Clean Water Palestine Project #66653

Humanitarian response needed in Gaza and beyond

by Mercy Corps

Project Report | Dec 1, 2025
In Gaza: Delivering a lifeline to displaced families

By Mercy Corps | Mercy Corps

Since the conflict began in Gaza, Mercy Corps and other aid groups have faced significant barriers to delivering support to communities, yet we didn’t stop looking for solutions. We partnered with a local organization, Palestine Environmental Friends, to distribute clean water to encampments of people forced from their homes by violence.

Gaza’s economy has collapsed under the weight of conflict and blockade, with food prices soaring up to 7,000% since October 2023. Over 95% of families face severe financial hardship, and availability of any household goods, let alone food or fresh vegetables, is nearly nonexistent.

People survive on beans and dry chickpeas, with reports of dizziness and fainting in the streets from lack of food and water. As the Mercy Corps Country

Despite severe restrictions, Mercy Corps and local partners have reached over 350,000 people in Gaza since October 2023 with food, hygiene and shelter kits, water distributions and cash assistance. We’re adapting to the aid blockade by providing cash through mobile codes and e-wallets, offering psychosocial support to help adults and children cope with the mental toll of the conflict, and expanding water trucking and latrine installation to help stem the tide of dehydration and disease.Director in Palestine, I’ve witnessed the devastation first-hand on a recent visit to central Gaza.

Over half a million people in Gaza are already living through famine—facing hunger, desperation, and preventable deaths, according to a new report from IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), a leading agency analyzing food security. And in the coming weeks, famine conditions are expected to spread beyond Gaza City into Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis. We need a lasting ceasefire to restore basic services like water and electricity, and safe routes to deliver humanitarian aid. Without this, millions more will continue to face starvation and disease in Gaza.

Over the last two years, our team in Gaza—enduring the same hunger, devastation, and loss as their neighbors—has managed to reach over 385,000 people with emergency items—food baskets, hygiene kits, and shelter supplies—and more than 33,300 people with emergency cash assistance.

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Aug 5, 2025
Mass Starvation Spreads Across Gaza

By Mercy Corps | Mercy Corps

As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.

Exactly two months since the Israeli government-controlled scheme, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, 109 organisations are sounding the alarm, urging governments to act: open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, UN-led mechanism; end the siege, and agree to a ceasefire now.

“Each morning, the same question echoes across Gaza: will I eat today?” said one agency representative.

Massacres at food distribution sites in Gaza are occurring near-daily. As of July 13, the UN confirmed 875 Palestinians were killed while seeking food, 201 on aid routes and the rest at distribution points. Thousands more have been injured. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have forcibly displaced nearly two million exhausted Palestinians with the most recent mass displacement order issued on July 20, confining Palestinians to less than 12 per cent of Gaza. WFP warns that current conditions make operations untenable. The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.

Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them. The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death. An aid worker providing psychosocial support spoke of the devastating impact on children: “Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.”

Doctors report record rates of acute malnutrition, especially among children and older people. Illnesses like acute watery diarrhoea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up, and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration. Distributions in Gaza average just 28 trucks a day, far from enough for over two million people, many of whom have gone weeks without assistance.

The UN-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning.

Humanitarian agencies have the capacity and supplies to respond at scale. But, with access denied, we are blocked from reaching those in need, including our own exhausted and starved teams. On July 10, the EU and Israel announced steps to scale up aid. But these promises of ‘progress’ ring hollow when there is no real change on the ground. Every day without a sustained flow means more people dying of preventable illnesses. Children starve while waiting for promises that never arrive.

Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions. It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage. The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.

Governments must stop waiting for permission to act. We cannot continue to hope that current arrangements will work. It is time to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organisations. States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition.

Piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures, like airdrops or flawed aid deals, serve as a smokescreen for inaction. They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale. States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.

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May 16, 2025
Gaza is starving: Our team grapples with an escala

By Mercy Corps | Mercy Corps

For more than two months, vital aid has been blocked from entering Gaza. Now, a new report shows the food system has collapsed, pushing the entire population to the brink of famine.

The hunger crisis is affecting more than 2 million civilians and has reached horrific extremes—925,000 people are nearing starvation. Families are in pure survival mode—hungry, exhausted, and losing hope that an end to this conflict is possible.

Humanitarian operations have all but ground to a halt. Without immediate action to reopen crossings to reestablish access to food, fuel, healthcare, and medicine, the consequences for 2.3 million people in Gaza will be catastrophic.

Our team* in Gaza are grappling with the devastation of this crisis every day. They have shared their experiences struggling through the aid blockade and the realities of deepening hunger in Gaza.

*For the safety and security of our team, their image and likeness are not shown in the following photographs and videos, and all names have been changed.

Dying of hunger

“People are confused, anxious, and exhausted. They are literally dying of hunger. At this point, they would accept anything just to survive,” said Areej. “People are fainting in the streets. They look like skin and bones, pale and dizzy. If you saw them, you would break down and cry.”

“The only thing keeping people afloat is each other. They divide what little food they have, not to feel full, but simply to put something in their stomachs. I do not even know how we are still alive. And if we, who still have some form of income, can barely manage, imagine those who have nothing. Our salaries no longer cover anything. Prices are unimaginably high.”

- Areej, Mercy Corps Team Member

Our commitment to delivering lifesaving aid in Gaza

Since the conflict began in Gaza, Mercy Corps and other aid groups have faced significant challenges to delivering support to communities. While starvation and deadly disease outbreaks are growing by the day, lifesaving aid is blocked by hostilities and restrictions. The severe cash shortage and exorbitant costs are also pushing any remaining humanitarian operations within Gaza toward a cliff.

Since October 2023, Mercy Corps has reached over 350,000 people with emergency items—food baskets, hygiene and shelter kits—and nearly 190,000 people with emergency cash assistance. Mercy Corps stands ready with trucks loaded just miles away, poised to deliver lifesaving assistance through humanitarian partners as soon as borders open. We won’t stop using our voice, experience, and partnerships to deliver relief in Gaza.

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