The math behind Gaza’s famine is straightforward. Palestinians can’t leave, war has destroyed farming, and Israel has banned fishing – meaning nearly all food must be imported.
Israel knows exactly how much food Gaza needs. For decades, it has carefully controlled food shipments to pressure Palestinians without causing outright starvation. In 2006, a senior adviser to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” Two years later, an Israeli court ordered the release of documents detailing these grim calculations.
Cogat, the Israeli agency overseeing aid to Gaza, determined Palestinians needed at least 2,279 calories per person daily—about 1.836kg of food. Today, humanitarian groups request even less: 62,000 metric tons of dry and canned food monthly for 2.1 million people, roughly 1kg per person per day.
Yet as famine grips Gaza this summer, Israeli officials deny mass starvation, baselessly accuse Hamas of stealing aid, and blame the UN for distribution failures—even sharing photos of untouched aid pallets at the border. They point to chaotic food distributions by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as proof food is available.
But Israel’s own data reveals the truth. From March to June, only 56,000 tons of food entered Gaza—less than a quarter of what was needed. Even if every UN flour bag had been distributed and the GHF operated perfectly, starvation was inevitable.
Now, UN-backed experts warn Gaza faces a “worst-case scenario” famine, with food deliveries “far below what is needed” due to “drastic restrictions.” The Famine Review Committee, which assesses food crises, called shipments “highly inadequate” and criticized the GHF, stating its plan would cause mass starvation even without the reported violence.
Gaza endured a total siege in March and April, with no food entering. In May, facing global outrage over the “starvation crisis,” Netanyahu allowed a trickle of aid—enough only to slow, not stop, famine.
A brief ceasefire in January and February showed that just weeks of increased aid could pull Gaza back from famine’s brink. But since May, the trickle of food has failed to meet needs, sparking renewed international demands—including from Donald Trump—to get “every ounce of food” to starving children.
Netanyahu’s response? Only “minimal” extra aid.The number of food trucks entering Gaza has increased but remains far below what’s needed to feed Palestinians, let alone prevent famine.
Aid packages are being airdropped into Gaza, as seen in photos showing supplies descending from planes. Countries like France, Germany, the UK, Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE have resumed these costly and inefficient airdrops, despite their risks. Last year, at least 12 people drowned trying to retrieve food that fell into the sea, and five others were killed when pallets struck them.
Israeli data reveals that over the first 21 months of the war, 104 airdrop flights provided only four days’ worth of food for Gaza—at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. The same funds could deliver far more aid if spent on trucks. But these airdrops serve another purpose: they let Israel and its allies portray starvation as a logistical failure rather than a deliberate policy.
Airdrops are typically a last resort, used when hostile forces or terrain block road deliveries. In Gaza, the only real obstacle is Israel’s restrictions—imposed by a government backed by Western allies, including Britain and the US, which supply its weapons.
This week, two Israeli human rights groups accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, citing evidence that hunger is being weaponized. B’tselem described an “official and openly declared policy” of mass starvation.
A chart shows that 104 days of airdrops supplied less than four days’ worth of food. Israel’s government knows exactly how much food Gaza needs to survive—and how little is actually entering. The enormous gap between required calories and delivered aid proves that Israeli officials are now using different calculations. They—and their allies—cannot shift blame for this man-made famine.
