OCHA: Aid blockade drives hunger, needs across Gaza

21 April 2025

OCHA notes that today marks 50 days since the Israeli authorities imposed a total blockade on incoming supplies of any kind into the Gaza Strip.

Since early March, not a single truck carrying food, fuel, medicine or any other essentials has been allowed in – no matter how critical they are for people’s survival. Commercial imports have been officially banned since last October.

Over these past 50 days, food stocks have been in perilously short supply. Rations have been cut. Critical medicines, vaccines and medical disposables are running low. Ambulances have had to scale back life-saving services because there is almost no petrol. Cooking gas has disappeared from markets. Bakeries have been forced to shut down. The UN and its humanitarian partners have run out of tents to deliver.

Meanwhile, some of the UN’s warehouses inside Gaza have been made inaccessible due to displacement orders.

OCHA warns that the impact of the full blockade is devastating. Children and adults alike are going hungry. Diets are dangerously limited. Access to healthcare is falling apart.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been newly displaced, and attacks on civilians – including emergency teams and aid workers – have surged again.

The UN notes yesterday’s Israeli statement on the findings of their internal investigation into the killing of first responders in Rafah, including the dismissal of a commander based on those conclusions.

Too many civilians, including aid workers, have been killed in Gaza. Their stories have not all made the headlines. A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place. Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding and the norms designed to protect us all eroding.

OCHA calls once again for the protection of civilians, for atrocities to end, for hostages to be released, for Gaza to open up and for a ceasefire to be reinstated.