In Gaza, where the air smells of dust and despair, survival has become a daily act of resistance. With border crossings shut for over two months and no access to clean water or sufficient food, over two million Palestinians now live on the edge of catastrophe. Children cry for bread, parents search for a drop of drinkable water, and entire families cling to life under tents made of worn-out cloth. What the world calls a humanitarian crisis is, for Gaza’s residents, a relentless, silent war on their very existence.

Umm Muhannad Al-Shurafa, who lost her family in an airstrike, now shares a single meal of lentils with her orphaned grandchildren. Nearby, others scrape by with salty water and crumbs of expired bread. Gaza’s communal kitchens have stopped functioning, and water is delivered—if at all—once a week. In this place, hunger is not a metaphor. It is a child crying through the night. It is a mother breaking under the weight of her helplessness. And still, the world says nothing.

Engineers at Gaza’s last remaining desalination plants warn of imminent shutdowns due to fuel shortages. Human rights defenders call this manufactured famine a crime against humanity. And yet, international institutions remain paralysed, as if Gaza were too far, too complex, or too inconvenient to care about. But to Palestinians, this is not about aid or policy—it is about life. And that life, slowly and cruelly, is being taken away under a suffocating siege that has turned thirst and hunger into weapons of war.