At least 52 children starved to death in Gaza: "There's not even a piece of bread left."

BarcelonaSamira K. can only watch helplessly as her 3-year-old son Karim wastes away in the tent where they are sheltering in the central Gaza Strip. She has almost nothing to eat for him, because for eleven weeks, since March 2, Israel blocks the entry of food. "I went to the clinic to get him nutritional supplements, but he can't tolerate them. He cries all the time, asking for eggs," she explains in a WhatsApp message to ARA. There's practically nothing left in the markets, "no meat, no chicken, no fruit, no vegetables, and the little that can be found is very expensive." If she's lucky enough to find some rice or pasta—flour has long since run out—she gives it to the little one. She says she feels exhausted and always dizzy. All the international organizations with a presence in the territory say they've run out of stocks in their warehouses and have sounded the alarm: Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war.

Amal K [all witnesses to this report request anonymity for fear of targeted drone attacks] is a kindergarten teacher displaced from the north to the center of Gaza. She describes in ARA the daily struggle to get some food. "Now we face hunger. We have to walk long distances to find some food, and every day we go to bed hungry." He explains that before Israel's genocidal operation against the Gaza Strip, "a kilo of flour cost 50 cents, then it shot up to 14 euros, and now it's nowhere to be found." As a substitute for making bread, Gazans use pasta or rice a lot. "The children have gone two months without eating anything they need: no eggs, no fruit, no vegetables, no sugar. There's not even a piece of bread left."

The vast majority of the population relied on community kitchens, where large pots of legumes or pasta were prepared. Now, almost all of these kitchens have had to close due to a lack of supplies or because they have been bombed by missiles or incendiary packages launched by drones. The 25 bakeries supported by the UN World Food Programme and all the kitchens of World Central Kitchen, the NGO run by chef José Andrés, which provided 250,000 meals daily, have also had to close. The UN reports that on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border, trucks are idling with 116,000 tons of food aid, enough to feed one million people for four months.

Children and nursing women

There are bodies more vulnerable to hunger: children and pregnant or nursing women. In the 19 months of the Israeli offensive, at least 52 children have already died of hunger in the Strip, and these are only those who have been taken to a hospital. The youngest suffer long-term effects such as growth problems, dehydration, or lowered immunity to infections. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 90% of children under the age of 5 suffer from an infectious disease, and 70% have diarrhea. The Palestinian organization Al-Mezan has collected the testimony of KA, who has four children: "They are weak and lethargic and cannot play. They have skin infections. The doctors told me to give them fresh food, but I only find rotten flour, and they are losing more and more weight every day. If everything continues like this, they will lose their sight, and I hear it. Husband: they are all I have left." People resort to harvesting tree leaves to make soup or grinding animal feed to make bread.

According to the Nutrition Cluster, the network coordinated by UNICEF in Gaza, there are more than 290,000 children and 150,000 pregnant women in urgent need of nutritional supplements. This is the case of Sarwa, who has an 18-month-old daughter admitted to the Rimal clinic in Gaza. "Until now, I was able to breastfeed her, but now I have no milk left. The nutritional supplements that UNICEF gives us are my only meal of the day."

Hani Qazzaz, a law professor, explains that his home only has rice left from the last aid distributions before the blockade began. There are no vegetables either because the army has bombed the fields. Furthermore, the agricultural areas of Rafah and northern and eastern Gaza are now under Israeli control and have also been devastated. "If you ever find vegetables, you can't afford them: two weeks ago, a single tomato cost 20 euros. Now there are none left." Before the war, 40% of Gaza's land was farmland. Now, 75% has been destroyed, as has 97% of the cattle, warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The report prepared by 15 UN agencies that periodically assess food security on the planet established last week that the entire population of Gaza faces a critical risk of hunger and that half a million people are in a situation of what is technically called a Grade 5 food catastrophe. That's why the Director General of the FAO, Beth Bechdol, warns that this is "one of the worst food crises in the world."

Areej, a worker for the NGO Mercy Corps in Gaza, summed it up in a testimony published by the organization: "Believe me: people are no longer worried about bombs, rockets, or death. What obsesses them is food. How to find it. How to feed their children."