Palestinian children wait in front of a food distribution truck at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port, on Thursday. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa
Save the Children says 20 children have died from malnutrition in Gaza in the last few days
Speaking to Checkpoint from Deir al-Balah in Gaza, Rachel Cummings the agency's Humanitarian Director for the area, said lack of food for pregnant women was also of particular concern, and parents were using grass and dirty water to try to "bulk out" what food they had to help those suffering from hunger.
More than 90 truckloads of humanitarian aid have now made it into Gaza after an almost three-month blockade by Israel. The aid, including flour, baby food and medical equipment, has been taken to warehouses for distribution.
But aid agencies say it was a fraction of what the population needs, and people remain desperate for food.
On average 500 supply trucks had entered Gaza each day, before the war.
The situation meant half a million Gazans were facing possible starvation with catastrophic levels of hunger, while 1 million others had barely enough food, according to UN-backed food security measures.
"It's desperate - every child I meet, every child I see is hungry - and mothers are telling us that they just cry all the time asking for food," Cummings said.
"Mothers are having to resort to extreme coping mechanisms to try and bulk out whatever food they can find - adding grass, bulking out with water that they know is dirty, feeding their children late at night so at least they hope they can sleep with the feeling of being full - but it's absolutely desperate.
"And of course we're thinking about the immediate impacts for children, but the medium-longterm impacts on children's physical and mental health is very very concerning."
Israel has blocked all food, shelter and medicines from entering the Gaza Strip for almost three months, as it continued ground and air offences on the Palestinian territory.
Crowds reach out for food as it is distributed at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port, on 22 May. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa
"The total population of Gaza - 2 million people - is at risk of famine... any supplies entering Gaza are very much needed," Cummings said.
"We know that [the latest 90 trucks of supplies] is just not enough - there's been no medicines, no food, no equipment for water, no tents and shelter has entered Gaza for over 11 weeks.
"The compounding factors in Gaza are so complex: You have this ongoing hostility and conflict. Just since 15 May just a week [ago], 172,000 people have been displaced in North and South Gaza. It's really a horrific situation here.
A Palestinian boy scrapes off bits of lentil soup remaining in a cooking pot, in front of a food distribution point at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port on 22 May. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa
Food to feed all of Gaza waiting at the border - UN food programme
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it has more than 130,000 metric tons of food ready at the border for immediate delivery, if Israel grants permission, it said: "Enough to feed the entire population for two months".
Families in Gaza were facing extreme hunger and the risk of starvation, the UN's World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain said in a bulletin from the organisation.
"Some aid is finally reaching Gazans in desperate need, but it's moving far too slowly. And it's only a drop in the bucket, a teeny tiny drop in the bucket," McCain said on Thursday after the latest truckloads began to arrive.
"We urgently need faster clearances and unrestricted access to get the food into the hands of the people on the brink of starvation. Humanitarian agencies need immediate, unrestricted and safe access to flood Gaza with life-saving aid. Without urgent action, lives will be lost."
The trucks that were allowed in on Thursday had brought flour, which meant a handful of bakeries had been able to start operating in south and central Gaza. However far more supplies - and operating bakeries - were needed to be able to meet the demand and push back hunger, the organisation said.
However, it said food parcel distribution to households was the most effective tool to prevent famine but remained forbidden.
Conflict, bombardments creating difficulties for people accessing food and healthcare - agencies
Save the Children was running medical clinics and nutrition centres in Gaza but the aid workers were desperately short of supplies, Rachel Cummings said.
But some areas were more difficult to access and they believed there were children they were not finding or reaching who were likely in worse need.
In the areas with better access there had been a marked increase in children being brought in with malnutrition as well as pregnant women and women who had just given birth who were also suffering from malnutrition.
"This is deeply concerning," she said.
Rachel Cummings, our Team Leader in Gaza, speaks about the turmoil in Rafah. The scenes are overwhelming, with thousands fleeing and facing unimaginable challenges. pic.twitter.com/686kf8GlQY
— Save the Children Canada (@SaveChildrenCan) May 14, 2024
"We need to find these children, we need to go out into communities and screen them and find them, and it is very very difficult to move around Gaza because of the ongoing bombardment and the massive displacement.
"Children are desperately desperately at risk of being displaced - being separated from their families, so there are children who are malnourished and we just desperately need to find them."
Her team were in contact every day with their teams in North Gaza: "The situation [there] is even more dire than where we are in the south, which is extraordinary, because it is absolutely desperate here.
"Hospitals are closed, people are being moved again and again, and there is nowhere for them to go. There is no space for people.
"People are living literally on the rubble, people are sleeping outside because there is no protection, no shelter. The sewerage system across the whole of Gaza is at breaking point with open sewage in the street - it is really a public health crisis as well as a food crisis."
The World Food Programme said insecurity on the ground was one of their aid programme's biggest challenges in Gaza, and a few trucks of the recently arrived aid supplies had been looted on the way to the bakeries. It called for authorities to provide a secure environment and to allow their operations there to be scaled up.
Some information had indicated there was little to no anaesthetic left in Gaza, so in some cases amputations were being performed without anaesthetic, while cancer treatments were also running out. Cummings said those reports "sound familiar":
"The blockade of 11 weeks of essential medicines has resulted of course in patients not being able to receive their life-saving medicines, including for cancer, for kidney dialysis, it's extraordinary and hospitals are being attacked, even though they are protected under international humanitarian law," Cummings said.
930,000 children - 93% of #Gaza’s kids are facing famine.
— Save the Children International (@save_children) May 12, 2025
Nothing has been allowed to enter Gaza since the 2nd March.
We have food & aid but what we don’t have is access
Trucks loaded with food are rotting at the border - this is a deliberate humanitarian catastrophe⚠️ pic.twitter.com/0yFni6fIRv
"So healthcare workers are doing what they can with as little as they have," she said.
"But it's not sustainable, it's - we feel that we're at a tipping point in Gaza. Something has to shift."
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