Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha has called for more active global efforts to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip and put an end to the systematic starvation of its people.
In a statement issued on Sunday he said: ‘The global campaign against the starvation of Gaza aims to build the broadest possible international solidarity with Gaza and to engage the Ummah The worldwide Muslim community) and the world’s free people in resisting the systematic policy of starvation and repression that the Israeli occupation is using against our people in the Gaza Strip.’
Taha also urged Palestinians at home and abroad to support their compatriots in Gaza and to organise and participate in widespread initiatives and events in solidarity with them.
He called on the international community and its humanitarian and rights organisations to break their silence and take courageous decisions to end Israel’s war crimes and starvation campaign in Gaza
Gaza today is not only under siege, it is in the grip of a real famine that unfolds more and more each day, amidst a disgraceful international failure and a silence broken only by the cries of the hungry and the tears of mothers.
As the Israeli blockade tightens, the sight of families surviving on just water and salt has become a daily reality for thousands, amid the total absence of basic food supplies and a staggering rise in the prices of what little remains in the nearly empty markets.
Saeed Al-Najjar, a displaced person from northern Gaza, says he and his eight children are just hours away from the ‘water and salt’ phase, after being unable to secure even a loaf of bread.
Al-Najjar said: ‘Flour is now 110 shekels per kilo, and I don’t even have one shekel. There’s nothing left to eat or to feed my children.’
He added: ‘I see my neighbours, especially the elderly and women, collapsing from exhaustion and hunger. They’re taken to hospitals, but even the hospitals are full and can no longer cope.’
Rana Jaber has started making what she calls ‘fake soup’ for her four children.
She explains that she boils water with salt and spices and tells her children it’s soup.
‘We haven’t had a bite of bread in three days. I try to silence their cries with anything… but hunger is cruel,’ she says.
Describing her suffering, Rana said: ‘Hunger bites at my stomach, I can’t sleep from the pain. I drink water to try and quiet the hunger, but it’s not working. May Allah have mercy on us.’
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has sounded the alarm, confirming that emergency departments are receiving an increasing number of starving patients.
Bodies are wasting away completely, and children are collapsing… the situation is unbearable. ‘We warn of the imminent death of thousands if the current conditions continue,’ the ministry said.
In an official statement, the ministry said that hundreds of people’s bodies have surpassed the limits of endurance, and the situation is rapidly spiralling out of control.
The Government Media Office announced that the number of deaths from starvation and malnutrition has risen to 690, including 71 children, amid the ongoing total blockade and the lack of any effective international intervention to stop the catastrophe.
Maher Al-Sharafi, displaced from the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood, lives with 50 members of his family in a harsh state of austerity akin to a hunger strike.
‘We all fast and break our fast with a piece of bread or a bit of lentils. But the coming days look like they’ll be just water and salt, like the prisoners,’ he said.
Amid this catastrophic reality, pleas for help continue to pour out from inside Gaza, calling for the lifting of the blockade, the opening of crossings, and immediate, urgent intervention to save the remaining lives.
In Gaza, disasters aren’t announced by sirens, but by a deadly silence.
Streets are overflowing with garbage, municipalities are paralysed, and thousands of families are trapped by unbearable odours, insects, and rodents.
It’s a scene that resembles the edge of a cliff, driven by an Israeli siege that has turned the simplest human rights into impossible demands.
For weeks now, garbage collection trucks have ceased operating due to fuel shortages.
The municipalities have sounded the alarm: ‘We can’t move, we can’t clean, we can’t survive – but no one is listening.’
With each passing day, another page is turned in the story of this battered region’s ability to endure.
From his tent in one of the displacement shelters, Mohamed Al-Khatib wipes dust off his child’s face and says: ‘We’re not asking for much, just collect the trash, fix the sewerage system, we just want to stay alive.’
Thousands of tons of waste pile up between the tents of displaced families across Gaza.
When municipal crews can operate, they relocate the waste to alternative sites, as access to the main landfills in eastern Gaza has become impossible.
Local doctors confirm a surge in skin diseases, gastrointestinal infections, and respiratory illnesses affecting hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals due to direct contact with garbage and contaminated drinking water.
The relief agency UNRWA has described the situation as a ‘serious health threat’, warning that serious disease outbreaks in the shelters are only a matter of time.
From the shores of Gaza, Assem Al-Kahlout speaks in a broken tone: ‘We need a little fuel, that’s all we’re asking for. But it seems even that little is too much for those enforcing the siege.’
In the displacement camps, rats roam freely and insects crawl over the bodies of children sleeping on the bare ground.
There are no vehicles, no capacity for local authorities to act, and people are left alone to face their fate, as if life itself has abandoned them.
Haj Abu Yasser, who has never owned a home, gazes at the piles of waste and says: ‘We live on patience, but even patience has its dignity. No one can breathe amid this stench. We are being humiliated and dying slowly.’
This is not a scene from a dystopian novel, but daily life in a besieged land. Gaza is not asking for pity, it is simply asking for the bare minimum of life. But it seems that even this minimum, like fuel, has become forbidden.
The World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a press statement released on Sunday: ‘Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached new levels of desperation,’ affirming that ‘nearly one person in three is not eating for days.
‘People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment.’
WFP explained that ‘on the morning of 20 July, a 25 truck WFP convoy carrying vital food assistance crossed the Zikim border point destined for starving communities in northern Gaza.
‘Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies.
‘As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.’
WFP said it is ‘deeply concerned and saddened by this tragic incident resulting in the loss of countless lives.
‘Many more suffered life-threatening injuries. These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation.
‘This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.’
WFP said that Sunday’s attack on aid seekers comes ‘despite assurances from Israeli authorities that humanitarian operational conditions would improve, including that armed forces will not be present nor engage at any stage along humanitarian convoy routes.’
For its part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also warned that Gaza families are facing catastrophic hunger.
‘Children are wasting away. Some die before food reaches them,’ OCHA said on Sunday.
‘Those seeking food are risking their lives, many are being shot at. This is unconscionable,’ OCHA added.
‘Unimpeded humanitarian access is a legal and moral imperative. Starvation must not be used as weapon of war.’