Some Israeli military officials have privately concluded that Palestinians in Gaza face widespread starvation unless aid deliveries are restored within weeks, according to three Israeli defense officials familiar with conditions in the enclave.
For months, Israel has maintained that its blockade on food and fuel to Gaza did not pose a major threat to civilian life in the territory, even as the United Nations and other aid agencies have said a famine was looming.
But Israeli military officers who monitor humanitarian conditions in Gaza have warned their commanders in recent days that unless the blockade is lifted quickly, many areas of the enclave will likely run out of enough food to meet minimum daily nutritional needs, according to the defense officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details.
Because it takes time to scale up humanitarian deliveries, the officers said that immediate steps were needed to ensure that the system to supply aid could be reinstated fast enough to prevent starvation.
The growing acknowledgment within part of the Israeli security establishment of a hunger crisis in Gaza comes as Israel has vowed to dramatically expand the war in Gaza to destroy Hamas and bring back the remaining hostages — twin aims that more 19 months of war have yet to achieve. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was defiant, and said the military would resume fighting in the coming days “in full force to finish the job” and “eliminate Hamas.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s statement came on the same day that President Trump landed in Saudi Arabia, as part of his first major foreign trip since his re-election. Mr. Trump, however, is not visiting Israel, underscoring a growing divide between two leaders who increasingly disagree on some of the most critical security issues facing Israel.
The military officials’ analysis has exposed a gulf between Israel’s public stance on the aid blockade and its private deliberations. It reveals that parts of the Israeli security establishment have reached the same conclusions as leading aid groups. They have warned for months of the dangers posed by the blockade.
The analysis also highlights the urgency of the humanitarian situation in Gaza: Most bakeries have shut, charity kitchens are closing and the United Nations’ World Food Program, which distributes aid and coordinates shipments, says it has run out of food stocks.
On Monday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a U.N.-backed initiative that monitors malnutrition, warned that famine was imminent in Gaza. If Israel proceeds with a planned military escalation in Gaza, the initiative said in a summary report, “The vast majority of people in the Gaza Strip would not have access to food, water, shelter, and medicine.”
The Israeli military and the Israeli ministry of defense declined to respond to comment on the Israeli officers’ predictions that Gaza is nearing a food crisis. Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, said he was unable to share details from internal discussions but that the ministry was in contact with “all the relevant agencies on an ongoing daily basis” and closely monitors the situation in Gaza.
Israeli restrictions on aid to Gaza have been one of the most contentious issues of the war. Israel cut off supplies to Gaza in March, shortly before breaking a cease-fire with Hamas, which remains entrenched in Gaza despite losing thousands of fighters and control over much of the territory during the war.
Israel said the aim of the blockade was to reduce the Palestinian armed group’s ability to access and profit from food and fuel meant for civilians. In the process, a senior Israeli defense official said, Hamas would be more likely to collapse or at least release more of the hostages that the group captured during its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that ignited the war.
The Israeli government has repeatedly said that the blockade had caused “no shortage” of support for civilians, partly because so much aid had entered the territory during the truncated cease-fire.
But aid groups swiftly warned that civilians would be the main victims, adding that the restrictions were illegal under international law. Those warnings increased as civilians said they were eating as little as one meal a day as food prices spiraled. Palestinians interviewed by The New York Times said the cost of flour has risen 60-fold since late February, leading to a rise in looting.
“All I ate today was a little bit of fava beans from an expired can,” said Khalil el-Halabi, a 71-year-old retired U.N. official from Gaza City. He said on Monday that he was too dizzy and weak to walk, adding that his weight had dropped to roughly 130 pounds from about 210 pounds before the war.
Mr. el-Halabi said his daughter, who recently gave birth, was unable to breastfeed because she has not been eating enough. No baby formula is available, he said.
Specialist officers in COGAT, the Israeli government agency that oversees policy in Gaza and the West Bank, have reached the same conclusion as the aid agencies. The officers continuously assess the humanitarian situation in Gaza by speaking with Palestinians there, scrutinizing updates from aid organizations about their warehouse stockpiles, and analyzing the volume and contents of aid trucks that entered Gaza before the blockade.
The officers then privately briefed senior commanders on the worsening situation, warning with increasing urgency that many in the territory were just a few weeks away from starvation. An Israeli general briefed the cabinet on the humanitarian situation in Gaza last week, saying that supplies in the territory would run out within a few weeks, according to an Israeli defense official and a senior government official. The cabinet briefing was first reported by Israel’s channel 13..
According to three of the defense officials, the military leadership has acknowledged the severity of the situation and is exploring ways to restart aid deliveries while circumventing Hamas.
Last week, the Trump administration said it was working with Israel on such a plan. Israeli officials and aid groups said it would involve private organizations distributing food from a handful of sites in Gaza, which would each serve several hundred thousand civilians. The Israeli military would be posted at the sites’ perimeters, while private security firms would patrol inside them.
The plan was dismissed by aid agencies, including the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which said it would not join the initiative because it would place civilians at greater risk. The agency said the proposal would force vulnerable people to walk longer distances to get to the few distribution hubs, making it harder to get food to those who need it most. Under the current system, the U.N. said, there are 400 distribution points. The new one, it said, “drastically reduces this operational reach.”
The U.N. also warned that the plan would force civilians to regularly pass through Israeli military lines, putting them at greater risk of detention and interrogation. It added that the plan would accelerate the displacement of civilians from northern Gaza, since the distribution centers were expected to be located far away in the south of the territory.
Israeli officials confirmed that the plan, if enacted, would help the military to intercept Hamas militants and help to move civilians from northern to southern Gaza. But they said the aim was not to increase civilian hardship but to separate civilians from fighters.
Experts on the laws of international conflict say it is illegal for a country to limit aid deliveries if it knows that doing so will cause starvation.
“Enforcing a military blockade with the knowledge that it will starve the civilian population is a violation of international law,” said Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford.
Ms. Dill said that even if there is some debate over Israel’s obligations toward Gazans, “when Israeli decision makers state that the purpose is to extract political and military concessions, it clearly constitutes a war crime.”
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Natan Odenheimer is a Times reporter in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.
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