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STORY: GAZA / RISK OF FAMINE
TRT: 7:19
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 30 JULY 2025, GAZA CITY
1. Various shots, groups of displaced Palestinians gathering in front of a local community kitchen in western Gaza City
2. Various shots, ladling lentil soup into the containers of displaced people near tents set up in western Gaza City
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mohammed Naifeh:
“I have been standing here for four hours, and I cannot get food amid the crowd and the sun. We are dying; we need support, we need food and drink. Where are the countries of the world? We are dying here from hunger. Every day we eat only lentils; there is no flour, no food, no drink. We are dying of hunger.”
4. Various shots, a worker at the local community kitchen ladling lentil soup into plastic containers and other dishes for the waiting displaced people
5. Various shots, the severe overcrowding of displaced people trying to get food in front of a local community kitchen in western Gaza City
6. Various shots, an elderly displaced man, named Ziad Al-Ghareez, who managed to obtain a plastic cup of lentil soup after making great efforts
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ziad Al-Ghareez:
“Now I have gone ten straight days without tasting bread; I eat the lentil soup distributed by the community kitchen. I can’t buy flour at all; I have no money to buy it, so I try to get anything the kitchen distributes. The people of Gaza are hungry people.”
8. Various shots, displaced women pushing forward in an attempt to get lentil soup from the community kitchen
9. Various shots, displaced men and children waiting to receive food
10. Various shots, a displaced woman, "Um Mohammed," who fled from the Shujaiya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City to its western areas, waiting to get food
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Um Mohammed:
“There is no water, no food, no bread, and what forces us to come here is more humiliating than anything. In the end, we return with nothing; either we come back burned under the sun or we are trampled by feet because of the overcrowding, and we return empty-handed.”
12. Various shots, pots of lentil soup cooking on firewood in a primitive manner.
13. Various shots, displaced women, children, and men crowding to get food in western Gaza City.
14. Various shots, displaced man Hossam Al-Qammari waiting to get food in western Gaza City.
15. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hossam Al-Qammari, displaced from Shujaiya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City to its western areas:
“We are dying, and our children are dying of hunger. Enough of what is happening to the people of Gaza; much of what is happening is unacceptable. An old man like me has been standing here since the morning holding the container for his children so they can have breakfast, and they still haven’t eaten. This situation is no longer acceptable.”
16. Various shots, children waiting behind an iron fence in front of a community kitchen in western Gaza City to get food
17. Various shots, displaced man Bassam Abu Ouda waiting to get food
18. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Bassam Abu Ouda, displaced from Beit Hanoun to western Gaza City:
“We call on all free people of the world and peace lovers to help us provide food and water until this famine imposed on us by the occupation ends. What the occupation allows in terms of truck entries does not equal a drop in the ocean.”
19. Various shots, displaced people carrying empty containers in the hope of filling them with food.
20. UPSOUND (Arabic) young girl waiting behind an iron fence holding an empty container, saying: “I came to fill it with lentils.”
21. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Um Rami, displaced from the Zaytoun neighborhood in eastern Gaza City to its western areas:
“I came here to get a small amount of food to feed my children. This is what we have become; we come to community kitchens to get food after we were once honored and dignified in our homes. We have reached the point where we stand in line for food and water. As you can see, children’s lives now revolve around water and food lines. The food is not enough; we have no life now. We have only God above all else, but the world must look at us, and everyone must awaken their conscience.”
22. Various shots, displaced women, children, and men crowding to get food in western Gaza City
The Gaza Strip is on the brink of famine, UN agencies warned, based on the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification alert findings.
In the first two weeks of July, 96 per cent of surveyed households experienced moderate to high levels of water insecurity, a three per cent increase compared with June.
On 29 July, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Global Initiative issued an alert, noting that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip, amid widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including health care. The latest data indicate that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza city.
In the western areas of Gaza City, where the largest numbers of displaced people are concentrated in narrow spaces, hundreds of families stand in lines for hours under the blazing sun in front of a few community kitchens serving lentil soup.
“We are dying of hunger… every day we only eat lentils, and there is no flour or water,” said 21-year-old Mohammed Naifeh, who waited four hours to get a meal for his family.
Ziad Al-Ghareez, an elderly man, said he has not tasted bread for ten days and depends on meals provided by the community kitchen, “I have no money to buy flour. The people of Gaza have become hungry.”
Um Mohammed, displaced from the Shujaiya neighborhood, said obtaining food has become nearly impossible, “In the end, we return empty-handed… either we burn under the sun or we are trampled in the crowd.”
Data remotely collected in July 2025 using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) confirm that food consumption across the Gaza Strip has worsened dramatically, reaching its lowest level since October 2023; in July, 81 percent of households reported poor food consumption (up from 33 percent in April) and 24 percent of households are experiencing very severe hunger (up from four per cent in April), crossing the famine threshold for food consumption. Moreover, acute malnutrition rates doubled in Khan Younis and increased by 70 per cent in Deir al Balah between May and July and, in Gaza city, the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate soared from 4.4 per cent in May to an alarming 16.5 per cent in the first half of July, thereby reaching the Famine threshold for acute malnutrition. The situation in North Gaza governorate, which faces similar challenges, cannot be verified due to the lack of data. The alert highlighted that nearly nine out of ten households have resorted to extremely severe coping mechanisms to feed themselves, such as taking significant safety risks to obtain food, and scavenging from the garbage.
The Israeli military announced that as of 27 July, “a local tactical pause in military activity will take place for humanitarian purposes from 10:00 to 20:00” in areas of Al Mawasi, Deir al Balah and Gaza city “to increase the scale of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.” Other announced steps include daily airdrop operations, each carrying seven pallets of flour, sugar and canned food, reconnecting the power line from Israel to the southern Gaza desalination plant, lifting customs barriers on food, medicine and fuel from Egypt, and the designation of secure routes for UN humanitarian convoys. Welcoming these steps as progress toward staving off famine and a catastrophic health crisis, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, stressed that sustained action entails faster clearances, multiple daily trips to collect aid cargo, safe routes that avoid crowded areas, and no more attacks on people gathering for food. He further noted that ultimately what is needed is a permanent ceasefire
