Oxfam partners are trying to get food, clean water, and medicine to desperate families. Here’s the latest, and what you can do to help.
Getting humanitarian aid into Gaza is a complicated mess—but it shouldn’t be.
Oxfam and other aid groups are ready to deliver food, clean water, and medicine to millions of Palestinians in need. Despite overwhelming needs, the Israeli government is still allowing just a tiny amount of very restricted aid into Gaza while using humanitarian access itself as a bargaining chip in ceasefire negotiations. And it’s also making it nearly impossible to deliver whatever assistance gets through to the people who need it most.
“The situation in Gaza is nothing short of catastrophic,” said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead for Oxfam in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. “What is happening right now are atrocities upon atrocities upon atrocities.”
Oxfam is calling for unhindered access to vital aid in Gaza; on all parties to negotiate a permanent ceasefire; and for the release of all remaining hostages and unlawfully detained prisoners. Oxfam stands ready to scale up the delivery of humanitarian aid once the Israeli government ends its deadly siege.
Gaza’s urgent need for increased aid delivery
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have carried out heavy bombardment across the Gaza Strip, particularly in northern Gaza where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations have escalated dramatically. Last month, they began a ground invasion of Gaza City, issuing evacuation orders for nearly 1 million Palestinians as part of their latest offensive.
Earlier this year, the Israeli government imposed a complete siege of humanitarian aid on Gaza for more than two months. Since then, the aid allowed in has only been a tiny fraction of what’s necessary for survival.
- Famine is now confirmed inside Gaza City and is expected to expand into other areas without an urgent, sustained surge in humanitarian access across all sectors.
- Twenty-one of the 50 nutrition centers in Gaza City have had to close, cutting off care for around 4,000 children.
- Last month, Doctors without Borders announced that the intensification of Israel military operations forced the organization to suspend its medical activities in Gaza.
Children are particularly at risk. Nearly 71,000 cases of acute malnutrition among those aged 6 to 59 months are estimated as likely to occur between April 2025 and March 2026, including 14,100 severe cases.
Cooked meal provision in northern Gaza has dropped by 70 percent, with only eight kitchens operational. Other UN agencies report that many women are struggling to produce milk and find food to feed their families while suffering from depression, anxiety, and nightmares.
Palestinians in Gaza have also been killed while attempting to access food. Civilians are risking their lives to find food for their families, fully aware they could be killed or injured as many already have been.
What is the current situation on aid entering Gaza?
The Israeli government has closed nearly all access points into Gaza, slowing the flow of aid to millions of people in need to a trickle for more than six months.
After the closure of the Zikim border crossing on September 12th, the humanitarian community lost direct access to hundreds of thousands of people still inside northern Gaza where a famine was confirmed almost two months ago.
- The amount of food aid now entering the Gaza strip remains far below the amount that entered during the almost two-month ceasefire around the beginning of the year, and far below current needs for the population.
- A limited number of commercial trucks entering Gaza have contained canned food, pasta, flour or sugar, with extremely limited or no fresh produce. Humanitarian partners in coordination with the United Nations have also had limited success conducting operations to bring food aid, which includes wheat flour, food parcels, and bulk supplies, into Gaza.
- Lengthy inspections of aid trucks at key border crossings have also caused delays and prevented same-day offloading of supplies. Israeli authorities have rejected most trucks, for example, at the main border crossing with Egypt.
As a result, international humanitarian donors and agencies including Oxfam have been forced to accumulate aid inside warehouses across the region. This aid in limbo includes tents for people forced from their homes, food and supplements to combat malnutrition, as well as water equipment, sanitation items, and medicines that would be vital to tackle diseases.
Oxfam alone has over 110,000 items of humanitarian aid in one warehouse, including water bladders and tanks, hygiene, dignity and water testing kits, food parcels, soap, diapers, pipes and latrine slabs.
The trickle of supplies allowed in recent months are only a tiny fraction of what is needed to stop the famine in Gaza. They are also completely insufficient to address the compounding needs affecting people without shelter, clean water, sanitation, and safety.
What is Oxfam doing to help aid get to Gaza?
Oxfam and other agencies are doing what they can, through partners, to deliver life-saving aid. Israel’s military operations and blockade have made any international humanitarian response of the scale required now impossible across Gaza. Prior to the aid blockade, Oxfam worked closely with our partners in Gaza to reach more than 1.1 million people with humanitarian assistance.
Despite working under unimaginable conditions, Oxfam staff and partners are still able to provide urgent and essential support to Palestinians in Gaza.
- Oxfam is currently providing life-saving food assistance to families in Gaza City amid extremely difficult conditions. With limited commercial trucks entering Gaza over the past month, we’ve been able to distribute food vouchers to over 2,000 families, including those in Gaza City, with more planned to the South this week.
- Each voucher is valued at approximately $186, helping households meet basic nutritional needs for 10–15 days. However, our ability to scale up is severely restricted.
- We have 4,000 food parcels and a large volume of essential water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) equipment stuck in our Amman warehouse since March, repeatedly denied entry by Israeli authorities.
Across the wider Gaza Strip, Oxfam continues to respond to the deepening humanitarian crisis. Oxfam and partners are trucking clean water to communities in both the North and South, supporting the operation of water wells, rehabilitating water networks, and promoting hygiene.
- Since the war began, our WASH programs have reached over 800,000 people.
- Oxfam and partners are also expanding food voucher distribution and delivering protection services, particularly for children and women facing hunger and malnutrition.
A permanent ceasefire is the most important humanitarian intervention that Gaza needs now.
Oxfam welcomes any progress toward a deal to resolve the immediate humanitarian catastrophe facing civilians in Gaza, while also calling for a just, sustainable peace in the longer term—rooted in accountability and the rights and dignity of Palestinians as well as Israelis.
The international community must also increase pressure on Israel to release its stranglehold on aid delivery, which is starving the population and making access to clean water and sanitation impossible.
"Nothing other than complete access to Gaza to deliver aid at scale can alleviate the conditions that people have been forced to live in," said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel policy lead.
