In July 2025, aid partners screened 136,000 children under five in Gaza, identifying nearly 12,000 as acutely malnourished. Among these, more than 2,500 suffered from severe acute malnutrition—the most life-threatening form—with 40 children requiring hospitalization in stabilization centers. The proportion of children experiencing severe acute malnutrition has increased, with 18% of acutely malnourished children affected in June and July compared to 12% earlier in the year.
Humanitarian access constraints have worsened the crisis. Last month, aid partners reached only 8,700 of the 290,000 children in need of feeding and nutrition supplements due to a severe shortage of lipid-based nutrient supplements entering Gaza. This marks a dramatic collapse in the malnutrition prevention program, as an average of 76,000 children were reached monthly between April and June. The distribution of other vital nutrition supplies has also sharply declined, affecting children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.
The shelter situation in Gaza has deteriorated severely. Since March 2, no shelter materials have been allowed into the region, despite more than one million shelter items and 2.3 million tents, tarps, and sealing materials being procured and stuck in Jordan and Egypt awaiting Israeli approval. As a result, most families are living in overcrowded and unsafe conditions, with many having no shelter at all. In July, humanitarian assessments found 43 out of 44 displacement sites hosting families without any shelter.
Ongoing bombardments, displacement orders, and insecurity continue to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis, forcing families to flee and disrupting aid operations. Despite a “tactical pause” announced by Israel to allow aid passage, conditions on the ground remain largely unchanged. Aid supplies that have entered Gaza remain insufficient to meet the overwhelming needs, and UN convoys continue to face operational challenges.
Humanitarian missions, though less frequently denied outright, are often delayed significantly, with some taking more than 18 hours to complete. On a recent day, only five out of 11 missions requiring Israeli coordination were facilitated promptly, while others faced impediments but were eventually completed. These missions included the delivery of food and fuel essential for humanitarian and medical needs.
A notable medical evacuation mission transported 15 children and 42 companions to Jordan with WHO support, yet over 14,800 patients in Gaza still urgently require specialized medical care. There have been some recent entries of commercial trucks carrying food into Gaza, but humanitarian agencies warn that without unimpeded, predictable access, vital time and resources are wasted, lives are lost, and the response falls short of the critical needs facing Gaza’s population.
