In one of the starkest illustrations of modern-day humanitarian collapse, Palestinians in Gaza are dying not only from bombardment but also from hunger and malnutrition, under a suffocating blockade and deliberate deprivation of food and medicine, all amid a troubling international silence.
Medical sources at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis reported on Thursday the death of 27-year-old Adel Madi from Rafah in southern Gaza, due to acute malnutrition and the famine gripping the Strip for months.
This follows a similar announcement yesterday of seven additional deaths within just 24 hours for the same reasons, raising the total number of starvation-related deaths to 154, including 89 children.
The besieged enclave, under blockade for years, is facing unprecedented restrictions on humanitarian aid, after Israel sealed all crossings into Gaza on 2 March 2025, blocking the entry of food, medicine, and clean water—an act amounting to collective punishment and the systematic targeting of civilians.
Famine in Gaza is no longer a looming threat; it is a deadly reality. Children are showing severe signs of emaciation, residents are suffering from health collapse and extreme weight loss, and access to medical care is nearly non-existent.
Children are paying the heaviest price: approximately 1 in 5 children under five years old in Gaza City now suffer from acute malnutrition, according to local medical data.
What is happening in Gaza surpasses the bounds of a humanitarian crisis, amounting to slow, deliberate killing. Starvation is being weaponised to subdue the civilian population, with the obstruction of humanitarian aid serving as a clear tactic of war, a practice explicitly prohibited under international law and defined as a war crime, even a crime against humanity.
Against this backdrop, Israel’s assault on Gaza, ongoing since 7 October 2023, has so far killed 60,239 Palestinians and injured 146,894 others, marking one of the deadliest campaigns of mass atrocities in modern history.
These figures are no longer mere statistics; they stand as a warning of the collapse of international justice and an enduring moral failure to halt unending crimes. In this moment, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity.
