Israel’s blockade on Gaza has claimed five more lives to hunger, as the territory sinks deeper into a manufactured famine under relentless siege and bombardment. The latest deaths bring the toll to at least 175 since the start of the aggression, almost half of them children, according to local health authorities.

Aid that trickles in is a fraction of what is needed, while more than 22,000 trucks loaded with vital food and medical supplies remain blocked at Gaza’s crossings. Scenes at distribution points are desperate, families scrambling for scraps, mothers clutching malnourished children, often under the threat of Israeli gunfire.

Hospitals are collapsing without medicines, infrastructure is shattered, and the few humanitarian convoys that reach Gaza face looting amid chaos fuelled by deprivation. Palestinian officials and aid agencies warn that the starvation policy is deliberate, a weapon of war aimed at breaking an entire population’s will. The calls to lift the siege grow louder, but for Gaza’s 2.4 million people, survival is still a daily fight against hunger, fear, and the cold certainty of abandonment.