Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 6 – 19 July 2025

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Period: 6 – 19 July 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

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Response

As of 20 July, 16 partners delivered 158,000 cooked meals through 64 kitchens – 100,000 meals in the north and 58,000 meals in central and southern Gaza. This is a drop of more than 70,000 daily meals compared with 19 July due to the suspension of operations by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), a key Food Security Sector (FSS) partner, after running out of supplies and the issuance of a displacement order on 20 July in Deir al Balah that forced four community kitchens to close, leaving only three operational in the affected area.
On 20 July,* the World Food Programme (WFP) resumed the collection of cargo from both Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, which had been last paused since 13 July, and Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, which had been last paused since 4 July. In northern Gaza, according to WFP, the 25-truck convoy encountered large crowds of civilians waiting to access food supplies and, as the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire, resulting in a large number of casualties. On 21 July, WFP paused convoy movements through Zikim crossing.
Partners continue to deliver key messages through community leaders and other stakeholders in response to continued looting and offloading of cargo by desperate crowds along aid convoy routes that have disrupted deliveries to partners’ warehouses. Messages emphasize the role of communities’ support and trust in safe and secure aid delivery, including through encouraging civilians not to approach convoy routes to allow for the safe and uninterrupted movement of trucks to warehouses to enable proper distributions. Once supplies reach warehouses, distributions can take place through established mechanisms to eventually reach all households as incoming supplies are insufficient to address all needs at once. Overall, only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilize the situation and rebuild trust within communities

Challenges

Available data from FSS partners shows a continued deterioration in food insecurity, with a persistent risk of famine. Families generally survive on a single nutritiously poor meal per day, and in some cases, people go entire days without eating. To survive, people are forced to resort to increasingly desperate and undignified coping strategies ranging from fasting to reducing meal size, rationing bread for children, borrowing, begging, and scavenging for food from garbage. Despite this, families are increasingly unable to protect their most vulnerable members from the impacts of food deprivation. Alarmingly, many interviewed households reported that family members risked their lives trying to secure food from militarized distribution sites or humanitarian convoys, often without success. Food availability remains limited and access to these limited quantities remains challenging due to disruptions of deliveries to warehouses (see above) and exorbitant prices. For example, at one point during the reporting period, a one-kilogram bag of flour surged to over US$100 in local markets and prices continued to fluctuate.
The current volume and pace of deliveries remain critically insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza's entire population, who are facing deteriorating, prolonged and high levels of acute food insecurity. Combined with looting, offloading of cargo by civilians along aid convoy routes, and shooting at civilians along convoy routes and at militarized distribution points, these conditions continue to result in mass casualties, place community members, partners’ staff, drivers and assets at high risk, and disrupt deliveries to partners’ warehouses for their onward distribution safely and fairly to meet humanitarian needs. At the same time, cargo movement requires fuel, which remains available only in limited quantities across the Gaza Strip. Consistent, frequent and large-scale food deliveries through multiple crossings are urgently required to meet needs and stabilize availability, pricing, and affordability of wheat flour and other basic staples as well as reduce tensions and rebuild trust within communities. The sector also continues to advocate for no armed presence near convoy routes or civilian aid distribution points.
Depletion of supplies, displacement orders and increased civil unrest continue to undermine the ability of partners to provide cooked meals through community kitchens. All UN-supported bakeries remain closed.

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Nutrition

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Response

As of 20 July, a total of 218 children with severe acute malnutrition and medical complications were receiving treatment at stabilization centres in Gaza, Deir al Balah and Khan Younis governorates, including 29 admitted in July. Ten (10) child deaths from severe acute malnutrition have been reported by partners in July, increasing the overall death toll reported by partners in 2025 to 17. The number of child deaths from acute malnutrition is increasing daily. Malnutrition in children in Gaza is driven by poor diets, inadequate feeding and caregiving practices, and limited access to essential health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services – all of which are severely compromised in the current context. A severely malnourished child is over ten times more likely to die than a well-nourished peer. Beyond the immediate risk to life, the consequences for those who survive can be long-lasting: malnutrition during early childhood can impair brain development, weaken the immune system, reduce the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, and hinder both cognitive and physical growth – affecting their well-being far into the future.
During the first two weeks of July 2025, nutrition partners screened 56,440 children for malnutrition across the Gaza Strip. Among them, 4,984 were identified with acute malnutrition, including 838 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. This reflects a concerning upward trend; the overall rate of acute malnutrition among screened children increased from 2.4 per cent in February to 6 per cent in June and 8.8 per cent in July. Meanwhile, the rate of severe acute malnutrition cases rose from 1 per cent in June to 1.5 per cent in July. A particularly alarming situation was observed in Gaza city: out of 14,747 children screened in July, 16 per cent were identified to suffer from acute malnutrition, including 348 with severe acute malnutrition – this marks a sharp increase from the 4 per cent malnutrition rate in Gaza city in February 2025.
Based on the most recent dietary diversity survey carried out in June, over 95 per cent of children consumed two or fewer out of eight food groups, an alarming deterioration when compared with 60 per cent of children in this situation in February.
Acute malnutrition levels are rising, affecting not only children who are under five years of age and within the Nutrition Cluster’s scope, but also older children and adults. Proxy prevalence levels – or the indicator showing the percentage of children in a population considered acutely malnourished -- have reached critical thresholds, as evidenced by recent screening findings.
The Nutrition Cluster, in collaboration with the FSS, is currently preparing to conduct an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Alert to reflect the current nutritional and food security situation. This is driven by the continued deterioration of key factors contributing to malnutrition and food insecurity since the last IPC analysis in May 2025.

Challenges

Supply shortages are among the main challenges to sustaining nutrition programmes. On 19 July 2025, an attempt by UNICEF to deliver 10 trucks of ready-to-use infant formula, which can support over 3,600 babies for a month, was intercepted by desperate crowds en route from Kerem Shalom crossing to the warehouse in Deir al Balah.
Recurrent displacement orders continue to disrupt sustained and continuous nutrition service delivery. The displacement order issued recently on 20 July forced four partners to suspend services at six sites providing malnutrition treatments and nutritional supplements in Deir al Balah, further hindering access to essential nutrition support.