Bread should never be a battlefield, yet in Gaza, parents count the hours between air raids and the next bite, trading sleep for a place in a bread line. This is not misfortune but an outcome of the ongoing genocide. Famine has been confirmed in Gaza after months of siege and bombardment. Moreover, the pattern of atrocities by Israel is tragically quite clear: cut the crossings, choke the fuel, bomb the roads, and the entire food system.

Famine in Gaza

On 22 August 2025, the IPC Famine Review Committee confirmed Famine (IPC Phase 5) in Gaza, warning that conditions could spread south without a sustained surge in aid and safety. The famine is not a metaphor but a technical threshold that means households cannot access enough calories or care to survive without immediate, large-scale relief.

Starvation in a place rarely makes a headline, but it is clearly shown in logistics spreadsheets and cratered roads. It can also be felt in the silence of dead ovens and empty tanks.

As per the UN agencies’ estimate, around five hundred to six hundred trucks per day are the minimum to cover basic needs. However, many days in many areas of Gaza fall far short, as a trickle cannot feed two million people. Moreover, there is an increasing fuel scarcity that is killing the cold chain. With electricity unreliable and fuel scarce, bakeries stop, fridges fail, and water systems sputter. In modern times, the families living in besieged Gaza burn scrap wood to boil lentils.

The movement has also been made quite dangerous as roads are continuously bombarded. Moreover, checkpoints and shelling make a bag of flour a life-or-death decision. Food trucks cannot reliably reach warehouses, and people cannot safely reach distribution points.

Food systems are completely dismantled by Israel as fields and greenhouses are destroyed completely or made inaccessible. Fishing is also crippled, and markets and warehouses are devastated or empty. Even when aid enters, the last-mile network is broken.

The Reality of the Human Toll

Hunger creeps, then crashes. UNICEF’s August screenings found roughly 1 out of 5 children in Gaza City acutely malnourished. This pace is increasing day by day. Children are starving, and they fail to gain adequate weight. Moreover, breastfeeding falters when mothers are undernourished, too. In these conditions, water-borne diseases spread faster in bodies that are already depleted.

Mothers stretch tea and bread into a “meal,” or simply skip eating altogether, so toddlers can share a biscuit. Children, on the other hand, stand in bread lines, and schools that became shelters have no kitchens or fuel. Diabetics and dialysis patients, who need predictable food and water, see their survival routines collapse greatly.

Every siege writes a cruel equation, such as calories in versus calories needed. In Gaza, the inputs have been deliberately depressed. Rations that do arrive are often calorie-inadequate for a displaced population; staples that require long boiling are useless without fuel and clean water. High-energy biscuits keep people alive for days, not months.

International Law and the Line That Was Crossed

International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and requires the rapid, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief. Human Rights Watch has documented how policies that block water, food, fuel, and safe access amount to using starvation as a weapon, a war crime. Whether by design or through reckless disregard for known consequences, the effect is the same: families are deprived of what they need to live.

What Relief Looks Like in Practice

Ending a heinous famine like this one is not a photo-op at a crossing. Completely ending it is about volume, tempo, and safety. Firstly, you should scale the pipeline to a figure of around five hundred to six hundred trucks per day minimum. Fuel should be reconsidered as a humanitarian commodity, including water and health facilities. For example, prices for cooking gas spiked by 4000% in early 2025 compared to pre-war levels. Therefore, families cannot cook even when they get food.

The mass starvation that is fueled by Israeli atrocities is a clear example of human rights violations. Now, the world must act with a renewed spirit before it is too late. Firstly, a permanent ceasefire is the need of the hour. Protection of civilians is also an important step to be taken.

Then, the perpetrators should face the international criminal organizations, as there are numerous cases to be faced, including one on genocide. Unconditional humanitarian access should be on the agenda. UN Resolutions should be followed in true letter and spirit. Moreover, there must be legal accountability as well as sustained funding to make the people of Gaza breathe again.

Bottom Line

Gaza’s hunger crisis is not a side story but actually “the story.” As long as aid is throttled, fuel is scarce, and farms, bakeries, and boats are broke, famine will spread quickly. The metrics may shift week to week, but the moral calculus doesn’t. Bread should not be contraband. Ending the siege on food, in policy and practice, is the minimum standard of humanity!

Ambulance sirens shouldn’t have to race aid trucks, yet in Gaza, convoys that carry flour, water, and baby formula move like fugitives. These are picked apart by Israel’s atrocities, pinned down by gunfire, and sometimes, struck outright. When the lifeline is attacked, it is not the cargo that is lost but the promise that they are protecting the lives of the oppressed.

A Pattern, Not Just a Series of Accidents

We are long past the language of “tragic mistakes.” The record now shows a pattern: convoys delayed until crowds gather, routes publicly deconflicted and still hit, warehouses bombed, drivers and security volunteers shot at the curb. Each incident ripples outward, NGOs suspend operations, crossings tighten, and hunger grows.

If we look at the ground, there is a completely devastating picture. Trucks crawl through checkpoints and bomb-scarred roads while drones buzz overhead. Crowds surge around the first visible food in days while panic and live fire turn distribution points into trauma scenes. Moreover, routes agreed hours earlier suddenly become kill zones, and the next day, fewer trucks try again.

A Glimpse of Complete Humanitarian Blockade

The Convoy That Never Made It – World Food Programme

In July 2025, a World Food Programme convoy that had just cleared the last checkpoint north of the Zikim crossing drove into a crowd of starving innocents. However, the moment the aid appeared, the area came under intense fire with tanks, snipers, and small arms. Drivers of the convoy threw their bodies over the steering wheels and prayed the cargo would hold. Unfortunately, they made it back with bent fenders and shattered nerves. Ultimately, the food did not reach the families waiting for it.

When Aid Workers Became Targets – World Central Kitchen

The world learned the convoy jargon the night seven World Central Kitchen humanitarians were brutally killed by the Israeli soldiers. Their cars were marked, and the route had already been shared with the authorities. Three vehicles were struck in sequence. Ultimately, the charity suspended its operations, and a single brutal incident froze an entire artery of necessary meals. The message to every other driver was loud and clear: your vest is not a shield.

The People Who Guard the Lifeline

In August 2025, rights monitors catalogued a drumbeat of attacks on innocent Palestinians who escort and guard convoys. These were the men whose job is to keep order when food finally arrives. In multiple incidents across North Gaza and Deir al-Balah, dozens were killed and many more were wounded near the aid trucks they were to protect. Each funeral means one fewer pair of eyes and hands at the next distribution point and another long delay that pushes a hungry crowd to the brink.

Now, one thing is crystal clear – Israel is using every heinous means to block the necessary human rights. Aid is completely blocked in the Gaza Strip, and fuel is scarce. Moreover, roads are almost completely broken, and there is rubble everywhere. The genocide is getting intense day by day, even if there is no militant resistance.

Maritime Hope

When the roads became graves, some tried the sea route. The Global Sumud Flotilla, whichdocked in Tunisia to rest and reload, is a new effort to reach aid to the starving ones. However, two of its vessels were hit by incendiary devices within twenty-four hours. Fires licked their decks as crews scrambled with extinguishers. Moreover, one vessel was attacked by a drone. It was a warning sign by Israel that any flotilla that reached the Gaza Strip would be crushed. Although no one died, the message was the same as on land: keep away from Gaza’s hungry. Earlier flotilla attempts were intercepted in international waters. For crews who trained to haul sacks of rice, the new drills are for drones and flames.

International humanitarian law is not a menu of suggestions, but rather a clear voice that emphasizes the need to protect civilians. Humanitarian relief must be allowed and facilitated rapidly and without obstruction. Aid workers, drivers, and volunteers are not legitimate targets. When convoys are fired upon after routes are agreed, when deconflicted vehicles are hit in sequence, when local volunteers are shot at a distribution point, the rules aren’t being bent; they’re being completely broken.

Numbers cannot catch a mother’s whisper in a bread line. It is a cruel chapter of history to witness. Humanitarian staff are being killed at a rate unprecedented in recent conflicts. For instance, one UN agency has lost hundreds of its own. Countless names of aid convoys never arrived, and routes that only exist on paper—storage that burns, fuel that vanishes, and a queue that grows again the next morning.

Before it’s Too Late!

Safe corridors should be guaranteed, and aid must be allowed in each and every scenario. No law in this world allows the complete stoppage of food and water, and to use them as a weapon of war. UN resolutions and especially the latest UN General Assembly Resolution must be adhered to in true letter and spirit.

A truck loaded with flour is not a political statement but a promise that war will not swallow every last ordinary thing. When that truck is shot at or burned, the message to the civilians is brutal. Ultimately, aid under fire is not simply a violation of international law but a deliberate shredding of the only safety net left.

“Promise we will rebuild it.”

This is what the children and youth of Gaza carve onto the walls of their destroyed schools, homes, and buildings. They cling to the hope that the war will end and a day of peace will come, allowing them to rebuild what was lost. Their hope remains unshaken, and rightly so—they will rise again.

But what has brought them to this devastating situation? What mental state has pushed them to think this way, especially the children? Imagine their condition, witnessing everything shattered before their eyes—their schools, their childhood, their friends, their families, and so much more.

 The current state of children in Gaza is so harrowing that even putting it into words feels overwhelming. Just type “Gaza children” into Google, and the results are heartbreaking, declaring that Gaza has turned into a graveyard for its children.

Stories emerge of two-year-olds, five-year-olds, and entire families lost, while some never even got the chance to be born. The situation is so dire that countless children are left homeless, hungry, and forced to survive on the sands by the sea, with no shelter and no relief in sight.

On top of that, as temperatures continue to drop, they don’t even have spare clothes to change into, let alone warm clothing. How can they possibly endure the freezing cold and the icy sea breeze without any protection? For the children of Gaza, the only thing they have to sleep on or cover themselves with is the cold, harsh sand.

Sand, Starvation, and Suffering

Currently, 95% of Gaza’s population is facing starvation—an almost unimaginable crisis not caused by any natural disaster but by human actions. First, airstrikes destroyed families in Gaza, reduced homes to rubble, and left people homeless, forcing them to sleep under open skies. Now, humanitarian aid is being blocked at borders, deliberately creating a state of famine.

The situation is so dire that when displaced, hungry Palestinians receive flour, they rush to grab it in desperation. Even the flour spilled on the ground during the chaos is picked up by children and carefully gathered into bags to take home.

Even when these displaced children manage to bring home some flour, many times the strong waves of the sea wash it away, as Gaza’s civilians, living on the bare ground, struggle to protect their meager food from the elements. The little flour they manage to salvage often becomes wet and unusable.

Each day is a relentless fight for survival. Children, driven by hunger, wander through the ruins, searching for anything edible.

They search through rubble, stand in long queues for aid that may never arrive, and walk for miles with empty stomachs, hoping to find scraps of food to keep themselves and their families alive. For them, survival has become a daily battle against hunger, despair, and an unyielding sense of loss.

Tonight, many of us will sleep on comfortable beds, wrapped in blankets, with our heads resting on pillows. But the innocent children of Gaza, who have no connection to this war and have committed no crime, are forced to sleep on the streets or unprotected sand.

You might think, “Many people sleep on the streets in other countries, too, don’t they?” But the situation here is different. In other places, even the poorest who sleep on the streets can access drinking water and food to survive.

If they fall sick, government hospitals provide them with medicine and treatment. If they contract a contagious disease, they can still receive care. But what is the reality in Gaza today? There’s no water, food, hospitals, ambulances, and doctors available to provide even basic treatment. This is the harsh truth they face every single day.

Gaza in Numbers

The Israeli army has destroyed over 700 water wells, leaving Gaza in a dire water crisis. Across the region, each person now has access to only 1.5 to 1.8 liters (51 to 61 ounces) of water per day—barely enough to survive. Meanwhile, over 1.7 million people have been infected with contagious diseases due to unsanitary living conditions and the lack of clean water.

The relentless attacks have not spared Gaza’s healthcare system. Continuous bombardments have destroyed over 600 hospitals, leaving the sick and injured with nowhere to turn. 

The situation is worsened by the devastating loss of medical personnel—at least 986 healthcare workers have been killed, including 165 doctors, 260 nurses, 184 health associates, 76 pharmacists, and 300 management and support staff.

Stats source

Thousands of children in Gaza are trapped in a state of mental shock and fear. They live with constant questions weighing on their young minds: Will I see tomorrow’s sunrise? Will there be food to eat tomorrow? Will I have to stand in long lines again just to get a small piece of bread? Can I even play today?

At an age when they should be playing and laughing, they are forced to witness destruction and endure unimaginable suffering. They don’t know how long this war will continue, what more horrors they’ll have to see, or how many more days they’ll have to sleep under clouds of smoke, on cold sand, and beneath the open sky. Even their innocent hearts carry the heavy burden of uncertainty and fear.