‘Beyond catastrophic’ — conditions worsen in Gaza as Israel continues aid blockade

Since the collapse of a two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in March, conditions in the Gaza Strip have become “beyond catastrophic”, according to international humanitarian organisations, with residents struggling with access to food, fuel and basic necessities.

The ceasefire collapsed on 18 March when Israel launched a wave of air strikes on what it said were Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, according to a BBC report. A total blockade on aid to Gaza since 2 March has led to dwindling supplies and a growing threat of starvation for those living there.

“As a humanitarian worker working on this crisis, every week that’s gone past since 7 October [2023], it’s felt like things can’t get any worse, but they have consistently since then. And I think collectively, when I speak with my colleagues, we’re all constantly in a state of shock about ... how it continues to get worse. It’s frankly terrifying,” said Ruth James, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa regional humanitarian coordinator.

Internally displaced Palestinians walk between destroyed buildings in Gaza City, 02 May 2025. According to the UN, at least 1.9 million people (or nine in ten people) across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, including people who have been repeatedly displaced. Since October 2023, only about 11 percent of the Gaza Strip has not been placed under Israeli-issued evacuation orders, the UN aid coordination office OCHA said. (Photo: EPA-EFE / MOHAMMED SABER)

Oxfam has about 35 staff in Gaza. Since the renewal of the Israeli blockade on aid, the team has continued to provide water to residents of the Strip, switching from trucks to donkey carts to distribute it as the local fuel supplies run lower.

“We are not able to bring in any of our goods that have been stuck outside of Gaza since 2 March. We have about 7,000 or 8,000 food parcels stuck ... that we would like to give out to people so they can eat. We have a large number of fixtures and fittings that we use for restoring water networks … and rehabilitating sewage networks. We also have a very large number of … menstrual hygiene kits,” said James.

“All of those activities are not able to take place because of the brutal collective punishment that Israel is carrying out on the population of Gaza and Palestinians in general.

“Our team, like the entire population of Gaza, is facing potential starvation… [They] don’t have enough to eat themselves, and they are in a relatively privileged position.”

It has been more than 18 months since the 7 October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 52,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to a Reuters report. Of the 59 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, up to 24 are believed to be alive.

Activists in South Africa and other countries have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide against the Palestinians. South Africa has brought a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention.

Read more: Legal opinion expected after ICJ concludes hearings on Israel’s aid obligations in Gaza

Health system in crisis

James said that a lack of water, soap, basic medicines and proper shelter in Gaza had led to the spread of preventable diseases like hepatitis A, scabies and acute watery diarrhoea.

“All kinds of easily preventable diseases are just rampant, and this is another killer inside of Gaza that affects everyone without discrimination. But it affects the most vulnerable the most, and the most vulnerable … are the children, elderly, pregnant women and people with chronic diseases and disabilities,” she said.

Joseph Belliveau, the executive director of the nonprofit MedGlobal, said that the organisation’s team in Gaza had seen a significant uptick in malnourished children since the renewed blockade.

Internally displaced Palestinians receive food from a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on 2 May 2025. According to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, more than a million people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing 'high levels' of acute food insecurity. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

“At the moment, we’re still able to draw upon the stocks that we had in place — mainly medical stocks and food for the nutritional facilities, including therapeutic food for malnourished children… But we’re seeing all around us the impact of this blockade now. Less food, less water, less everything,” he said.

“This combination of pushing people into increasingly small spaces, very abrupt and last-minute evacuation orders that we’re having to react to, the continued ... lack of respect for medical spaces — all of this is having a tremendous impact on the people of Gaza’s ability to access urgently needed medical services.”

Just over two-thirds of the MedGlobal team’s consultations were with women and children who were “very obviously non-combatants”, said Belliveau. However, many had presented with “brutal injuries” such as gunshot and explosive ordinance wounds.

A general view from a school housing displaced people in Jabalia camp, north of Gaza City, on 6 May 2025. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

“We’ve had, at certain points, nearly daily evacuation orders that have affected our teams, either where they live or where they work. We have had to temporarily shut down nutrition facilities because of these relocations and the subsequent violence,” he continued.

On 11 April, an airstrike damaged a MedGlobal storage structure just five minutes after the team had evacuated.

“We had gotten the news at the … last minute and evacuated… That is the type of situation that we’ve been operating in,” said Belliveau.

No safe spaces

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has a team of about 60 in Gaza, has been providing water to more than 100,000 people every day. However, it is running out of supplies such as blankets, mattresses, tarps for tents and kitchen tools, according to Ahmed Bayram, spokesperson for the organisation’s Middle East and North Africa regional office.

“On the professional side, I would say … my colleagues have probably never had it harder because … you have to give more and more negative answers to people in terms of what we can do. That is very difficult, to tell people we can’t offer this service, which they know we’ve always provided, or to say we’ve run out of stock,” he said.

Umm Khaled makes bread for her children inside a school housing displaced people in Jabalia camp, north of Gaza City, 06 May 2025. (Photo: EPA-EFE / HAITHAM IMAD)

Many staff members were also dealing with the personal struggle of trying to keep their families safe amid airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

“I have colleagues who lost an entire extended family in one strike, and I have colleagues who lost their homes. I have colleagues who went back, pitched their tent and decided they were going to stay there. They are, like the rest of the population, really trying to find whatever they can in terms of food, water,” said Bayram.

Both Bayram and Belliveau said that communication between humanitarian organisations and Israeli forces had broken down since March, meaning there were no guarantees of safety for workers operating out of aid facilities or moving between locations.

“The Israeli forces are no longer accepting the information that we send them, which puts us in an extremely vulnerable position… How do we know that medical sites will be protected?” said Belliveau.

“We’ve literally had sites like clinics where we were providing medical care, and then have had to evacuate and gone back, and those sites were just rubble.”

Bayram noted that in terms of the space available to move around freely, the situation had “never been worse”.

“We keep describing things as bad and getting worse. But honestly, this month and probably April … I can tell you, forget everything before. This is the worst we have lived and experienced.”

Call for global action

Oxfam, MedGlobal and the Norwegian Refugee Council are among many international aid organisations calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the lifting of the blockade on aid to the region.

“We need to be able to bring our aid in right now. Any states globally need to be putting as much pressure as possible on Israel and its supporters to implement these most basic measures [and] respect international humanitarian law, which means to stop bombing civilians,” said James.

Internally displaced Palestinians push themselves in line to receive a portion of food from a charity kitchen, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on 24 April 2025. According to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, over a million people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing ‘high levels’ of acute food insecurity, with acute malnutrition several times higher than before the war. The UN estimates at least 1.9 million people are internally displaced. (Photo: Haitham Imad)

“For governments like my own in the UK, we’re calling for the stopping of arms sales to Israel. There is very clear evidence that those arms sales are being used to carry out human rights abuses and major breaches of international humanitarian law inside Gaza.”

Bayram urged Israel’s allies to intervene and use diplomacy to push for the opening of Gaza’s border posts.

“There are probably only a few key capitals that can affect a decision like this … and unfortunately, Israel has been allowed to violate the law and not get asked any questions by these allies,” he said.

“Whether from Washington, Brussels or elsewhere, we need pressure to keep going, and we hope things will change. We never lost hope… All these months, we have been calling for diplomacy because we have seen it work.”

On Monday, 6 May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an “intensive”, expanded offensive against Hamas after his security Cabinet approved plans that might include seizing the Gaza Strip and controlling aid, according to Reuters.

However, the operation will reportedly not be launched before US President Donald Trump concludes his visit to the Middle East next week. DM