Canadian aid agencies call for action saying starvation is rampant in Gaza

Yazan Abu Ful, a 2-year-old malnourished child, sits at his family home in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

TORONTO — Canadian aid agencies say malnutrition and starvation is rampant among children in Gaza, as well as among the aid workers trying to help them.

The Toronto-based president and CEO at Save the Children says its clinics are inundated by 200 to 300 people arriving each day.

Danny Glenwright says there’s been a tenfold increase in the number of children suffering acute malnutrition over the past two months, and that even clinic staff are bringing their children in for help.

That’s echoed by Canada’s executive director of Doctors Without Borders, with Sana Beg adding that members of her organization have had to donate their own blood because supplies are so short.

Beg says Doctors Without Borders welcomes Canada’s recent denunciation of the Israeli government for failing to prevent the humanitarian crisis but called for concrete actions as well.

Glenwright says average Canadians can help by urging their local MP to have Canada press for a definitive ceasefire and for all borders to open to aid trucks carrying desperately needed food and medical supplies.

International experts have warned that a “worst-case scenario of famine” is playing out in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive against Hamas has made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food to starving people.

Glenwright said Friday that Canadians should be upset by the crisis, calling it “a profound moral, political, and legal failure.”

“There’s no food anywhere else in Gaza and the limited supplies we have are running out,” said Glenwright, whose agency has a clinics in Khan Younis and one in Deir al Balah.

“The trucks that are sitting on the border — thousands of them with these life-saving supplies — are not being allowed in at the scale that is required. And it’s a calamity.”

Several aid agencies detailed a near-total collapse of the humanitarian system in a press conference Tuesday in London that included members of Oxfam, War Child Alliance, Save the Children International in Gaza and the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network.

Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday accused the Israeli government of violating international law by denying aid as it controls aid distribution, and called on all sides to negotiate an immediate ceasefire.

Glenwright suggested Canada could do much more diplomatically and economically, noting how strongly the country mobilized to help Ukraine.

“Our government’s inability to do more is shameful to all of us,” Glenwright said.

“Canadians can pressure their government – call your MP, say that you want candidates to do much more.”

With files from The Associated Press.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2025.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press