In Gaza hunger kills like bombs: famine has become an extermination weapon

TO Gaza you die, even of hunger. So far, only in the first months of 2025, 74 deaths have been counted related to malnutritionof which 63 only in July. These include 24 children under five, a child over five and 38 adults. Most of these people have been declared death on arrival in healthcare facilities or died shortly after, showing clear signs of serious deterioration.

Device that should weigh on our consciences, while we shake insensitive images of which we do not understand the meaning and we do not understand that there is often a deliberate block and the delay of food, health and humanitarian aid on large scale.

The impact on children, the WHO report

According to the World Health Organization, almost One under five under five years in Gaza City is now acutely malnourished.

Global acute malnutrition, which measures the percentage of children aged between 6 and 59 months suffering from acute malnutrition, is Gaza City has been tripled since Junemaking it the most affected area in the Gaza strip. In Khan Youunis and in the central area, the rates doubled in less than a month.

And what must make us even more reflect is that these data are probably one underestimation Due to the serious access and safety restrictions that prevent many families from reaching healthcare facilities.

Only in the first two weeks of July, beyond 5000 children under five have been admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition, 18% of which with severe acute malnutrition (Sam), the most dangerous form. Over 73 children with Sam, then, and medical complications were hospitalized in July, compared to 39 in June, bringing the total of hospitalizations in 2025 to 263.

The impact on pregnant and breastfeeding women

The recent data of the screening of the Nutrition Cluster show that Over 40% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are seriously malnourished. The situation is more critical in the central area, where the rates are tripled compared to June, and to Gaza City and Khan Youunis, where they double.

Danger in searching for food

It is not only hunger to kill people, but also the desperate research of food. Families are forced to risk their lives for some food, often in dangerous and chaotic conditions. From 27 May, Over 1000 people were killed and 7200 injuries while trying to access food. In this context of famineare also the journalists and the same MSF doctors who end up exhausted for entire days of fasting:

The WHO asks for urgent and supported efforts for bring to the strip of Gaza various and nourishing food and to accelerate the delivery of therapeutic supplies for children and vulnerable groups, as well as of essential medicines and supplies. A flow that should remain constant and without obstacles to support recovery and prevent further deterioration. The WHO reiterates its appeal for the protection of civilians and health, the release of a detained colleague and hostages, and for a cease the immediate fire.

“But if hunger is not there!”, The paradox between cynicism and reality

The last words of Benjamin Netanyahu – “In Gaza there is no hunger” – The consciences of the observer make the consciences tremble, as if the dramatic images that come from the Striscia were not enough. The affirmation of Netanyahu, in a context of war without respite, raised a wave of international indignation, but it was not even the first item that entered into contrast with a reality that is done every day more opaque.

Even Donald Trump, known for his controversial statements, did not hesitate to distance himself from the Israeli premier, reiterating how hunger is a concrete and urgent reality in Gaza. His declaration, “There are many people who died of hunger“, It is part of a context in which political struggle seems to erase all trace of humanity, reducing the Palestinian population to numbers and statistics.

But there is something particularly cruel in these words that ignore people’s tangible suffering. The images of hungry children, of the faces torn by hunger and fear, are the silent testimony of a horror that cannot be denied. When the figures of power minimize the seriousness of the situation, or worse, when they say that there are no hunger policies, the inhumanization of the Palestinian population reaches a new level.

The humanitarian crisis that affects Gaza is an emergency that goes beyond political conflict, in an infinite series of human lives broken by the war, by hunger, by the deprivation of every essential good. It is a catastrophe that international graduates cannot stop. But do they want to do it seriously? The truth is that international policies continue to play chess on a battlefield that is now unveiled.

Is there a question that must be asked: until when, the words will continue to ignore the hunger and death that besiege Gaza? Until when, will the cynicism of the declarations continue to obscure the humanitarian urgency? While the world is divided between distant political positions and war strategies, it is crucial to remember that the real emergency is the one concerning the peopletheir right to live with dignity. Hunger is not an opinion, it is a reality. And the images that come to us from Gaza testify to it, without the possibility of denial.