Risking everything for survival in the Gaza Strip
With aid being prevented from entering Gaza at scale, even accessing the meagerest supplies is fraught with danger.
Across the Gaza Strip, every day, families are facing unimaginable challenges and choices. With almost no aid allowed in, and food prices soaring, parents and children are risking their lives to get even small amounts of food or safe water. Many are walking for hours, waiting in crowds, or dodging dangerous strikes and fire – only to return empty-handed.
Some don’t return at all.
“Before the war, I was always top of my class. I dreamed of a good life. Now I’m lying in the hospital. I didn’t even get the food we needed.” Bilal, 17
Bilal, 17, lives with his parents and siblings in Gaza City. After their shelter was bombed and his father was left unable to walk, Bilal became the family’s main provider. Desperate to find food but with no money for transport, Bilal and his cousin walked for hours from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, to a non-UN distribution point hoping they might be able to bring back something to eat.
As he waited in a crowd to enter, Bilal was hit by shelling that shattered his knee.
“Some people got aid, some were injured, some lost their lives,” Bilal says. “It’s too dangerous.”
UNICEF/UNI827066/El Baba
“Even though it’s very dangerous, I have to go [to the non-UN distribution site] to get food for my mother so that my brothers and I can survive. We have no food and no money to buy any, anyway.” Fadi, 13
Fadi waited for hours, with hundreds of other people, for the alternative distribution site in Netzarim to open.
“I rushed there to get a food basket,” Fadi says. “My father was killed, and I have no one to help my family.”
“My siblings and I are starving because of the lack of food and high prices,” Fadi says.
UNICEF/UNI827063/El Baba
“I lost my father and I don’t know how to live without him. Every morning when I wake up and don’t see him, it hurts so much.” Ibrahim, 14
Ibrahim and his family were desperate for food. He says he had no choice but to head to a food distribution point.
On the way there he saw his father laying on the ground. He had been shot in the head.
“I wanted to go even though it’s so dangerous, just to bring something home,” Ibrahim says.
UNICEF/UNI827949
“My leg was hit. I tied it with a cloth and crawled back. I hid there until the next day, hoping for another chance [at receiving food]. By then, my leg was infected.” Masoud, 28
After their newborn twins died from malnutrition, Masoud was determined to do everything in his power to keep his remaining children alive, including risking his own life to collect food. He walked 25 kilometres to a non-UN distribution point, where he was met by massive crowds.
“I slept on the ground like everyone else,” Masoud says, adding that people tried to keep their heads down out of fear they would be shot. “Getting out alive felt like being reborn.” 
Masoud says that at around 3 am a shell landed nearby, injuring him and the people around him.
“I didn’t get anything. People helped me get home.” Masoud went to the hospital where doctors confirmed the injury and that his leg was infected. He’s back home now with his wife, Waad, and their two children. “All this suffering, and my tent is still empty.”
Every single day, families like Masoud’s are facing danger, loss, and hunger as they try desperately to keep their loved ones alive. Concerted action is immediately needed to stop starvation from escalating, malnutrition from rising, disease from spreading, water from running dry, and ultimately, to prevent mounting, wholly preventable child deaths.
Humanitarian aid and commercial goods must be allowed to enter, from all available crossings, and be delivered quickly, safely and with dignity to families in need. No one should have to risk their life to get aid. And yet, since May 2025, dozens of children have been killed while seeking aid, most near non-UN food distribution sites.
The United Nations must be allowed to deliver aid of all types at scale to families, wherever they are. We have the supplies and the experience to do the job in line with humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.
Our plan is guided by what people need and is built on the trust of communities, donors, and Member States. During the last ceasefire, we proved that it worked, with the delivery of over 600 trucks of aid a day. It must be allowed to work again.
No parent should have to choose between safety and feeding their family. And no child should need to step into their parents’ shoes and themselves be forced to face that same impossible choice.
