Since March 2, 2025, more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been living under a suffocating siege, after Israeli occupation forces completely closed all crossings, blocking the entry of food, medicine, water, and fuel. This policy starkly demonstrates how hunger can be weaponized as a tool of genocide. It’s not merely a military tactic—it is a slow, calculated process of killing that aims to destroy the human and social fabric of Gazan society, not with bombs, but by depriving people of the basic necessities of life.

The food crisis in Gaza is no longer a temporary shortage—it is a looming famine. Reports from the World Food Programme indicate that 9 out of 10 families in the Strip go entire days without eating. Meanwhile, in March 2025, the World Health Organization confirmed that the "complete collapse of the healthcare system is preventing even the treatment of severe malnutrition cases among children and women."

Scenes on the ground defy description: emaciated children with protruding bones waiting in lines for hours just to get a scrap of bread; women carrying empty pots, asking for a bit of flour; fathers breaking down, unable to feed their children. Umm Ahmad, a mother of four from Jabalia Camp, said in a recorded testimony aired by Al Jazeera:
"My two-year-old son cries all night from hunger. We haven’t eaten anything except wild herbs for three days."

According to UNICEF estimates as of the end of April 2025, over 60,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition, and some are at risk of death within weeks if immediate aid is not delivered. Additionally, 16,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women are facing dangerous deficiencies in calories, protein, and minerals—putting both their lives and their children’s long-term physical and mental health at risk. The few remaining hospitals, barely functioning due to fuel and medicine shortages, can no longer accommodate the sick, amid warnings of an impending "silent" wave of mass deaths.

But this suffering is not just a byproduct of war—it is the outcome of a deliberate policy. In a report, Amnesty International confirmed that "Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in blatant violation of international law." The organization stated that blocking humanitarian aid "cannot be justified on security grounds" and constitutes an act of genocide. The use of hunger as a method of pressure or collective punishment directly violates Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits "starving civilians as a method of warfare."

Perhaps the most staggering part of this catastrophe is that it is happening in full view of the world. Footage from Gaza since the start of the year shows children fainting at school and elderly people dying of hunger in their homes. One grandmother, interviewed by a BBC correspondent, held a small plate of lentils and said: "I divide this among three of my grandchildren… I don’t eat."

What is happening in Gaza is not just a humanitarian tragedy—it is a cold-blooded crime, unfolding slowly and deliberately. It demands a firm international response. Silence here is not neutrality—it is complicity. Saving Gaza is not a negotiable demand—it is an urgent moral and human obligation. Hunger does not just kill—it exposes humanity’s failure in its most basic ethical test.