As Israel continues to restrict food supplies to Gaza for an extended period, Gaza’s residents are enduring extreme hunger. The cries of hungry children in Gaza are unceasing, and their parents are helpless, unable to find ways to alleviate their hunger. Mothers in Gaza, with no milk for their infants, are resorting to mixing water with whatever food they can find in bottles.
Dr. Kahlil Dargan stated that infant formula is almost entirely depleted in Gaza, and due to malnutrition, mothers are unable to breastfeed. He said that thousands of infants under two years old are starving due to the lack of formula.
“These children and their mothers are weakened by malnutrition. Our infants are now only given water or mashed food. This is harmful to the health of Gaza’s infants,” he said.
Azhar Imad, a 31-year-old Gaza resident, said she mixes tahini with water for her four-month-old daughter, Juri. However, she fears this could harm her baby.
“My baby refuses to drink this mixture instead of milk. Giving all these things to an infant is likely to make her sick. Sometimes I just put some water in her bottle. There’s nothing else to add. Then we give her seeds and various herbs,” Azhar said.
Since Israel began its genocidal campaign against Gaza’s residents on October 7, 2023, access to food, water, medicine, and other supplies has become extremely limited. Since the start of the war, 159 Gaza residents, including 90 children, have died from hunger. In the past 24 hours alone, two people have died from starvation.
With widespread hunger in Gaza, the UN has highlighted the severe risk of famine, especially for Gaza’s children. The organization continues to call on Israel to allow uninterrupted access for food and aid supplies into Gaza. Despite efforts by the UN and other humanitarian organizations to bring aid into Gaza, they report that Israel is obstructing these efforts.
Due to international pressure over Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza’s residents, Israel has been forced to allow some food to be airdropped into Gaza over the past week. Although Arab countries have airdropped food, this has this has not significantly changed the situation in Gaza. Experts describe this method of aid delivery as dangerous, expensive, and ineffective.
Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said that the UN and its affiliated organizations are fully utilizing all available opportunities to bring aid into Gaza, collecting supplies from entry points, and working to transport more supplies to these areas. He noted that while Israel has declared the routes for aid trucks as safe, these vehicles face many obstacles. He highlighted that truck drivers, aid workers, and people gathering for aid are exposed to danger.
Haq further stated that aid trucks are significantly delayed because they can only travel on one road, which has numerous Israeli checkpoints.
As Gaza’s hunger crisis worsens daily, Israeli forces continue to kill Gaza residents seeking aid at distribution centers managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-affiliated company tasked with aid distribution. Since GHF began distributing aid in late May, over 1,000 people have been killed near aid distribution centers. In the past 24 hours, 23 people were killed near an aid distribution center in Gaza’s Netzarim area.
Israeli forces killed these people just an hour before U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Wittkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee were scheduled to visit Gaza. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said these officials would meet directly with Gaza residents to assess the situation.
In a statement, Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, said they were ready to immediately negotiate an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. However, they stated this would be contingent on allowing necessary aid into Gaza and delivering it to the residents, thus ending the hunger crisis in Gaza.
