‘I feed my children sugar and water … but if they opened a corridor for us to leave in exchange for raising a white flag, we wouldn’t go.’
With these words, Umm Mohammad Mushtaha, displaced from Beit Hanoun town to the Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City, summarises the steadfastness of the people of Gaza in the face of Israel’s policy of starvation and submission.
Nineteen months of aggression, deliberate aid cuts, systematic destruction of warehouses and bakeries, and a ban on the entry of fuel and flour – none of this succeeded in deterring Palestinians from the path of resistance.
Instead, it created a new layer of ‘martyrs of hunger’, and icons of dignity whose names are repeated like those of fallen fighters.
Abu Hassan Musabeh, a resident of Jabalia who was deprived of aid, said: ‘We had a fig tree at home. We cut its leaves and cooked them. We ate them, then we got sick. But we don’t regret it. If the occupation offered us food in exchange for normalisation, we wouldn’t accept it.’
In Al-Shifa Hospital lies Adam Abu Al-Qumbaz, a three-year-old child, his body frail and barely breathing.
His mother weeps: ‘They told us the occupation is deliberately preventing milk and vitamins from entering for our children. We know – they want us to weaken and surrender. But we teach our children that hunger is more bearable than humiliation.’
Observers believe that the Israeli occupation army relied on hunger as a weapon to break the popular base of the resistance.
But the opposite happened. Hunger deepened hatred of the occupation and increased determination to stay – especially with rising global solidarity with Gaza.
They note: ‘The occupation believes economic and psychological pressure can break our willpower. But it still doesn’t understand that those who chose to stay under bombardment won’t leave because of hunger.’
Bread lines have turned into scenes of epic endurance. One survivor of a massacre during aid distribution said: ‘We knew the planes were watching us, but we went anyway. We’d rather die seeking a dignified bite than stretch our hand to the enemy.’
International relief organisations, led by the World Food Programme, have described what’s happening in Gaza as the first fully documented famine in decades.
Still, the global community remains a spectator – issuing statements of concern, while some states indirectly participate in the siege by restricting aid or politically justifying the aggression.
Human rights advocate Salah Abdel-Ati, head of the International Commission for Human Rights, told the Palestinian Information Centre: ‘International law prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon of war, but in Gaza this crime is being committed daily.’
He added: ‘Global silence is not just complicity – it is partnership in the crime.’
In shelters, where displacement blends with fear, mothers speak of a different kind of pain.
Umm Youssef Nasr, a mother of five, says: ‘My children ask me, “Mama, when will we eat bread?” And I laugh and say, “Soon”… but I don’t have an answer. Sometimes I squeeze a lemon into water and give it to them as a meal.’
Gazan women are no longer just mothers – they are cooks from nothing, doctors without medicine, and teachers in classrooms of pain. They are the first line of defence for life.
From Nuseirat refugee camp, 22-year-old Ibrahim Farajallah recounts: ‘I received an offer from relatives in the West Bank to leave through Rafah with help from an organisation. But I refused. I said: I will live and die here, on my land. Hunger is kinder than living exiled.’
Ibrahim’s words capture a pure Palestinian equation: Dying on the homeland’s soil is better than living in tents of political exile.
Hunger may linger, and bodies may be besieged, but Gaza has proven that the spirit born from siege does not break. What the Israeli war machine fails to understand is that people who endure starvation in silence ignite their power in a moment of dignity.
Gaza today is not a victim of hunger, but a mirror reflecting the moral fragility of this world. And it cries out to history: We will not bow – even as we die of hunger.
‘I wish I could regain my health!’
Rahaf Ayyad, 12, from the Shujaiya neighbourhood in Gaza, once was a lively girl. Now, however, she is a shadow of herself.
War, displacement, and blockade have left her malnourished and medically neglected as the healthcare system is crushed due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment.
For two months, Rahaf hadn’t eaten anything but bread. For her, meat, vegetables, milk, fruit, and honey have become distant memories.
‘I wish I could regain my health. I want my hair to grow back. I want to brush it. I want to go to school. I want to pray while I stand still.’
These were the words Rahaf uttered with a trembling voice while her eyes were empty of hope. Her pain finally broke through in tears that could flood the world, if the world still has a trace of humanity.
That’s not the story of Rahaf alone. Over one million children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition, while dozens have died of hunger.
Since the 2nd of March, no humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza. With food and medicine warehouses bombed and emptied, almost 65,000 children have been hospitalised for severe malnutrition, and over 30 have died from hunger and dehydration, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
In a press statement last Friday, the Hamas leader Abdulrahman Shadid pointed out that Gaza has officially entered a phase of full-blown famine and acute malnutrition, affirming that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war to turn Gaza into an open-air prison where children die from lack of food not only from missiles.
‘Israel continues to ban the entry of thousands of stranded aid trucks at the Rafah border despite international appeals to lift the siege,’ Shadid highlighted, stressing that the Israeli crimes violate the international humanitarian laws and conventions.
Shadid stated that the Israeli government continues its bloody coup against the ceasefire agreement, adding that it escalates its atrocities backed by the US and under the direction of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.
He held the US administration and its supporters responsible for their complicity in the Israeli crimes, calling on the Arab countries to pressure Israel to stop its crimes against the Palestinian people.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned of the exacerbating humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israeli blockade on the enclave.
UNRWA revealed via the X platform that almost 3,000 trucks carrying life-saving supplies are blocked outside Gaza, warning that this obstruction endangers the lives of over a million children who depend on this aid for survival.
For his part, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric stated that the UN views the situation in the Gaza Strip with alarm, noting that two million people are in urgent need of food that simply does not exist.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Dujarric called for an immediate ceasefire to resume the delivery of aid to Gaza, urging Israel to facilitate humanitarian access.
The UN spokesman emphasised that the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza must not be subject to negotiations or conditions, noting that the UN is in constant communication with Israeli authorities to urge the lifting of the blockade.
He also acknowledged the UN’s inability to effectively address the crisis, adding that the Secretary-General has no authority to hold countries accountable for violations of international law.
