The Health Ministry in Gaza reported on Wednesday that five additional civilians, including children, have died of hunger and malnutrition in the past day, bringing the official toll of starvation-related deaths to 404 since the beginning of the war. At least 141 of the victims are children, a figure that underscores the devastating impact of the blockade on the most vulnerable.

Despite repeated international warnings, the siege continues to restrict food and aid deliveries to a trickle. Independent bodies such as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification have already declared famine in parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis, warning that the crisis is expanding towards Deir al-Balah and the south. Since that declaration alone, more than 120 people, among them 26 children, have starved to death. Aid is released sporadically and in chaotic conditions, leaving desperate families to scramble for scraps while the weak and frail are pushed aside.

Hospitals, already crippled by shortages of medicine, fuel, and supplies, have become scenes of daily tragedy. Doctors describe children arriving skeletal and unconscious, mothers fainting from exhaustion, and elderly patients succumbing to hunger before treatment can even begin. Humanitarian groups warn that what is unfolding is not a natural disaster but a deliberately engineered famine.

With more than 64,500 people killed since October 2023 and entire neighbourhoods destroyed, the blockade has become another weapon of war, depriving hundreds of thousands of civilians of their most basic right: food to survive. The slow death of starvation now stalks Gaza’s streets alongside the bombardments, deepening what many describe as the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time.