Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is witnessing a sharp and unprecedented rise in acute malnutrition among Palestinians in Gaza. At MSF’s clinics in Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza and Gaza City in the north, our teams are seeing the highest number of malnutrition cases they’ve ever recorded in the Strip.
More than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children with severe and moderate malnutrition are currently enrolled in outpatient therapeutic feeding centers in both clinics. Numbers in the Gaza City clinic almost quadrupled in under two months, from 293 cases in May up to 983 cases at the beginning of July. Of this cohort, 326 are children between six and 23 months old.
“This is the first time we have witnessed such a severe scale of malnutrition cases in Gaza,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseb, MSF deputy medical coordinator in Gaza. “The starvation of people in Gaza is intentional. It could end tomorrow if the Israeli authorities allow food in at scale.”
Malnutrition amid Gaza’s broader collapse
The existence of malnutrition in Gaza is the result of deliberate, calculated choices by Israeli authorities: to restrict the entry of food to the bare minimum for survival, control and militarize its distribution, and destroy local food production capacity.
As people risk their lives in the immediate term to obtain a handful of inadequate food through distribution sites like those run by the Israeli-US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, this occurs in a situation of wider collapse—sewage contamination as infrastructure remains destroyed, restrictions on fuel limiting the production of clean water, appalling living conditions in overcrowded camps, and more than 21 months of compromised immunity amidst a devastated health system.
“Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and poor water and sanitation, many babies are being born prematurely,” said Dr. Joanne Perry, an MSF doctor. “Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator. This is my third time in Gaza, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilograms [88 pounds]. The situation is beyond critical.”
Before October 2023, Gaza was heavily reliant on the entry of goods and supplies from outside, with an average of 500 trucks entering the Strip every day. Since March 2, there has barely been that number in total. With border crossings for aid frequently closed or operating under heavy limitations, and with local food production nearly impossible due to ongoing hostilities and destruction, markets are either empty or unaffordable for most.
Inevitably, prices of food have skyrocketed across Gaza, placing even basic staples out of reach for most people. For example, 1 kilogram [2 pounds] of sugar costs on average $76, while a kilogram [2 pounds] of potatoes or flour costs nearly $30, according to the World Food Programme. Due to this, many families are surviving on just one portion of food a day—often only rice, lentils, or pasta—with no access to bread, fresh vegetables, or enough protein.
Lack of food prevents healing
Parents are also deliberately skipping meals to feed their children. Even malnourished women who receive therapeutic food end up giving their own treatment supplements to their children.
“I’m a mother, and I can’t blame them because I would do the same,” said Nour Nijim, MSF nursing team supervisor. “But I feel helpless as a health care provider. People are hungry and ask us for therapeutic food, but we don’t have enough and can only prescribe them to people diagnosed with malnutrition.”
Malnourished patients are only the visible tip of a much larger crisis. At MSF clinics, injured patients beg for food instead of medicine while their wounds fail to close due to protein deficiency. MSF doctors are also observing rapid weight loss in recovering patients, prolonged infections, and visible fatigue among people who don’t have enough food to heal.
MSF urgently calls for unrestricted humanitarian access, a sustained flow of food and medical aid into Gaza, and the protection of civilians. The Israeli-US proxy operating under the name the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation must also be immediately dismantled.
