Opinion by Sean Carroll on May 6, 2025.

OUR CLINICS HAVE FOUND CLEAR EVIDENCE OF STARVATION IN ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION. AND NOW ISRAEL WANTS TO TAKE OVER AID.

Amman, Jordan

A full-blown humanitarian emergency in Gaza is no longer looming. It is here, and it is catastrophic.

It’s been more than two months since Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and commercial supplies into Gaza. The World Food Program delivered its last stores of food on April 25. Two million Palestinians in Gaza, nearly half of them children, are now surviving on a single meal every two or three days.

At makeshift clinics run by my relief organization, American Near East Refugee Aid, signs of prolonged starvation are becoming more frequent and alarming. In the past 10 days, our lab technicians began detecting ketones, an indicator of starvation, in one-third of urine samples tested, the first time we have seen such cases in significant numbers since we began testing in October 2024. Food, fuel and medicine are exhausted or close to it.

Every hour is a race against time — but without the access and political will needed to deliver aid, save lives and end the unimaginable suffering, our hands are tied.

This is the longest continuous total siege Gaza has endured in the war. Israel is now openly exploiting aid as a tool of war; senior Israeli officials have declared what effectively is the intent to use starvation as a tactic to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages — a clear violation of international law. Many Palestinians fear it is also part of a plan to expel them from Gaza, and aid groups warn that Palestinians could end up in “de facto internment conditions.”

Israel’s blockade — and the deliberate delays, denials and excessive security procedures that surround it — is not just a failure of logistics. It is an engineered system of deprivation. The short-lived cease-fire in January proved inadequate to meet humanitarian needs. Aid increased beginning on Jan. 19, but was again cut off entirely by March. The intent to use hunger as leverage is explicit, and it is unconscionable.

As food stocks vanish, leaders including President Trump, Canada’s new prime minister and Israel’s allies in Europe and around the world are calling for the immediate resumption of humanitarian aid. Yet their words remain no more than that: just words, empty and ignored. On Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to step up its military campaign in Gaza.

Just as ominously for Palestinians, Israel also approved a plan to entrench its control over aid, through Israeli-established hubs with private companies handling security. This appears part of a broader effort that includes the continued closure of Gaza’s crossing with Egypt and a ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the main source of humanitarian support for Palestinians. The clampdown on aid would also undermine Arab-led regional efforts for genuine recovery and reconstruction by ignoring or putting off feasible and legitimate security and governance plans. The danger for relief workers is constant. This March, the Israeli military killed 14 aid workers and a U.N. official. For my organization, the war became deadly in March 2024 when an Israeli airstrike killed our colleague Mousa Shawwa and his young son. At least 418 humanitarian staff members have been killed in Gaza over the past 18 months, making it the deadliest region in the world for aid workers.

Since breaking the cease-fire with intensified bombing on March 18, the Israeli military has pushed Palestinians in Gaza into smaller and smaller enclaves, expanding “no go” military or evacuation zones to about 70 percent of their territory.

Israel must be required to create open and secure humanitarian corridors. Without them it is impossible to scale up relief because every delivery is a gamble with civilian and aid workers’ lives. And while an immediate cease-fire and influx of aid are urgently needed, that will not be enough.

There must be a plan, not just for relief but for recovery, which cannot happen in a war zone or under permanent siege. True recovery requires a political agreement that guarantees Palestinian presence, security and self-determination. Humanitarian access is not just a moral imperative, it is a prerequisite for any hope of a better future.

Imagine instead a Gaza where homes are rebuilt, clean water flows, children return to school and families can once again harvest food from their own land. This vision may seem distant after decades of Israeli military occupation, blockade and repeated wars that have severely damaged infrastructure and essential services.

But we’ve helped improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza before and we can do it again. What stands in the way isn’t capacity, it’s deliberate policy blocking the path to basic human dignity.

When we talk about peace, we must ask: What kind of future are we envisioning if an entire people is left to suffer starvation? Israelis will not be safer while Gaza remains under siege. Sustainable peace is built not through domination, but through dignity, freedom, opportunity and mutual security.

This is the moment of moral reckoning. Will the world be complicit in Gaza’s collapse, or part of its recovery?

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
c. 2025 The New York Times Company