A new study has found that the quality and quantity of food entering the Gaza Strip meets international nutritional standards, but distribution remains a challenge.
A new scientific study examining food insecurity in the war-torn Gaza Strip has found that the quality and quantity of food that has entered the Palestinian enclave over the past few months meets international nutritional standards and should adequately provide for the territory’s entire population of around 2.4 million.
The findings of the report come in stark contrast to statements and predictions made over the past few months by the U.N., aid agencies and human rights organizations, as well as government officials in the U.S., who have warned of severe malnutrition, especially among children, and of looming famine in some parts of Gaza.
Conducted by a group of leading Israeli academics and public health officials, the study, which is based on data from COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza, found that the quantity and nutritional composition of the food that has been delivered over the past four months complied, and even exceeded, the Sphere standards, an internationally recognized benchmark for humanitarian response.
While the study assessed all food aid shipments that passed through the Kerem Shalom and Nitzana land crossings, as well as air drops into the territory from January-April 2024, it did not, however, examine what happened to the food aid after it entered into the Strip or how it was distributed to the civilian population.
Despite the study's findings, some organizations and individuals continue to raise concerns about the distribution of food aid in Gaza, citing challenges such as limited delivery trucks, Israeli military restrictions, and looting by Hamas and other groups.
Alexandra Phelan, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), acknowledged the Israeli military's responsibility for facilitating aid operations, but emphasized that "this alone does not guarantee aid workers’ access to safely pick them up, let alone distribute them to those in need inside Gaza."
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has also accused Israel of preventing crucial supplies from reaching the population, including "the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war."
Israeli officials have strongly disputed these accusations, pointing to the large quantities of food that have entered Gaza and the additional measures taken to facilitate the flow of aid.
"From our side everything is open, if the agencies want to bring in 700 trucks a day of food or whatever, then they can, there is no problem," said Col. Elad Goren, head of the civil department of COGAT.
He added that the problem of getting food to those in need stemmed from distribution challenges, including the limited number of delivery trucks and the disruption caused by Hamas.
The study's lead author, Aron Troen, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, emphasized the importance of addressing both the quantity and quality of food in assessing the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
"We found most confusing was the controversy highlighted in the media of counting trucks and the different claims and counter claims of how many trucks there are and how many trucks there were before and how many trucks are needed to provide for the needs of the civilian population," he said.
"Counting trucks does not tell you how much food is actually getting in."
Troen also raised concerns about the accuracy of some of the data used by organizations to predict famine, such as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Organization, which has been criticized for relying on information from Hamas-run bodies.
Despite the challenges, there is a consensus among experts that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire.
"While there might be enough food going to prevent large-scale hunger, unless we solve the distribution problems inside Gaza it will not reach the people who need it," said Shira Efron, senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum.
"I think it’s time for the U.N. or international organizations, and Israel, to try to develop a more result-oriented approach to understand how this aid is going in, where it is going and whether it is getting to the people who really need it."
