Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 11-24 May 2025

A Palestinian child being screened for malnutrition in Khan Younis, as new supplies arrived following almost 80 days of full blockade on any cargo entering the Gaza Strip. Photo by UNICEF, 25 May 2025

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Period: 11-24 May 2025

The information below is provided every other week by Clusters and select Technical Working Groups operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). For an overview of priority needs and activities by cluster, please see the Flash Appeal.

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Food Security Sector (FSS)

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Response

On 25 and 26 May, around 299,000 daily meals were prepared and delivered by 16 partners through about 70 kitchens.
Between 22 and 24 May, following the entry of a limited amount of wheat flour into Gaza, five out of the 25 UN-supported bakeries briefly resumed operations in the central part of Gaza. This enabled the distribution of over 113,000 two-kilogramme bread bundles by FSS partners via more than 120 locations in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis governorates, including community kitchens, shelters and informal displacement sites.
Humanitarian partners have pre-positioned over 171,000 metric tons (MT) of food in the region, ready for immediate delivery once restrictions on the entry of aid and other supplies are fully lifted by the Israeli authorities. This stockpile is enough to sustain the entire population of about 2.1 million people for three to four months.
Amid acute food shortages, which have heightened security and looting risks, FSS partners have been scaling up community engagement efforts through in-person meetings and dissemination of community messages to support ongoing response efforts.
During the reporting period, partners have been working with communities to identify beneficiaries and provide in-kind inputs, such as nylon sheets still available on the market, to support farmers and families in home gardening initiatives and local vegetable production. These efforts aim to improve dietary diversity, primarily in accessible locations in Deir al Balah and Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

Challenges

Escalating insecurity - including looting and crowd violence – have disrupted operations, forcing the suspension of bakery activities that briefly resumed on 22 May. Since 19 May, when limited aid was allowed, Israeli authorities prevented FSS partners from directly delivering food to families, leaving bakeries and community kitchens as the only option to provide food assistance. Partners are assessing how to resume food support and emphasize the need for safe conditions. FSS partners remain committed to delivering aid directly to families through proven and principled humanitarian systems.
Access constraints across the Gaza Strip continue to hamper efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to communities. The diversity of food in Gaza has sharply declined since March, pushing diets to dangerously imbalanced and nutritionally inadequate levels. The population is now facing extreme levels of poor dietary diversity, with most people unable to access even the most basic food groups.
Most of the community kitchens that remain operational have been forced to adjust meal content and/or reduce the number of meals prepared daily to stretch dwindling resources. The single daily meal provided through community kitchens is insufficient to meet the daily caloric and dietary diversity needs of children and adults. Moreover, growing overcrowding is being observed across all remaining operational kitchens, leading to increased safety concerns, social tensions and further marginalization of vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities, orphans, the elderly and single-headed households, who are less likely to physically access kitchens and collect meals.
Food production and food systems in Gaza have been severely weakened by the lack of safe access of farmers, breeders, and fishers to their lands, livestock and the sea. Since 18 March 2025, access to cropland available for cultivation has significantly declined. As food supplies continue to dwindle and as fresh produce remains scarce and unaffordable, some wholesalers, fishers and farmers are forced to take grave risks to reach areas near or within the Israeli-militarized zones or the sea. In April and May, several incidents were reported in which fishing boats were hit or came under Israeli fire near the shore, resulting in casualties among fishers. Since October 2023, the Israeli authorities have banned sailing off Gaza's shore, but some fishers have continued to work within less than one nautical mile from the short using non-motorized boats since over 70 per cent of fishing assets have been destroyed or damaged.

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Nutrition

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Response

After about 80 days of total blockade on the entry of aid and other essentials, UNICEF’s preventive nutrition supplies finally entered Gaza on 21 May. The cargo included 19 trucks carrying 20,790 boxes of Specialized Lipid-Based Nutritional Supplements (LNS-SQ) and 95,352 packs of ready-to-use complementary food (RUCF). The LNS-SQ is a high-calorie, protein-rich, and micronutrient-dense supplement designed to prevent malnutrition, wasting, and stunting in children aged 6-59 months. The current supply of LNS-SQ is sufficient to meet the needs of around 300,000 children for one month. RUCF, a fortified baby food that includes all five essential food groups, is designed for children between 6 and 24 months. The current supply is sufficient to support 24,223 infant and young children for one month, which is 25 per cent of the total monthly need. UNICEF is distributing the supplies through 14 partners, with 40 per cent of the supplies allocated to the northern governorates and 60 per cent to the south.
During the reporting period, the World Food Programme (WFP) brought in 97 MT of Medium Quantity Lipid Based Nutrient supplement (LNS-MQ), used to prevent malnutrition. The quantity is sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of 61,000 children and pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW), for one month, and must be combined with food, as it is only a supplement. This represents 15 to 20 per cent of the estimated monthly requirement.
Nutrition partners continue to screen, identify and treat children and PBW with acute malnutrition. In the first two weeks of May, about 47,800 children under five were screened, of whom 2,264 were diagnosed with acute malnutrition, including 286 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This brings the total number of children diagnosed and treated for malnutrition since the beginning of 2025 to over 13,635, including 1,684 cases of SAM. During the same period, partners have conducted 114,871 screenings of PBW, of whom 2,573 have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition and enrolled in the therapeutic supplementary feeding programme. As of 24 May, there are four stabilization centres operational across Gaza, including one in Deir al Balah, two in Khan Younis and one in Gaza city.

Challenges

Shrinking humanitarian space and access constraints continue to impede malnutrition detection and treatment efforts, even as the nutrition situation continues to deteriorate. As of 24 May, partners reported delivering treatment at 85 outpatient therapeutic programme (OTP) sites across Gaza, including 27 OTP sites in Gaza governorate, 26 OTP sites in Deir al Balah, and 23 OTP sites in Khan Younis, while only six are operational in North Gaza and three in Rafah.
Although limited supplies are entering, ongoing restrictions on the entry of aid and other essentials continue to severely limit the availability of essential supplies required to implement nutrition programmes. Malnutrition prevention stocks are nearly depleted, while some supplies in warehouses remain in hard-to-reach or inaccessible areas or are stalled at crossings. Furthermore, due to severe food shortages, incidents of looting of nutritious supplements have become increasingly common, hindering the ability to reach children and PBW in acute need.