their lorries which come under fire.

This is “despite repeated assurances that troops would not engage or be present,” says Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general.

“This cannot be stressed enough that this unacceptable pattern is the opposite of what facilitating humanitarian operations should look like,” he said at a briefing on Tuesday. “Absolutely no-one should have to risk their lives to get food.”

Image source, Reuters

We can bring you more now from the statement signed by more than 100 aid organisations who are warning about mass starvation in Gaza.

Here's a summary of its main points:

• "As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza," humanitarian workers are joining food lines risking being shot to feed their families, the organisations write
• The "total siege" in Gaza has "created chaos, starvation, and death"

• Supplies are "totally depleted", as humanitarian workers starve to death
• It says warehouses within Gaza with tons of food, water and medical supplies sit untouched, as organisations are blocked from accessing and delivering them
• "The UN-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning", the statement reads
• There are "record rates" of acute malnutrition, especially among children and the elderly
• The agencies demand a permanent ceasefire, a lifting of all restrictions, the reopening of all land crossings, a rejection of military-controlled distribution sites and a UN-led humanitarian response

A total of 115 aid agencies have signed the letter.

Image source, EPA

UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned that "failures to uphold international obligations are coming at a time of widening geopolitical divides and conflicts".

"And the cost is staggering - measured in human lives, shattered communities, and lost futures," he told the Security Council yesterday.

"We need look no further than the horror show in Gaza - with a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times. Malnourishment is soaring. Starvation is knocking on every door.

"And now we are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles. That system is being denied the conditions to function. Denied the space to deliver. Denied the safety to save lives.

"With Israeli military operations intensifying and new displacement orders issued in Deir al-Balah, devastation is being layered upon devastation," the UN head said.

An orthopaedic surgeon at Nasser hospital in southern Gaza tells the BBC News Channel that malnutrition in the Strip is harming her patients’ recovery from surgery.

Having been based in Khan Younis for the last three weeks, Canadian doctor Deirdre Nunan describes seeing “outcomes that are much worse than we would normally have expected” as patients' wounds become infected and refuse to heal as a result of aid shortages.

Dr Nunan says the lack of aid has meant that “even formerly healthy adult men and women are just skin and bones here”.

And she adds that shortages are impacting the performance of hospital staff, warning: “Our nurses don’t have enough energy to stand up for the duration of their shift."

“Not even the very basic minimums of standards for human life are being met here,” she adds.

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, reporting from Istanbul

Essential supplies remain scarce in Gaza, with basic food items now priced well beyond the means of most families.

“It’s outrageous – prices are on fire," says one Gaza resident. "Every day we need 300 Israeli shekels (£66.52) just for flour!”

The price of lentils and chickpeas has climbed from 10 to 100 shekels per kilo, the resident tells the BBC, making it nearly impossible to prepare even the simplest of meals.

“You’d need 600 shekels (£133) daily just to eat lentils and one loaf of bread."

By comparison, a 1kg bag of lentils and a loaf of bread at one of the UK's largest supermarket chains costs roughly £3.25.

But food isn’t the only burden among Palestinians, says another resident. You also need firewood, water, power and phone credit.

“We’re exhausted. We can’t even stand up to walk anymore," he says.

Small personal donations from relatives abroad are helping some families get by, but the cost of cash commission exceeds 50%, making it impractical.

Image source, Getty Images

As we mentioned in the post below, there have been regular reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking aid since the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating in late May.

Both Israel and the GHF have disputed death tolls, recorded by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

However, the ministry's figures are widely seen as a reliable count of bodies seen by Gazan hospitals and its totals are backed up by the UN's own count.

Some of the deadliest incidents in recent days include:

• On Sunday, at least 67 people waiting for UN aid lorries in northern Gaza were killed
• The day before, at least 39 Palestinians seeking food were killed near two aid distribution points in southern Gaza
• On 20 July, at least 21 people died during a crush at a GHF site in Khan Younis

• Ten people, including six children, were killed in an air strike while waiting for water in central Gaza on 13 July

• Twenty-four people were killed by Israeli fire near a southern aid site on 12 July
• On 11 July, at least 15 people, including eight children, were killed while queuing for nutritional supplements in front of a clinic in central Gaza

At the end of June, when the death toll at aid sites was 500, BBC Verify published an investigation examining several earlier incidents where Israel was accused of killing civilians seeking aid.

Image source, Reuters

As aid agencies denounce the spread of "mass starvation" in Gaza, the US has been defending the controversial distribution scheme used to hand out food to Palestinians inside the enclave.

For two months, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with the backing of Israel and Washington, has taken over from international aid organisations as the main distributor of aid in Gaza.

The UN has repeatedly condemned the plan, saying it would "militarise" aid. Since then, there have been near-daily reports of killings of people trying to collect food.

Israel's military has responded to some of these reports saying it's fired "warning shots" at people who they described as "suspects" or posing a threat.

Pressed by the BBC that the approach is leading to starvation, a State Department spokeswoman says the current situation “works”. She claims it's stopping Hamas exploiting aid and called resistance to it bizarre.

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, in Istanbul

At least 17 Palestinians, including four children and an infant, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since early Wednesday morning, according to a spokesperson for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence.

The spokesman says three separate airstrikes targeted two residential apartments and a tent shelter, resulting in the deaths of 17 people, including eight members of a single family.

Another 24 individuals were wounded in the attacks, he adds.

Search and rescue teams are still recovering bodies and assisting the injured at the sites of the strikes, the spokesperson says.

The Israeli military has not commented on the incidents so far.

In an operational update from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it says it has been operating throughout the Gaza Strip.

The statement adds they have struck "approximately 120 terror targets" across the Strip, with "a number of terrorists" killed by aircraft in Jabalia as they approached Israeli ground forces.

In Gaza City, the troops are "deepening their operational activity", the IDF adds.

Image source, Reuters

The UN's humanitarian agency Ocha released a new update on Tuesday, warning of "the rapid collapse of the last lifelines keeping people alive". Citing local health officials, it says:

• More than a dozen Palestinians, including children, died of hunger in the past 24 hours (the Hamas-run health ministry put the figure at 33 in 48 hours)
• Hospitals have admitted people suffering severe exhaustion from not being able to eat
• "Others are said to be collapsing in the streets," the statement says

Image source, Getty Images

A World Health Organization (WHO) official has told the BBC of seeing children in Gaza who look younger than their age because of malnutrition.

Speaking to our colleagues on the Today programme, WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza Dr Rik Peeperkorn says malnutrition is "starkly on the rise" in Gaza.

"In 2025 only, we talk about nearly 30,000 children who are malnourished," he explains.

Dr Peeperkorn visits Gaza frequently, and describes how on his latest trip, his team "saw a child in a malnutrition ward... a child that looks like they're two when actually they're five".

"The lack of basic food supplies is affecting everyone," he adds. "It's even affecting our colleagues in Gaza, a kind of lethargy all over."

Image source, Getty Images

As conditions deteriorate in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry is now dividing its death toll into categories.

Yesterday, it said that 33 people, including 12 children, had died from malnutrition the past 48 hours, bringing the total to 101, including 80 children overall.

It also said 1,026 people have been killed by Israel's military while seeking food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution system began on 27 May.

A slightly higher figure, 1,054, figure was used by the UN on Tuesday.

According to the UN, about 87.8% of Gaza is now covered by Israeli evacuation orders or is within Israeli militarised zones, leaving the 2.1 million population squeezed into about 46 sq km (18 sq miles) of land.

In total, the Hamas-run health ministry reports at least 59,029 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, when the Israeli military launched a campaign in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

Image source, X

Despite criticism from humanitarian organisations, Israel says crucial supplies are waiting in Gaza, ready to be delivered to Palestinians.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Nadav Shoshani shared a video of "950 trucks worth of aid", which he says are "for international organizations to pick up and distribute to Gazan civilians".

"This is after Israel facilitated the aid entry into Gaza," he adds.

The aid agencies do not dispute there is undistributed aid inside Gaza. In their statement, they say "tons" of aid and critical supplies are waiting "just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself".

But, these organisations claim that they have been "blocked from accessing or delivering them" by Israeli government restrictions.

Israel, though, says the system - run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since May - prevents supplies being stolen by Hamas.

On Tuesday evening, Israeli Army Radio quoted Cogat as saying Hamas was "conducting a false campaign regarding the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, as a pressure tool within the negotiations".

Image source, Reuters

As we just reported, more than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups are warning of mass starvation in Gaza - while pressing for governments to take action.

The letter says aid distributions in Gaza "average just 28 trucks a day"; the UN has previously suggested that a minimum of 600 lorries a day are required to feed the population of two million people.

"As mass starvation spreads across Gaza, our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away," the groups say, before calling for a ceasefire, as well as the opening of crossings and a full flow of food through a "UN-led mechanism".

The groups say access has been "denied" to "tons" of crucial supplies, and accuse Israel of false promises around plans to scale up aid "when there is no real change on the ground".

Yesterday, the Israeli military body responsible for co-ordinating aid deliveries, Cogat, insisted that Israel acts in accordance with international law.

It said it facilitates the entry of aid, while ensuring it does not reach Hamas.

Jacqueline Howard
Live editor

More than 100 aid agencies, including Save the Children and Médecins Sans Frontières, have released a joint statement "sounding the alarm" over what they say is "mass starvation" across Gaza.

"Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions," the statement says.

Israel has acknowledged a significant drop in supplies reaching Gazans. But its officials say the food is there - and instead point to the aid agencies for not getting it to the people.

For their part, the aid agencies have long reported issues in co-ordinating safe passage with Israel to distribute aid.

Over recent days, the Hamas-run health ministry has reported dozens of recent deaths from malnutrition, while the agencies say hundreds have been killed while seeking aid in the past two months.

We'll have all the latest news and reaction on this page, so stay with us.