Ahmed Ahmed,
Ruwaida Amer
With
over 70,000 children hospitalized for malnutrition, Israel's blockade on the
Strip has left parents to watch helplessly as their children waste away.
Twelve-year-old
Rahaf Ayad holds a phone showing a picture of herself before the war,
in her family's home in Gaza City, May 2, 2025. (Ahmed Ahmed)
Twelve-year-old
Rahaf Ayad is
so malnourished she can barely speak. Her hair is falling out. Her ribs
protrude. She can hardly move her limbs. She blinks slowly, her eyelids heavy.
Originally from
Al-Shuja’iya in eastern Gaza City, Rahaf now lives with her seven family
members in a single room in a relative’s house in the city’s Al-Rimal
neighborhood.
Shurooq,
Rahaf’s mother, explained that her daughter’s health began deteriorating
rapidly due to the lack of food. “If anyone touches her, or she tries to move
her arms or legs, she just cries out in pain,” she told +972. “She says it
feels like her body is burning from the inside. She asks for chicken, meat, or
eggs — but there’s nothing in the markets.”
Shurooq and her
45-year-old husband, Rani, have gone from clinic to clinic in search of
treatment, supplements, or even advice, but Gaza’s devastated healthcare system
offered little help. “Doctors told us there are hundreds of children like
Rahaf, and the only thing that can save them is proper food,” she said. “I
bought her vitamins from a pharmacy, but when I returned to buy more a week
later, they ran out.”
Rahaf Ayad with
her parents in their home in Gaza City, May 2, 2025. (Ahmed Ahmed)
Rahaf’s
siblings help with her care: feeding her, bathing her, taking her to the
bathroom, and changing her clothes. When food is available, the family puts her
needs first. “We eat only after she’s eaten,” said Shurooq. “When we have
money, we buy whatever [food] she asks for. But now, there’s nothing — and when
we do find something, we can’t afford it.”
Even when
Shurooq manages to find and prepare some of the few staples still available in
Gaza, like rice, lentils, or pasta, Rahaf cries for chicken, meat or eggs —
anything with the protein her body so desperately needs. Eventually, hunger
wins out and she eats whatever is available.
“I tell her the
border will open soon, and I’ll bring her whatever she wants,” Shurooq said,
holding back tears. “Rahaf’s health is collapsing every day. She’s dying in
front of my eyes, and we can’t do anything.”
Rahaf loves the
English language. She once dreamed of studying English in university and
becoming a teacher. But her life — like those of hundreds of thousands of
children in Gaza — has been shattered beyond recognition by Israel’s ongoing
war.
“I wish my hair
would come back,” Rahaf whispered. “I want to walk and play with my siblings
like I used to.”
The silent
killer
For a little
over two months, Israel has prevented all food, goods, and medical supplies
from entering the Gaza Strip. The consequences have been catastrophic:
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, over 70,000 children are now
hospitalized with acute malnutrition, and 1.1 million lack the daily minimum
nutritional requirements for survival.
The Palestinian
Health Ministry in Gaza reported that, as of May 5, at least 57 children have
already died from malnutrition-related health complications since the start of
the war, and another 3,500 under the age of five face imminent risk of death
from starvation.
“Over the past
two weeks, the famine intensified significantly,” Dr. Ahmed Al Faraa, director
of the maternity and pediatrics department at Nasser Hospital, told +972. “In
that period, we have treated approximately 10 children suffering from very
serious malnutrition.”
“She’s dying in
front of my eyes, and we can’t do anything.”
Dr. Ahed
Khalaf, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital, told Al Jazeera recently
that they have never seen such severe cases of malnutrition in children. “They
are suffering from blood poisoning, organ failure, liver and kidney damage,
bacterial and microbial infections, and weakened immunity.”
Shortly after
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared on April 16 that “no one is
currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza,” local and
international food distributors, once a lifeline for hundreds of thousands,
started shutting down one by one. On April 25, the World Food Program announced
it had run out of its remaining food stocks. On May 7, World Central Kitchen
announced that it “no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread in
Gaza.”
“The siege on
Gaza is the silent killer of children [and] older people,” UNRWA spokesperson
Juliette Touma said in a press briefing on April 29. “We have just over 5,000
trucks with lifesaving supplies that are ready to come in. This decision [not
to let them in] is threatening the lives and survival of civilians in Gaza, who
are also going through heavy bombardment day in, day out.”
‘Everyone I
know is broke’
Ibrahim Badawi,
38, needs at least four kilos of flour a day to feed his family of nine. These
days, he struggles to find even one kilo. “I feel helpless when my children ask
for bread and I have nothing to give them,” he told +972. “Sometimes, I wish my
children and I would die in an airstrike together — to be spared the pain of
starvation and this continuous agony.”
Badawi, who was
displaced from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, is living in a makeshift shelter
of tarps and blankets on the shore of Gaza City. Since Israel shattered the
ceasefire in March, Badawi has not received a single food parcel.
Ibrahim Badawi
and his children, in the family’s tent in Gaza City, May 4, 2025. (Ahmed Ahmed)
Badawi and his
wife, along with their eldest son Mustafa, 15, have grown accustomed to going
to bed hungry so the younger children can eat the small portions of rice or
lentils they occasionally receive from the community kitchen. “My youngest,
Abdullah, who is four years old, cries from hunger, saying his stomach hurts. I
lie and tell him I’ll bring flour soon just so he can sleep,” Badawi lamented.
But even if
flour were available, Badawi couldn’t afford it. Until late March, most Gazans
survived on stockpiled bread and canned goods as prices soared. But then, the
crisis deepened: when all 26 World Food Program bakeries closed due to flour
and fuel shortages, white flour became impossibly expensive. A 25 kilogram sack
of white flour which cost NIS 30 ($8.30) before the war, now costs a staggering
NIS 1,500 ($416).
“I’ve borrowed
money from neighbors and friends many times to buy flour,” Badawi said. “But
now everyone I know is broke. My children suffer from colic and indigestion. If
this famine continues, we will all die from starvation.”
‘Neither
Israel, Hamas, nor the world cares about us’
Hadia Radi, a
42-year-old mother of six, lives with her family in a makeshift tent on Gaza
City’s Al-Wihda Street. Like countless other families in the enclave, they’ve
been dealing with both hunger and bombardment for months. On April 15, an
Israeli airstrike hit just meters from their tent, injuring several family
members, including Hadia’s 7-year-old son Yamen, whose leg was broken when it
was hit by shrapnel.
Now being
treated at the Red Crescent’s Al-Saraya field hospital, Yamen’s recovery is
complicated by severe malnutrition. “He’s lost 10 kilos in two months,” Radi
told +972. “We’ve eaten nothing but rice since the blockade began. Without
proper nutrition, our wounds won’t heal.”
Hadia Radi and
two of her daughters, nine-year-old Sanna and six-year-old Huda, May 2, 2025
(Ahmed Ahmed)
Food is now so
scarce that even small acts of kindness can be risky. Recently, a neighbor
heard Yamen crying on the phone from his hospital tent, begging his mother for
bread. The next morning, he brought the family ten pieces of bread, smuggled in
a black bag to avoid attracting hungry eyes. Radi hid the bread in their tent
like treasure. “Every day, I’d send one piece with my husband for Yamen. His
siblings cried for some too, but I told them that the most injured must come
first.”
“Don’t let us
die from starvation.”
Yamen keeps
asking for his mother to visit, but Radi remains trapped by her own injuries
from the blast — a broken leg that leaves her dependent on crutches. She’s
equally powerless to reach her 13-year-old daughter Hannan, who is being
treated at Al-Shifa Hospital’s overwhelmed wards.
Hannan was hit
by shrapnel that took one of her eyes and left her unable to walk. The lack of
food has made recovery extremely difficult. “She needs vegetables, healthy
food, and special care to heal,” Radi explained. “But there’s no access to any
of that here.”
Radi believes
Israel is starving Gaza to pressure Hamas, but says it’s regular families
paying the price. “We’re watching our children wither away, and neither Israel,
Hamas, nor the world cares,” she lamented. “Why should my kids starve to death?
What did we do to deserve this? If you can’t stop the war, at least open the
borders. Don’t let us die from starvation.”
‘Netanyahu
punishes us just for existing’
Heba Malahi,
41, has also lived in a makeshift tent on Gaza City’s Al-Wihda Street since an
Israeli airstrike destroyed her home in Juhor ad-Dik in 2023. Now she and her
45-year-old husband Ribhi regularly skip meals so their seven children can eat.
Mahmoud, the
couple’s six-year-old son, suffers from severe malnutrition. “He’s tired all
the time. He doesn’t eat, his bones hurt, and his teeth are starting to fall
out,” Heba told +972. “Last week he begged for tomatoes. We sold our last
canned food just to buy a single kilo — we all shared that one meal.”
Their
17-year-old daughter Ruba desperately craves simple foods like potatoes, but at
NIS 60 per kilo, they’re virtually unattainable. “Netanyahu punishes us just
for existing,” Heba said. “Maybe someone like Trump could force him to open the
borders before we all starve.
Heba Malahi
with her sons, eight-year-old Mahmoud and 11-year-old Taysir, near their tent
in Gaza City, May 2, 2025. (Ahmed Ahmed)
“If people
imagined their own children in this state, perhaps they’d act,” she added.
Further south,
In Khan Younis, Mona Al-Raqab has been sitting with her five-year-old son Osama
for over a week in the Nasser Medical Complex. He currently weighs just nine
kilograms (20 pounds). Displaced multiple times since the war began with little
food or clean water, his digestive system has almost failed. “Doctors try
feeding him nutrients,” Al-Raqab said, “but a growing child needs real food of
different types.”
A few rooms
over, 30-year-old Nagia Al-Najjar watches over her severely malnourished
five-month-old baby Yousef in his crib. Her four other children remain with
their father in their tent in the village of Abasan, after their home in Khan
Younis’ Bani Suhaila neighborhood was destroyed. The hospital struggles to
provide formula amid border closures. “I can’t breastfeed because I barely eat
myself,” Al-Najjar told +972. “I can’t find the words to express how this feels
as a mother.”
Dr. Al Faraa
explained that the lack of food has been causing miscarriages and dangerously
underweight newborns with severe deformities. Families now grind pasta — or
even rice and lentils — into makeshift flour. “I don’t care if I starve,”
Al-Najjar said. “But what did my children do to deserve this?”
Ahmed Dremly
Noah al-Saqa had
just celebrated his 10th birthday, but was a victim of an Israeli attack on a
restaurant and market that killed 33 people. One family's story sums up the
ongoing tragedy of Gaza
At just 10 years old, Noah
al-Saqa dreamed of becoming an architect to help rebuild the devastated Gaza
Strip.
In the week leading up to
his birthday on 6 May, Noah kept asking his parents to prepare for it. But with
empty markets and no ingredients for cakes or sweets, a celebration felt out of
reach.
Since 2 March, no food,
goods, or humanitarian aid has entered Gaza. Still, his mother, Faten, 38,
searched through market stalls for days until she managed to find a few items
of white flour, sugar, baking powder and an egg to make him a simple piece of
cake.
“He invited all his
cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends from our neighbourhood to celebrate with
him,” said his father Daoud al-Saqa, 43. “Even though we had little to
celebrate because of the war, his joy filled us with overwhelming happiness.”
There was nothing Saqa
could give him as a gift, so he offered Noah 20 shekels, about eight dollars,
and told him he could buy anything he liked.
“His gifts were a football
and 170 shekels collected from his aunts and uncles. He wanted to save them to
buy a bicycle,” his father said, fighting back tears.
“I hugged him and kissed
him. I never imagined it would be the last time.”
Fateful afternoon
Noah was overjoyed. He
couldn’t sleep that night from excitement and refused to change out of his
birthday clothes.
The next day, he asked his
mother for something to eat. When she told him the only option was canned meat,
he took 20 shekels of his birthday money and said he was going to play football
with his friends and buy crisps from a nearby market.
Around 3pm, two Israeli air
strikes hit the area, targeting the crowded al-Thailandi restaurant, in Gaza
City's northern Rimal neighbourhood, and the adjacent market.
“It was the most horrific
sound of explosions I’ve heard since the beginning of the war, then the screams
of people calling for help,” Saqa said.
Saqa and his eldest son,
Mohammed, 15, were working at their stall on al-Wihda Street, just 150 metres
away, when the attack took place. They ran towards the scene to help the
wounded.
“I saw over seven children
killed - students, passersby, kids with their parents - along with dozens of
others, young and old,” he said. At least 33 people were killed in the attack
and dozens wounded.
“Then something hit me. I
called my wife to check on Noah. She looked for him in the house, but he wasn’t
there.”
'He was gone'
Panic set in. Saqa searched
the streets, checking the wounded and the dead. When there was no sign of Noah,
he rushed to al-Shifa Hospital, just 200 metres away. His wife and other sons
joined him.
“I was searching the faces
of the wounded and the dead, calling his name over and over - ‘Noah!’” he said.
“There were so many bodies.”
A stranger approached him
and asked if he could describe his son. Then he asked Saqa to follow him to
another room.
There, lying on the ground
for lack of space or hospital beds, was Noah - his small body lying in a pool
of blood.
“His mother screamed and
collapsed. I begged the doctors to save him, he was still breathing. They
rushed to him and connected the machines, but within minutes, the monitor went
flat,” the father said. “He was gone.”
Noah was pampered, generous
and full of dreams. He would tear pieces from the family’s scarce bread to feed
wild birds at the window. He was energetic and loved by everyone - relatives,
neighbours, even strangers.
“He always said he couldn’t
wait to grow up,” Saqa recalled. “His big dream was to become an architect - to
rebuild our house, our neighbourhood, and Gaza.”
'Who will I play with now?'
Like all children in Gaza,
Noah was terrified of the bombs. Whenever he heard explosions, he would run to
his father, hug him tightly, and scream in fear.
“Don’t be afraid, I’m here
with you,” Saqa would whisper, trying to calm him.
Saqa and his family of six
had lived in the al-Talateni neighbourhood in central Gaza City, but their
house was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2023. They moved to a
relative’s house on al-Rimal Street after Israeli forces ordered civilians to
relocate there, claiming it was a “safe zone”.
But even in that so-called
safe zone, the bombing never stopped, and they had nowhere else to go.
Noah often asked his father
if there was a place in the world without bombing, if they could go there, and
when the war would end. “It will stop very soon, my love,” Saqa would tell him.
“His brother Adam [who is
12] keeps holding the football he brought as a gift for Noah, crying and asking
me, ‘Who will I play with now?’ I have no answers,” Saqa said.
“Why is the world silent
while our children are being killed? My son was innocent - he was stolen from
me.
“What father can endure the
kind of pain that burns in my chest? What was my son's crime? That he was
Palestinian and lived in Gaza? Has our blood become so cheap?”
Ramzy Baroud
The situation
in Gaza today starkly highlights Israeli exceptionalism. Israel is employing
the starvation of two million Palestinians in the blockaded and devastated Gaza
Strip as a tactic to extract political concessions from Palestinian groups
operating there.
On April 23,
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
described the current humanitarian situation in Gaza as “the worst ever seen
throughout the war”. Despite the severity of these pronouncements, they often
appear to be treated as routine news, eliciting little concrete action or
substantive discussion.
Israeli
violations of international and humanitarian laws regarding its occupation of
Palestine are well-established facts. A new dimension of exceptionalism is
emerging, reflected in Israel’s ability to deliberately starve an entire
population for an extended period, with some even defending this approach.
The Gaza
population continues to endure immense suffering, having experienced the loss
of approximately 10 percent of its overall numbers due to deaths,
disappearances and injuries. They are confined to a small, largely destroyed
area of about 365 square kilometers, facing deaths from treatable diseases and
lacking access to essential services, and even clean water.
Despite these
conditions, Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a
brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world observes with varying
degrees of anger, helplessness, or total disregard.
The question of
the international community’s role remains central. While enforcing
international law is one aspect, exerting the necessary pressure to allow a
population facing starvation access to basic necessities like food and water,
is another. For the people of Gaza, even these fundamental needs now seem
unattainable after decades of diminished expectations.
During public
hearings in The Hague starting on April 28, representatives from many nations
appealed to the International Court of Justice to utilize its authority as the
highest court to mandate that Israel cease the starvation of Palestinians.
Israel “may not
collectively punish the protected Palestinian people,” stated the South African
representative, Jaymion Hendricks. The Saudi envoy, Mohammed Saud Alnasser,
added that Israel had transformed the Gaza Strip into an “unlivable pile of
rubble, while killing thousands of innocent and vulnerable people.”
Representatives
from China, Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, and other nations echoed these
sentiments, aligning with the assessment of Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA,
who stated, last March, that Israel is employing a strategy of “weaponization
of humanitarian aid”.
However, the
assertion that the weaponization of food is a deliberate Israeli tactic
requires no external proof; Israel itself declared it. The then Israeli Defense
Minister, Yoav Gallant, publicly announced a “complete siege” on Gaza on
October 9, 2023, just two days after the start of the genocidal war.
Gallant’s
statement – “We are imposing a complete siege on (Gaza). No electricity, no
food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals
and we act accordingly” – was not an impulsive outburst but a policy rooted in
dehumanizing rhetoric and implemented with extreme violence.
This “acting
accordingly” extended beyond closing border crossings and obstructing aid
deliveries. Even when aid was permitted, Israeli forces targeted desperate
civilians, including children, who gathered to receive supplies, bombing them
along with the aid trucks. A particularly devastating incident occurred on
February 29, 2024, in Gaza City, where reports indicated that Israeli fire
killed 112 Palestinians and injured 750 more.
This event was
the first of what became known as the “Flour Massacres”. Subsequent similar
incidents took place, and, in between these events, Israel continued to bomb
bakeries, aid storage facilities, and aid distribution volunteers. The
intention was to starve Palestinians to a degree that would allow for coercive
bargaining and potentially lead to the ethnic cleansing of the population.
On April 1, an
incident occurred where an Israeli military drone struck a convoy of the World
Central Kitchen, resulting in the deaths of six international aid workers and
their Palestinian driver. This event led to a significant departure of the
remaining international aid workers from Gaza.
A few months
later, starting in October 2024, northern Gaza was placed under a strict siege,
with the aim of forcing the population south, potentially towards the Sinai
desert. Despite these efforts and the resulting famine, the will of the Gazan
population did not break. Instead, hundreds of thousands reportedly began
returning to their destroyed homes and towns in the north.
When, on March
18, Israel reneged on a ceasefire agreement that followed extensive
negotiations, it once again resorted to starvation as a weapon. There was
little consequence or strong condemnation from Western governments regarding
Israel’s return to the war and to the starvation policies.
“Using
starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” is classified as a war crime
under international law, explicitly stated in the Rome Statute. However, the
relevance of such legal frameworks is questioned when those who advocate for
and consider themselves guardians of these laws fail to uphold or enforce them.
The inaction of
the international community during this period of immense human suffering has
significantly undermined the relevance of international law. The potential
consequences of this failure to act are grave, extending beyond the Palestinian
people to impact humanity as a whole.
Despite this,
hope persists that fundamental human compassion, separate from legal
frameworks, will compel the provision of essential supplies like flour, sugar,
and water to Gaza. The inability to ensure this basic aid will profoundly
question our shared humanity for years to come.
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