Gaza Is Not Even The Worst Famine On Earth Right Now
M an-made starvation. Humanitarian catastrophe. Genocide. These words are starting to become a refrain. And yet still too many are staying silent as the situation in Gaza deteriorates. Some humanitarian aid is finally breaking through the Israeli blockade, but the damage already done is unfathomable. On Tuesday, the World Food Programme officially announced Gaza is on the brink of a full-scale famine.
According to the WFP: More than 1 in 3 people are now going days at a time without eating
Nearly a quarter of Gaza's population is 'enduring famine-like conditions'
In Gaza City, malnutrition among children under 5 has quadrupled in two months to 16.5%
And, WFP notes, reports of starvation-related deaths are increasing, but 'collecting robust data under current circumstances in Gaza remains very difficult as health systems, already decimated by nearly three years of conflict, are collapsing.' According to the World Health Organization, 63 Gazans have died of starvation this month alone, including 25 children. The agency reported that, as CNN describes, Gaza's 'barely functioning hospitals and clinics,' dealt with more than 11,500 children seeking treatment for malnutrition in June and July.
Amid these conditions, chef José Andrés' World Central Kitchen resumed aid in Gaza, and Andrés penned an op-ed in The New York Times . 'Our teams on the ground are committed and resilient, but our day-to-day ability to sustain cooking operations remains uncertain,' Andrés wrote. WCK had been forced to halt its work in Gaza in May after running out of supplies, and their volunteers were no longer able to obtain ingredients due to Israel shutting down border crossings in March. WCK had served more than 130 million meals and 26 million loaves of bread in Gaza over the first 18 months of the war.
Well before the hunger crisis escalated, this latest war between Israel and Gaza was already one of the deadliest and most destructive conflicts since World War II. A ceasefire, many including the United Nations say, is the only way to make sure the entire population of Gaza will have access to enough food—and the chance to survive this man-made starvation.
As Fresh Take readers, you know that I have not been quiet on what's been transpiring in Palestine, or the unprecedented federal cuts to global humanitarian aid in the past five months, or the many other regions around the world where food has been twisted into a weapon of war, from Yemen to Sudan.
To be blunt, if you think what's happening in Gaza is bad—and it is so very bad—there are some places where the situation is even worse. According to WFP, Sudan is currently the only place in the world where famine has been confirmed, and there are at least 10 regions where famine is present there, particularly in northern Sudan. The country has faced decades of conflict, and its most recent one, which started a few months before war broke out in Gaza, has created 'the worst displacement crisis in the world.'
I share this because it's too easy to get wrapped up in the news, and it's also too easy to shut down and drown it all out. While it's crucial to protect our peace, we should not use that as an excuse to avoid interrogating the systems that enable these catastrophes in the first place.
— Chloe Sorvino
This is Forbes' Fresh Take newsletter , which every Wednesday brings you the latest on the big ideas changing the future of food. Want to get it in your inbox every week? Sign up here . Featured Story How Surfside Became The Fastest-Growing Alcohol Brand In America
Surfside CEO Clement Pappas, center right, with cofounder Matt Quigley, center left, and his brother Bryan, far left, and Pappas' brother Zach, far right. SURFSIDE
The cult canned iced tea and vodka beverage, led by Clement Pappas and Matt Quigley, could bring in $300 million this year—in the golden age of ready-to-drink cocktails. Let's Hang
Preserving the bounty from my terrace garden helps me feel in control in an out-of-control world. To that end, I've been working towards my certification through Cornell as a Master Food Preserver, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with you. I'm going to be leading workshops on preservation of all kinds, both in-person and online, and my first is this Saturday. Join me as I explain how to dry medicinal herbs at a city-owned farm in Staten Island on August 2 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I'd love to see you there! RSVP here. The FeedThe Call Is Coming From Inside The House: It's been deeply concerning to witness the widespread dismantling of climate regulations and policies that protect consumers and farmers from harmful chemicals and pollution. Just in the past week, there's been major changes which will impact everyone.
The Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, for example, passed a vote in the House Appropriations Committee including provisions that, according to Beyond Pesticides , 'shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use and limits states' authority to regulate pesticides.' The bill also has another section which prohibits any EPA action on PFAS.
Then the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the reintroduction of dicamba—the previously banned herbicide with links to cancer and other serious health risks—for farms growing genetically engineered soybeans and cotton. Past court rulings on dicamba have taken years, the AP notes.
And because that all wasn't enough, on Tuesday the EPA proposed revoking a 2009 rule known as 'the endangerment finding' that is the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions because they threaten human health. The move would rollback much of the Clean Air Act. Agriculture is one of top sectors responsible for greenhouse gases, emitting 10% of the nation's total. As Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the AP: 'As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat.' She added that 'the EPA wants to shirk its responsibility to protect us from climate pollution, but science and the law say otherwise. If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court.'
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins speaks during a press conference on the steps of the United States Department of Agriculture on July 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Drain The Swamp Redux: As the Trump Administration did during the first term, the USDA is moving its employees out of Washington, D.C. According to Politico , the plan doesn't include a large reduction in the agriculture department's workforce, but a fair amount of workers are expected to leave before moving out of the district. The federal workers will be split up across five regions: Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Raleigh, North Carolina. SUMMERMAXXING
My next recommendation is a classic: When was the last time you updated your Ball jars? According to a recent Ball consumer survey, 63% of Americans want to start canning to support healthier eating habits.
And as I put my Master Food Preservation certification into use, I've been loving using these jars for pretty much everything—from brewing tea from fresh garden herbs to making pickles, hot sauce and strawberry top-infused vinegars. As I've gone all in, I've learned more about how much time and resources Ball invests into its product research and development. Ball, which is owned by publicly traded Newell Brands, has the biggest staff dedicated to mason jars of any business in America and the lengths that the team goes to innovate on these timeless pieces has been fascinating to me. Ball invests more than any other company, and, aside from the USDA and schools with some public funding, they also represent the biggest tester of preservation recipes in the U.S. As Stephen Galucki, product development manager at Ball, told me, 'If you spend a whole summer growing a cucumber, when you go to make a pickle, you want that jar to seal. You want it to work. We are always driving back to how people will be using our products and how to give them the confidence that when you go to do that final step, the jar is the least bit of your concern.' In The News
Following my interview with the BBC earlier this month, The New York Times featured my work on mozzarella cheese billionaire James Leprino, who commercialized pizza cheese as we know it today and died at age 87 in June. As the only journalist who ever got Leprino to sit for an interview, I have been enjoying seeing this nearly decade-old work get a new lease on life. His company Leprino Foods, America's largest mozzarella supplier, turns 75 this year. And the NYT pulled extensively from my Forbes feature as well as the interview I did with NPR's Marketplace after it was published. Field Notes
My garden is in full bloom! Here's a recent terrace harvest of cherry tomatoes, as well as jalapeño and cayenne peppers.
Thanks for reading the 153rd edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Let me know what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here .
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American Jews' Support for Israel Is Near Its Breaking Point
To describe Benjamin Netanyahu's government as a 'nightmare' for liberal American Jews would be to badly understate the case. Its behavior is likely worse than any of us previously could have imagined. Netanyahu and his extremist Cabinet have put Israel in what Rabbi Jill Jacobs told me is 'the worst position it's ever been, morally and ethically.' Even Jacobs, who heads T'ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization, may be understating the case. This government is responsible for what is quite possibly the worst self-inflicted catastrophe for the Jewish people in their entire history. With the counted dead numbering over 60, 000 in Gaza—a figure that includes neither those missing and likely buried under rubble nor the increasing number succumbing to starvation and war-induced disease—Jacobs argued in The Forward that 'this war long ago ceased being a war to neutralize Hamas, return the hostages, and protect Israelis, and became a war of revenge and of settlement that serves primarily to hold the government coalition together and keep Netanyahu out of prison.' Israel's behavior is under attack from almost every corner imaginable, but especially from Jews. In recent days, two Israeli human rights organizations, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, judged their country's behavior in Gaza to fit the legal definition of 'genocide.' This came shortly after a well-respected Israeli-born professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, Omar Bartov, made the same case in a 3,700-word New York Times op-ed. For decades the darling of the mainstream media, Israel is in the news these days primarily for its policies deliberately causing the starvation of Gaza's population, bombing its hospitals, and killing those searching desperately for food with sniper fire. Each day's news cycle brings another report of a hundred or so Gazans killed by Israel (journalists are forbidden by Israel to enter Gaza, so reporting is necessarily sketchy). At the same time, West Bank settlers are carrying on a campaign of terror against Arab residents with the implicit and often explicit support of the government and the army. This week, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was apparently murdered on video by a famously violent Israeli settler. The settler was immediately released on house arrest with only trivial charges leveled against him. Hathaleen is one of 1,009 Palestinians who have been killed, with more than 7,000 injured, in the West Bank since October 2023. Few if any of the settler-terrorists who perpetrated these crimes have been arrested, much less seriously punished. What's more, Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister and the man who's asleep-at-the-switch leadership helped ensure the success of Hamas's October 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israel, which led to its catastrophic response, has adopted the Trumpian tactic of gaslighting truth tellers, denying observable reality, and blaming deep-state leftists and alleged traitors for raising any questions, even going on MAGA manosphere bro podcasts to make his case. Netanyahu argues for U.S.-Israeli control of food distribution in Gaza because, as he said back in March, after breaking off ceasefire talks, 'Hamas is currently taking control of all supplies and goods entering Gaza.' 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Former Israeli security officials call to end the war in Gaza as Netanyahu hints at a new stage
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The reports, citing anonymous officials in Netanyahu's office, said the prime minister was pushing the army, which already controls about three quarters of Gaza, to conquer the entire territory, a step that could endanger the hostages, deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally. Various reports have said Zamir opposes this step and could step down or be pushed out if it is approved. Aid through local merchants Several hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since May while heading toward food distribution sites, airdropped parcels and aid convoys in the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses, local health officials and the United Nations human rights office. The Israeli military says it only has fired warning shots and disputes the toll. The Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, called COGAT, wrote on social platform X that there will be a 'gradual and controlled renewal of the entry of goods through the private sector in Gaza.' 'This aims to increase the volume of aid entering the Gaza Strip, while reducing reliance on aid collection by the U.N. and international organizations,' it said Tuesday. A limited number of local merchants were approved for the plan and will sell basic food products, baby food, fruits and vegetables and hygiene supplies through bank transfers, COGAT said. 'Stained with humiliation and blood' Thousands of Palestinians crowded against aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip through the southern Morag corridor Monday attempting to get whatever food they could during a protracted food shortage across the enclave. Mohammed Qassas from Khan Younis in southern Gaza said his children are so hungry that he is forced to storm aid trucks. 'I have young children, how am I supposed to feed them? No one has mercy. This resembles the end of the world,' he said. 'If we fight, we get the food. If we don't fight, we don't get anything.' As the trucks drove away, men climbed onto them, scrambling for any remaining scraps. 'The conditions are very challenging and we are hoping for a system to be in place,' Qassas said. 'Some people go home with some 200 kilograms (441 pounds), and others go home with only one kilogram (35 ounces). It is a mafia-like system.' After relentless efforts to get food from the trucks, it has become a routine for men to be seen coming back carrying flour sacks on their back, as well as carrying wounded and dead bodies from near the aid sites. Yusif Abu Mor from Khan Younis said the trucks' aid system is akin to a death trap. 'This aid is stained with humiliation and blood,' he said, adding that aid seekers run the risk of being killed by shootings or run over by aid trucks surrounded by crowds of hungry Palestinians. Slide toward famine Israel's blockade and military offensive have made it nearly impossible to safely deliver aid, contributing to the territory's slide toward famine nearly 22 months into the war with Hamas. Aid groups say Israel's week-old measures to allow more aid in are far from sufficient. Families of hostages in Gaza fear starvation affects them too, but blame Hamas. As international alarm has mounted, several countries have airdropped aid over Gaza. The U.N. and aid groups call such drops costly and dangerous for residents, and say they deliver far less aid than trucks. ___ Shurafa reported from Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.
