The World Health Organization has warned of a rapidly unfolding tragedy in Gaza, where 112 children are now hospitalised daily due to severe malnutrition. Months of siege, relentless Israeli airstrikes, and the systematic strangling of humanitarian access have pushed the Strip into what the WHO calls a crisis “beyond catastrophe.”

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, none of them in the obliterated north or in Rafah, once a refuge for displaced families. Medical staff are overwhelmed, treating starvation with almost no supplies, and watching children waste away in silence.

Even attempts to secure food have become deadly. Over 500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed trying to reach aid points controlled by the U.S. and Israel, not supervised by the United Nations. Hunger has become a weapon, and those who chase it are met with bullets or bombs.

For Gaza’s children, this is not a famine born of drought or natural disaster, it is a man-made assault, fuelled by blockade and indifference. As calls for action grow louder, international access remains minimal, and Gaza’s youngest pay the price for the world’s silence.