Gaza hunger from within: "There's not even a crumb of bread left. And if you find flour anywhere, it costs 100 euros a kilo."

Barcelona"There isn't even a crumb of bread left. And if you find flour anywhere, it costs around 100 euros a kilo," Samir Zaqout, director of the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, explains to ARA in a whisper from the center of the Gaza Strip. Hunger is no longer a threat in Gaza: after almost five months of an Israeli blockade on the entry of food, it is now a widespread reality, as shown by the Palestinian witnesses contacted by ARA this Monday in different locations in the Strip and the reports from all the international organizations present on the ground.

"We have gone looking for food many times and there is nothing left at the market: it is part of Israel's genocidal policy, with the world silent. We have not eaten anything for three days: there is no flour, no canned food, no vegetables. There is nothing left. There are only three of us at home and we have nothing: imagine." "The population of Gaza is facing unprecedented hunger, and most families, from all walks of life, cannot afford the basics: they are using hunger and thirst as a weapon of war. In every city, barely one stone remains standing," the activist says. According to the Hamas government's Health Ministry, hundreds of Palestinians are arriving at hospitals with severe malnutrition. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees accused Israel in a statement on Sunday of "starving civilians" by blocking humanitarian aid.

The images that journalists, academics, and health professionals in Gaza send to the world through the media and social networks are shocking. Like that of an elderly man who fell dead while waiting in line at a communal kitchen for a ration of rice, while the crowd was powerless, published by Gazan journalist Wissam Nassar, who contributes to international media outlets such as New York Times or the Washington Post.

Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif erupted while reporting live from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when he saw a woman faint from hunger at the entrance.

According to Gaza authorities, 18 deaths attributable to starvation were recorded in the Strip on Sunday alone. The elderly and the 650,000 children under the age of 5 who survive in Gaza, as well as pregnant women, are the most vulnerable. On Sunday, the American network CNN reported the death of Razan Abu Zaher, a 4-year-old girl who had been admitted to a Gaza hospital a month ago for malnutrition. Pediatricians in the Strip warned days ago that they had run out of nutritional supplements for the children. "Her skeletal body was placed on a stone slab," the network said. At least 76 children have died of starvation since Israel began its genocidal offensive against the Strip, following the Palestinian attacks on October 7.

Joanne Perry, a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also believes they are treating a record number of malnutrition cases in the clinics where they work in Gaza: "Many babies are born prematurely due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women." Counting adults, the death toll from hunger in the Palestinian enclave has risen to 620, according to health authorities in the Strip. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), most of these deaths have occurred since March, when Israel almost completely blocked the entry of food and medicine into the Strip.

In addition to blocking the entry of humanitarian aid, Israel has destroyed the Strip's food sources: 92% of agricultural land and 1,200 wells have been devastated by bombing. Gaza's other vital resource, fishing, has also been wiped out by Israeli attacks on all facilities.the prohibition of approaching the sea.

A conversation in a store

Hunger is also the main topic on social media for Palestinians in Gaza. Mohamed Hussein, a master in business administration, recounts the conversation he had with his wife Yara and their two sons, Imad (4) and Adam (2), in the tent where they have taken refuge. "In the darkness, as warplanes filled the sky, Imad said (quietly, hands on his stomach): 'Dad, I'm hungry. Is there any bread left?' And Adam (pulling my shirt and trying to speak): 'Dad... eat.' And Yara (with tears in her eyes): 'Mohammad, there isn't a crumb left. Imad: 'Then we'll eat tomorrow.' Stroking her hair: 'I hope we have to be patient.'" Others. But hunger is sometimes harder than war.

Dr. Suhaib al-Hams, director of Kuwait Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Strip, told CNN that "people need more food than medicine; their bodies have reached the point of endurance and everyone is in danger of dying." He also reported that they no longer have food to feed the medical staff: "Doctors are working 24 hours a day without food, neither at home nor in the hospital." The NGO World Central Kitchen, run by American chef José Andrés, stopped distributing rations to the center's doctors on Sunday due to a lack of supplies.

The director of the UN World Food Programme, Carl Skau, who recently visited Gaza City, described the humanitarian disaster in the Strip as "the worst" he had ever seen: "People are starving, when we have enough food on the other side of the border." Some 3,000 trucks loaded with food, medicine, and fuel are waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, but Israel has not allowed them to enter the Palestinian enclave. The UN has reiterated that it has the capacity to feed the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip once it receives this authorization.

This situation pushes thousands of Palestinians every day to the food distribution points of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the mechanism established by the United States and Israel to bypass the UN, where they have already At least 900 Palestinians have been killed and another six thousand have been injured by Israeli fire as they went to collect food. Tom Fletcher, the UN Emergency Coordinator, warned the Security Council on Thursday: "People who risk themselves searching for food risk being shot. People are dying trying to get food for their families." Desperately hungry, parents are going without food to give what little they have to their children, and children are everywhere rummaging through garbage or collecting flour mixed with sand on the ground after the bloody food distributions at the GHF distribution points.

Journalists are not immune to hunger either. One of the BBC's Gazan contributors explained on Monday: "I haven't eaten for two days, I have a terrible headache: I have no food for myself or my children." A group of local reporters shared a video on Sunday in front of a hospital in Gaza City where they were sharing water with mineral salts as their only food.

Israeli raid on Deir al-Balah

Israel launched an incursion on Monday into the Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the area that until now had been least affected by Israeli bombing and had become a key point for humanitarian actors. It also hosts the last remaining operational water treatment plant in the Strip. The Israeli army justified the attack by saying it believes there are about 20 hostages held there, kidnapped in the Palestinian attack of October 7. The attack also coincides with reports in the Israeli press that Hamas was on the verge of accepting a ceasefire agreement. With the evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army for Deir al-Balah, affecting between 50,000 and 80,000 people, 88% of the Strip's territory is a military off-limits zone for Palestinians.