Each day creates a new “surely it cannot go on like this” moment, and then it indeed goes on and the pyre of death and suffering in Gaza rises a little higher. But this week feels different, like something profound in the global perspective on Gaza is shifting. Is it vain or naïve to think it might be the beginning of the end, finally?
A rising chorus of military, political and activist voices has been calling for a cease-fire and an end to the blockade of humanitarian aid—and to the charade of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial ad hoc service that has managed to deliver some aid but at an appalling cost to the people of Gaza. Observers around the world have grown weary of the images of starving children and desperate people gunned down while trying to collect bags of flour or boxes of food.
‘Lives hanging by a thread’
Recent reports out of Gaza are heartbreaking and bleak. A colleague in Gaza told Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the primary U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
Humanitarian groups fear a wave of starvation deaths is inevitable even if aid flows are quickly restored. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 50 people in Gaza died because of malnutrition in July. Of the 115 who have died because of hunger in Gaza since 2023, 81 were children, the ministry reports.
The U.N. World Food Program believes more than 100,000 women and children are facing famine levels of starvation. The entire population of Gaza, more than 2.1 million people, are threatened by a high degree of food insecurity. The International Rescue Community said its teams in Gaza have experienced a surge in cases of children being rushed to the hospital because of hunger.
“Their small bodies are shutting down. They can’t breathe, their immune systems are collapsing, and they are highly vulnerable to infection,” I.R.C.’s acting director in the occupied Palestinian Territories, Scott Lea, said in a statement on July 23. “Their lives are hanging by a thread.”
Chieko Noguchi, spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in an email to America reiterated the bishops’ support for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. She added that the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace “supports the urgent expansion of humanitarian assistance access in the [Gaza] Strip, as we recognize that the humanitarian crisis that the people in Gaza are suffering is, quite simply, intolerable.”
On July 21 a communique was issued by governments across the European community joined by Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. “We…come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now,” it began. “The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the government ministers said. “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity.”
The joint statement condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.” The collective governments agreed: “The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”
According to the U.N., more than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to reach food distribution sites. Most are believed to have been killed by I.D.F. small arms and tank fire.
Caritas Internationalis, the church’s relief and development agency, called for a humanitarian halt in a statement on July 20. “The current situation goes beyond any legal and moral boundaries,” Caritas officials said.
Caritas officials added:
It is not only for the very survival of Palestinians’ lives and dignity that we make these demands, but also out of friendship, respect and concern for the honour and dignity of Jews worldwide. We want peace. We must stop the seeds of hatred being sown in the hearts of young Palestinians and Israelis, and elsewhere in the region. These will fuel wars in the Middle East for decades to come.… Silence in the face of this situation is complicity.
The Caritas statement pledges the church’s aid network is ready “to respond to the horrific humanitarian conditions in Gaza immediately and at scale as soon as safe access is granted. We proved during the ceasefire we could do this and we must be allowed to do it again.” Both news organizations and humanitarian agencies report that their own workers inside Gaza are unable to find food after months of a blockade of humanitarian aid first ordered by the Netanyahu government in March.
“The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime,” more than 100 international humanitarian aid organizations, including Caritas Jerusalem, Médecins Sans Frontières, CARE, Save the Children, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development and Oxfam, said in a joint statement released on July 23. The humanitarian groups warned that a spectre of “mass starvation” haunts Gaza.
“With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” the agencies said.
The signatories of the appeal urged the international community to act, to “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.”
Pope Leo appealed for an immediate halt to the “barbarity of the war” in Gaza on July 20, after a tank assault on the only Catholic church in Gaza left three dead. He urged the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, “as well as the prohibition against collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population.”
New voices for peace
In Israel, which began its incursion in Gaza after a Hamas terrorist assault more than 21 months ago, more voices are calling out for an end to the conflict—not just to save the remaining hostages taken by Hamas but to end the suffering in Gaza. People in Tel Aviv are joining protests carrying images of Israeli hostages but also of starving and wounded Palestinian children, as well as other victims of the I.D.F. campaign across Gaza that so far has claimed more than 59,000 lives and has led to the displacement of essentially the entire population.
Other voices who had supported the legitimacy of the Israeli incursion as an act of self-defense have come to the sorrowful conclusion that what is happening in Gaza has far exceeded any legitimate military ends or strategic goal. Some Israeli politicians acknowledge that Israel is not continuing its Gaza campaign to rescue the hostages, but is carrying on despite the peril to them.
A recent New York Times investigation argues that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is continuing the war merely to preserve his power and protect his legacy. A devastating indictment of the I.D.F. tactics in Gaza assessed the outcome as a genocide in an essay that also appeared in The New York Times. In recent weeks, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authored a scathing assessment of what he described as war crimes committed in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces.
Will all these voices raised in anguish be enough finally to begin dismantling the machinery of war and hunger in Gaza? If not, what might bring it to an end?
While the White House remains largely silent, Israeli politicians and business executives convened to plan the reconstruction of Gaza as an agricultural and recreational site for Israelis. Those plans rely on the complete removal of the strip’s current inhabitants
Only the Trump administration has enough influence to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire, political analysts agree. But it remains uncertain how hard the administration will press for that outcome. Would the White House be willing to freeze military assistance to Israel if that would make the difference?
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told America by email only that President Trump and Secretary Marco Rubio “want a better life for the people of Gaza and are acutely aware of the dire humanitarian situation.”
The spokesperson said that the Trump administration “has pursued a ceasefire, despite Hamas’s roadblocks, to end the war and support the [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation], which has securely delivered nearly 89 million meals as of July 23.”
The spokesperson said: “We must remember we are in this crisis because Hamas launched the horrific attacks of October 7 and refuse to lay down their arms and accept a ceasefire. Hamas will never govern Gaza again.” Asked about the possibility of the restoration of Israeli settlements in Gaza and the removal of the strip’s current inhabitants, the official said that the Trump administration does “not support forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Islamic Relief Worldwide reports that July is on its way to becoming the deadliest month in Gaza since January 2024, “with Israel killing one person every 12 minutes as it accelerates the systematic targeting and starvation of civilians.” According to the report, the deaths of 19 people, “mostly children,” from starvation were recorded in just one day this week, “victims not just of violence, but of a deliberate policy of deprivation and man-made famine.”
Waseem Ahmad, chief executive of Islamic Relief Worldwide, accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, of “shutting down the humanitarian system then forcing people to militarised death traps.” He urged world leaders to cease merely condemning the slaughter but to take action.
“The rate of killing is accelerating every day that world leaders fail to act,” Mr. Ahmad said. “There is no excuse for inaction when five more people are being killed every single hour. Every minute costs lives.”
He added that the dehumanization of Palestinians and normalization of their suffering in Gaza “must not be allowed to continue. Governments that fail to act are complicit.” “More words of condemnation and concern are not enough. We urgently need world leaders to take meaningful action to pressure Israel to stop the killing and allow humanitarian aid to reach those in need,” he said. “That means ending all arms sales, suspending trade agreements and banning produce from illegal Israeli settlements. Only increased and sustained international pressure can stop this catastrophe and save lives.”
“Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the global humanitarian groups said in their communique. “It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage.”
More from America
- A Moral Reckoning in Gaza
- Cardinal Pizzaballa: Christ is not absent from Gaza. He is crucified in the wounded.
- An SOS for Gaza: Christian peace group calls for cease-fire and life-saving aid
- What Gaza is like now: 2.1 million people are ‘trapped, bombed and starved’
A deeper dive
- Terror and chaos for Gaza’s people now entering the ‘death phase’
- Gaza's Catholic pastor recalls 'terrible' attack as Parolin decries 'war without limits'
- More than 100 organizations are sounding the alarm to allow lifesaving aid into Gaza
- Doctors report wave of hunger deaths in Gaza as US envoy arrives to ‘push for ceasefire’
- A timeline of the Gaza Strip in modern history
The Weekly Dispatch takes a deep dive into breaking events and issues of significance around our world and our nation today, providing the background readers need to make better sense of the headlines speeding past us each week. For more news and analysis from around the world, visit Dispatches.
