The Gaza Health Ministry reported on Monday that six Palestinians have died from starvation in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of famine-related deaths to 263, including 112 children. The overall death toll from Israel’s war and blockade on the enclave, now in its 682nd day, has reached 62,004, with 156,230 injured. Ambulance crews say dozens of bodies remain trapped beneath rubble and scattered in the streets, inaccessible under relentless bombardment.

According to the ministry, 27 Palestinians were killed and 281 injured in the last day at so-called aid distribution points run by the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” an Israeli- and US-backed initiative. Since its inception, these zones have claimed the lives of 1,965 Palestinians and injured more than 14,700. Witnesses describe them as death traps rather than lifelines.

Human rights groups have accused Israel of implementing a deliberate policy of “engineered starvation” by restricting aid convoys to a handful of trucks, often diverted to remote areas far from population centres. Tens of thousands of desperate civilians converge on the limited supplies in chaotic, “apocalyptic” scenes. Aid workers and survivors say Israeli forces frequently open fire on the starving crowds, leaving access to food only for those strong enough to push through the chaos and survive the gunfire, while the vulnerable, the elderly, widows, orphans, and medical staff, are left to die silently.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned that Gaza’s so-called humanitarian zones have turned into “killing fields.” Hospitals, already on the brink of collapse, face overwhelming numbers of traumatic injuries, amputations, and malnourished children. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the situation cannot be sustained without an immediate ceasefire, an end to the blockade, and the restoration of humanitarian access. “If the world does not act now,” the ministry stated, “Gaza’s hospitals, its patients, and its future generations will be lost.”