Gaza is no longer just a war zone, it is now the hungriest place on Earth. This stark declaration by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirms what Palestinians have long known: starvation has become part of the assault.

Despite thousands of tonnes of food and life-saving supplies waiting just beyond Gaza’s sealed borders, entry is blocked. OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke made it clear, everything is ready: trucks loaded, donors mobilised, customs cleared. What stands in the way is not logistics, but the refusal to open the crossings. And as every hour passes, more lives are lost.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, condemned this as an act of war, declaring that Israel is deliberately using hunger against civilians. His warning is chilling: the denial of food is not only starving 2.3 million people, but also pushing them towards displacement. The goal, he says, is clear, empty the land.

In Gaza today, famine is not a natural disaster. It is manufactured, enforced, and ignored by a world too slow to act. For Palestinians, bread is now as distant as peace.