Israel kills nearly 70 in Gaza amid rising starvation deaths
Immediate aid needed as lives at stake in starving Gaza: UN
Monitoring Desk
GAZA/ UNITED NATIONS: Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 69 people in a single day, including 37 civilians seeking food aid.
Among the victims was a young Palestinian boy shot near the controversial GHF aid site—his grieving family demanding answers. Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported six additional starvation-related deaths, raising the toll from forced malnutrition to 175, including 93 children. As famine deepens under Israel’s blockade, aid deliveries remain sporadic and heavily restricted.
According to a United Nations’ report, a human tragedy is unfolding in western Gaza City across a landscape of hunger, with displaced people living crammed into crowded tents.
Earning a living has become a daily struggle, and hundreds of men, women and children stand in endless queues, under the scorching sun, outside the few community kitchens that serve nothing but lentil soup, the report from Gaza said.
A community kitchen in western Gaza reveals a panorama of painful scenes amid displaced people suffering, their cries for help and their urgent appeals to the world, demanding an end to their tragedy and relief, it said, describing the scene.
After a bitter struggle, Ziad Al-Ghariz, an elderly displaced person from Gaza, managed to obtain a cup of lentil soup. He sat on the floor and began to take slow sips. He told UN News, an international media website, that he had not tasted bread for 10 consecutive days.
“I eat the lentil soup distributed by the community kitchen,” he said. “I cannot afford flour at all. I do not have the money for it, so I try to get whatever the kitchen distributes. The people of Gaza are hungry.”
Young Mohammed Nayfeh spent four hours waiting for a meal for his family, the report said.
“I’ve been standing here for four hours, and I can’t get any food in the crowds and the sun,” he said. “We’re dying. We need support. We need food and drink. Where is the world? We’re dying here of hunger. Every day we eat only lentils. There’s no flour, no food, no drink. We’re dying of hunger.”
Umm Muhammad, a displaced person from the Shujaiya neighborhood, described the macabre scene around her.
“There is no water, no food, no bread,” she said. “The bitterness of the situation forces us to come here. In the end, we return with nothing. We either return burned under the sun or trampled underfoot due to overcrowding, and we return empty-handed. And no one listens.”
Hussam al-Qamari, who was also displaced from Shujaiya, said the situation is no longer acceptable.
“We are dying, and our children are starving to death,” she said. “So much is happening to the people of Gaza. Much of what is happening is unacceptable. An old man like me has been standing here since morning, carrying a bowl for his children to eat breakfast, and they still haven’t eaten.”
According to the latest findings from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), one in five children in Gaza City suffers from malnutrition, with cases increasing daily.
The image of this little girl standing behind an iron fence, holding her empty bowl waiting for a little lentil soup, encapsulates this horrific tragedy, for which children pay the heaviest price.
Bassam Abu Odeh, a displaced person from Beit Hanoun, made an appeal.
“We call on all the free people of the world and peace lovers to help us provide food and water until this famine imposed on us by the occupation ends. The trucks allowed into the area by the occupation are not even a drop in the ocean of needs. We have no one, but God.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that days after the start of the tactical pauses announced by the Israeli authorities in Gaza, “we continue to witness casualties among those seeking assistance and more deaths from hunger and malnutrition.”
