Gaza is facing an Israeli-induced famine that experts say will leave a lasting psychological and societal impact, as Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid continues and conditions for over 2 million Palestinians rapidly deteriorate.
Since October 2023, at least 122 Palestinians, including 83 children, have died from hunger caused by severe restrictions on food and aid deliveries, according to aid groups. International organisations warn that hundreds of thousands more face imminent death as aid convoys remain stalled just outside the enclave.
“There is a multi-generational societal impact. The trauma and sense of degradation and humiliation that accompany the experience of famine live on in the memories of people,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, told Anadolu Agency.
Drawing a comparison with the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, de Waal added, “I fear that in the case of Gaza, this sense of trauma, degradation, humiliation, and dehumanisation will mean that this is a wound that will take generations to heal.”
Children are among the most affected, with the UN warning that more than 1 million children are “bearing the brunt of deepening starvation and malnutrition.”
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said that in the first half of July, nearly 5,000 of the 56,000 children under age five screened in central and southern Gaza were acutely malnourished.
‘Children are among the most affected.’
Famine expert Ingrid de Zwarte, assistant professor of economic and environmental history at Wageningen University, said the impact on children could last a lifetime.
“There is the physical experience of having too little to eat and the resulting physical deterioration: exhaustion and weight loss, reduced bodily functions and immunity, and increased susceptibility to all kinds of illnesses,” she said. “Young children in particular are the most vulnerable.”
Referring to the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944–1945, de Zwarte said, “They have a higher risk of various conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and psychiatric disorders and may even die younger.”
“Acting quickly and effectively helps not only the children and adults currently suffering from hunger but also the next generation, who will carry the consequences of famine with them for a lifetime.”
Societal collapse in Gaza
De Waal echoed the urgency: “The children of Gaza who are going through this will live with the consequences of this for the rest of their lives.”
Both experts warned of societal collapse in Gaza.
“A famine means the total breakdown of society, communities falling apart, markets ceasing to function, leading to skyrocketing prices, increases in theft, violence, exploitation, migration, and displacement,” said de Zwarte.
De Waal described the situation in stark terms: “The basic infrastructure that sustains life has been destroyed. There's no clean water, no sanitation, no shelter, no fuel for cooking … The social fabric has also disintegrated.”
“As the society in Gaza descends into this state of mass starvation and deprivation … what we may see is the unfolding of an even greater trauma.”
He said Gaza may be approaching the tipping point seen in other historic famines.
“What we know from studies of famine going back decades is that there comes a point at which society simply cannot sustain itself, and at that point, the suffering doesn’t just increase sort of incrementally, it increases exponentially,” he said. “And I very much worry that Gaza has reached that point now.”
He added that treating malnourished children will require targeted care: “Malnourished children can’t just eat dry rations; you can’t just feed pasta to a severely malnourished child. That child needs specialised therapeutic care.”
‘We know it is a famine.’
While the UN typically declares famine based on strict data thresholds, de Waal said the situation in Gaza is already clear to those with field experience.
“The specialists on the UN’s Famine Review Committee are profoundly frustrated. They can see with their eyes. They know from their experience what is happening but are not in a position officially to say, ‘We know it is a famine,’” he said.
“When we see people scavenging for food in garbage piles, when we see people eating animal food, when we see people hiding food from their neighbours, when we see this crush of starving people trying to get food, that’s famine, we know it. We don’t need the data.”
De Waal also explained how famine typically affects a proportion of the population: “It’s almost unheard of for an entire population to be suffering starvation during a famine. In fact, the threshold used by the UN is 20 percent of households suffering acute food insecurity, which is a catastrophic level.”
In Gaza, “there are people suffering from this across the entirety” of the enclave, he added.
De Zwarte said a formal declaration remains necessary despite data limitations:
“Yet, issuing such a declaration is severely constrained by the lack of reliable data from Gaza, making it nearly impossible to meet the strict quantitative thresholds required.”
Deliberate starvation
De Waal said Gaza represents one of the most severe modern cases of deliberate starvation.
“Many of the same techniques of weaponised starvation that we see in Gaza, we’ve seen them in Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar, Syria, and Sudan, but what makes Gaza unique is that within an hour’s drive of people in this state of utter desperation, there are international organisations with the resources, skills, knowledge, networks, and capacity to provide assistance across the board,” he said.
“All it requires is for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say, ‘Every child in Gaza will eat breakfast tomorrow,’ and it can happen.”
He noted how quickly Israel acted when its own health was at risk: “Gaza is different because it is so precisely and minutely controlled by the government of Israel, and the government of Israel has to bear that responsibility.”
He recalled, “When Israel feared a polio outbreak last year could affect its own soldiers, it worked with the World Health Organisation to vaccinate 95 percent of children in Gaza in just days.”
He also highlighted how the urban nature of Gaza sets it apart from other famine-affected areas: “Most cases of famine and starvation take place in a more rural environment. It’s relatively rare to see starvation among an urban population, and especially among a population that has had salaries, that’s middle class.”
‘Global approach must change’
De Waal said the global approach to famine must change.
“In recent years, governments and agencies only say there is famine when it is well underway, when you can count the graves of children,” he said.
“The obligation is not to relieve famine, the obligation is to prevent famine. We have had plenty of authoritative warnings over the last 18 months that this is coming, and nothing, or very little, has been done to stop it.”
“Some things have been done to slow it down, but nothing fundamental has been done to stop this great juggernaut of mass starvation running over the people of Gaza.”
De Zwarte concluded by calling for legal accountability: “The international community must uphold its commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 2417, which unequivocally condemns the use of starvation as a method of warfare.”
“These obligations must be enforced through sanctions and legal prosecution, to prevent and halt starvation crimes.”
