José Andrés: The World Cannot Stand By With Gaza on the Brink of Famine
July 27, 2025
(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/opinion/gaza-starvation-famine-israel.html)
Credit…Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
By José Andrés
Mr. Andrés is the founder of World Central Kitchen.
Forty years ago, the world’s conscience was shocked into action by images of emaciated children and starving babies dying in their mothers’ arms. There was a surge in international aid, airdrops of food and activism from the world’s most popular artists. Thanks to the news media and events such as Live Aid, we could not look away from the hungry in Ethiopia.
A generation later, people of good conscience must now stop the starvation in Gaza. There is no excuse for the world to stand by and watch two million human beings suffer on the brink of full-blown famine.
This is not a natural disaster triggered by drought or crop failures. It’s a man-made crisis, and there are man-made solutions that could save lives today. The hunger catastrophe in Gaza is entirely caused by the men of war on both sides of the Erez crossing: the ones who massacred Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ones who have been killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the more than 21 months since.
We are far beyond the blame game of who is the more guilty party. We don’t have the time to argue about who is holding up the food trucks.
A starving human being needs food today, not tomorrow.
As the occupying force, the Israelis are responsible for the basic survival of civilians in Gaza. Some people may find this unfair, but it is international law. To that end, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed aid group, put a new plan in place that distributes food from a few hubs, which forced desperately hungry people to walk for miles and risk their lives. At the time it was created, international aid groups warned this would be dangerous and ineffective. Those warnings have sadly proved true.
It’s time to start over.
Food cannot flow quickly enough to Gaza right now. The World Food Program, led by its American executive director, Cindy McCain, said last week that one-third of Gaza’s population had not eaten for multiple days in a row. Small children are dying of starvation in numbers that are rising rapidly.
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World Central Kitchen, the international aid group I founded, works with our partners in Gaza to cook tens of thousands of meals a day. Last week we resumed cooking a limited number of hot meals after a five-day pause caused by a lack of ingredients. It was the second time we were forced to stop cooking because of food shortages this year. Our teams on the ground are committed and resilient, but our day-to-day ability to sustain cooking operations remains uncertain.
Since the start of the war, we have prepared and distributed more than 133 million meals across Gaza, through large field kitchens and a network of smaller community kitchens. We have delivered thousands of meals to displaced Israeli families, including last month when Israeli towns and cities came under intense missile attacks from Iran.
The Israeli government has claimed that Hamas is stealing the food in Gaza. It also says it is doing “everything possible” to feed Palestinians.
Here is the reality we have seen on the ground. Before Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid, which started in March, our convoys experienced very little violence or looting. After the blockade was lifted, the situation worsened significantly, with widespread looting and anarchy. It is rare now for trucks entering Gaza to make it safely to our kitchens or those of other aid groups without being looted. Drivers and kitchen workers are often attacked by armed groups of unknown origin.
The blockade that was supposed to pressure what’s left of Hamas only strengthened these gunmen and gangs. It precipitated mass deprivation and the collapse of society in Gaza.
Our proposal is to change how we feed people, secure distribution and scale up quickly.
First, we urgently need to open humanitarian corridors accessible to all aid groups operating in Gaza, to ensure that food, water and medicine can arrive safely and at scale.
Second, we need to substantially increase production of hot meals. Unlike bulk food supplies, hot meals have little resale value for organized gangs.
Third, we need to feed people where they are. We must deliver meals to where the Palestinian people are sheltering, rather than expect them to travel to a few distribution points, where violence often breaks out.
Fourth, we want to prepare one million meals a day, not tens of thousands. We estimate this would require five large cooking facilities in safe zones, where bulk food supplies can be delivered, prepared and distributed without risk of violence. These large kitchens would also supply hundreds of smaller community kitchens at the neighborhood level throughout Gaza, empowering communities as essential partners.
This proposal is dependent on securing food, equipment and vehicles. By itself, it won’t be sufficient. We want to see all aid groups operating in Gaza able to work freely in their own way.
I understand that many Israelis are still grieving and are focusing first on their own. On the long list of those who continue to suffer, there are the surviving hostages, the traumatized families and the wounded soldiers.
We have seen in the past several months how Israel is able to pursue what it sees as its national interest with courage. The challenge of feeding starving Palestinians is no different.
We are approaching the Jewish fast of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of two holy temples in Jerusalem. It is a solemn day of suffering and remembrance.
The Book of Isaiah reminds us that fasting is not enough. The true fast is to share our bread with the hungry and give our clothes to the naked.
“If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness,” it reads. If we want to light the darkness, we need to extend our soul to the hungry. And we need to do it now.
José Andrés is a chef and the founder of World Central Kitchen, an international aid group.
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El chef José Andrés presenta su plan para hacer frente al hambre en Gaza
(https://www.deia.eus/mundo/2025/07/27/chef-jose-andres-presenta-plan-9924778.html)
El proyecto pasa por la producción de “un millón de comidas al día” en cinco grandes instalaciones protegidas de la violencia y los saqueos
27·07·25
El chef José Andrés. EP
El reconocido chef español José Andrés presentó este domingo un plan para alimentar de forma más segura a la población de Gaza, con la producción de “un millón de comidas al día” desde al menos cinco grandes instalaciones protegidas de la violencia y los saqueos.
En una columna de opinión que publica este domingo el diario The New York Times, el cocinero recalcó que la “gente de buena conciencia” debe actuar “ahora” para detener el hambre en Gaza, como ocurrió hace 40 años con la hambruna en Etiopía.
“Es una crisis provocada por el hombre y existen soluciones creadas por el hombre”
“No hay excusa para que el mundo se quede con los brazos cruzados mientras dos millones de seres humanos sufren al borde de una hambruna total”, sostuvo el fundador de World Central Kitchen, que con sus socios en Gaza prepara decenas de miles de comidas.
“Este no es un desastre natural provocado por sequías o malas cosechas. Es una crisis provocada por el hombre, y existen soluciones creadas por el hombre que podrían salvar vidas hoy”, añadió.
José Andrés afirmó que es momento de impulsar un nuevo plan, que reemplace al que puso en marcha la Fundación Humanitaria de Gaza, un grupo de ayuda respaldado por Israel.
Las advertencias de que ese proyecto sería “peligroso e ineficaz” resultaron ciertas, subrayó, dado que esa fundación apenas distribuye alimentos desde “unos pocos centros”, lo que ha obligado a las personas con hambre a caminar kilómetros y arriesgar sus vidas.
Los cuatro puntos del plan
Como alternativa, el cocinero español plantea un plan de cuatro puntos para “cambiar la forma en que alimentamos a las personas, asegurar la distribución y ampliar la escala rápidamente”.
En primer lugar, señaló la urgencia de “abrir corredores humanitarios accesibles a todos los grupos de ayuda que operan en Gaza”, y como segundo paso, “aumentar notablemente la producción de comidas calientes”, porque -al contrario que los alimentos a granel- tienen “poco valor de reventa para las bandas organizadas”.
También propuso que se entreguen las comidas donde se refugia la población para evitar que tengan que desplazarse, y por último, apostó por “preparar un millón de comidas al día, en lugar de decenas de miles”.
Calculó que ese último objetivo requeriría “cinco grandes instalaciones de cocina en zonas seguras”, donde puedan llegar los suministros y prepararse las comidas sin riesgo de violencia, además de distribuirse a cocinas comunitarias más pequeñas en la Franja.
Este fin de semana, Israel se comprometió a establecer “rutas seguras” para los camiones que transportan comida de la ONU. Sin embargo, todavía no ha especificado cuáles son estas rutas y sus tropas siguen abriendo fuego en las que continúan abiertas.
Además, frente a las afirmaciones del Gobierno israelí de que Hamás “está robando los alimentos en Gaza” y de que ellos están “haciendo todo lo posible para alimentar a los palestinos”, José Andrés describió “la realidad” que su organización ha visto “sobre el terreno”.
De acuerdo con el chef, antes del bloqueo israelí a la ayuda humanitaria, que comenzó en marzo, sus convoyes experimentaron muy poca violencia o saqueos, pero “tras el levantamiento del bloqueo, la situación empeoró significativamente, con saqueos generalizados y anarquía” dijo.
Aseguró que actualmente “es raro” que los camiones que entran a Gaza para asistir a World Central Kitchen o a otros grupos de ayuda no sean saqueados, y que los conductores y cocineros “son atacados a menudo por grupos armados de origen desconocido”.
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