Gaza continues to endure new chapters of genocide perpetrated by the Israeli occupation for nearly a year, marked by relentless bombardment, direct killings, and systematic starvation under siege — exposing the collapse of the international legal system that should protect civilians during wartime.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that famine is spreading dangerously, citing alarming reports from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and confirmed that the situation has reached a “lethal” phase, with famine set to engulf the Strip within weeks if aid is not allowed in immediately.
UNICEF stressed that entire families are now incapable of feeding their children, while the occupation’s bombardment continues to devastate neighbourhoods, refugee shelters, and homes, compounding residents’ suffering.
The agency highlighted the forced displacement of Palestinians in northern and eastern Gaza, where families are being driven west toward the sea, as tents and makeshift shelters proliferate along the coast. However, these areas also lack clean water, food, and medical services, leaving residents trapped in dire humanitarian conditions. UNICEF affirmed: “There is no safe place in Gaza.”
The UN further reported that Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah is overwhelmed with injured and burned children suffering from shrapnel wounds, fractures, and blast trauma, alongside severe overcrowding in nutrition clinics supported by UNICEF.
Medical data revealed that between 15% and 20% of children tested are suffering from acute malnutrition — far exceeding the internationally recognised famine threshold.
More than 110 children have already died from starvation so far this year, nearly half of them in 2024 alone. UNICEF stressed that these deaths are preventable, calling for hundreds of aid trucks carrying food and medicine to be allowed in daily to save children’s lives. Yet the occupation’s ongoing siege, enforced for 18 consecutive years, continues to block essential aid.
Since 2 March, the occupation has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, banning food and medicine despite the Strip already being classified in a state of famine. Although aid convoys gather at border crossings, the trucks are prevented from entering, while those few allowed in carry supplies far below the minimum threshold needed for survival. Reports also indicate armed gangs seizing many trucks once they cross, raising questions about the occupation’s complicity.
This situation reflects a policy of systematic extermination — using hunger, denial of aid, bombardment, and forced displacement as weapons.
Since 7 October 2023, Israel’s war of genocide has killed more than 64,368 Palestinians and injured over 162,367 others, the vast majority women and children. More than 9,000 remain missing, with hundreds of thousands displaced. Meanwhile, famine alone has claimed 387 lives, including 138 children.
What is unfolding in Gaza is not a passing humanitarian crisis but a comprehensive plan to uproot a people through killing, hunger, siege, and destruction. It persists under international silence that borders on complicity, as the occupation continues unchecked in imposing death through bombs and starvation without accountability.
