GAZA, (Palestine Foundation Information Center) In a world that continues to stand by idly, eyes shut and hearts numb, unmoved by the tolling bell echoing from Gaza, a land battered by a brutal Zionist starvation war and Nazi-like genocide, hunger is claiming lives. Children and the elderly, the young and the weak, are dying one after another, victims of famine.
Hundreds, if not thousands, await a looming “tsunami” of death, their bodies collapsing under the weight of famine, unable to carry them further. They suffer from fifth-degree malnutrition, catastrophic famine, while the world waits for a spark of humanity to awaken and rescue what’s left from the jaws of starvation deliberately imposed by the criminal occupation in a calculated effort to crush the will of an entire people in full view of the international community.
Hundreds of documented stories, captured in sound and image, speak of the most horrific humanitarian massacre in modern history. While UN warnings continue to sound the alarm over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the numbers tell a grim reality: starvation has become a deadly policy targeting both children and adults under a tightened siege and a systematic blockade of food and medicine.
Recent UN data reveals that over one million children in Gaza face the threat of hunger, with warnings of rapidly rising rates of acute malnutrition.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), children are the most vulnerable and severely affected by the crisis, as aid is unable to reach most areas of Gaza due to Israel’s strict military restrictions.
UNICEF has said that hunger has become a “terrifying reality” threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. Over 70,000 children in Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition, with more than 5,000 under the age of five officially diagnosed in May alone.
The agency warned that Gaza is facing a systematic starvation policy imposed by Israel, which has so far resulted in 86 recorded deaths from hunger, 76 of them children, and those numbers are expected to rise amid the lack of therapeutic nutrition and the ongoing siege.
Field reports have also documented heartbreaking cases of infants dying after surviving for days on herbal drinks alone, due to the lack of baby formula and essential food for nursing mothers.
The World Food Programme estimates that one-third of Gaza’s population has gone without food for consecutive days, and a quarter are living in famine-like conditions, further weakening children’s health and pushing them to the edge of danger.
The World Health Organization has warned that the crisis could escalate rapidly if food and medical aid are not allowed in immediately. It confirmed that over 100,000 children and pregnant women in Gaza are suffering from critical levels of malnutrition, placing their lives in constant danger.
Israel stands accused of using starvation as a weapon. International organizations, including Amnesty International, have documented evidence pointing to a systematic campaign to starve the civilian population, a blatant violation of international law and a crime of genocide.
Amid the absence of any political solution or meaningful international intervention, the suffering of Gaza’s children deepens, while the world continues to issue empty appeals.
As images emerge of emaciated children, or those taking their final breaths in their mothers’ arms, the cries of hunger in Gaza grow louder than the world’s silence, and more devastating than any speech.
