Ramallah, July 22, 2025 — Children in Gaza are dying of starvation and enduring catastrophic hunger as Israel continues to use starvation as a method of war, deliberately obstructing the entry of food, clean water, and humanitarian aid. Every Palestinian child is facing starvation as Israel’s genocide continues with complete impunity before the eyes of the world.
Children describe a reality in which food is more precious than gold, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. “All night my siblings and I were crying, and my mom and dad cried for us because of the hunger,” said 14-year-old Jana. “We’re sick of this life, we don’t know how to live. We are alive and dead at the same time.”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 71 children have died of malnutrition since October 7, 2023, while 60,000 more show signs of severe undernourishment. On Sunday alone, 19 people died of hunger, including a 35-day-old baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old in Deir el-Balah.
DCIP’s recent joint report with Doctors Against Genocide, “Starving a Generation,” documents how Israel has weaponized starvation to collapse civilian life in Gaza. This deliberate deprivation has devastated health systems, eroded water infrastructure, and cut off essential imports of food and medicine. Firsthand testimonies from children and families reveal how they are forced to survive on a single meal a day, risking beatings and death just to retrieve minuscule scraps of aid.
Sixteen-year-old Sumaya described waking before dawn and walking miles to find flour in northern Gaza. “We hadn’t eaten bread for a week,” she said. After discovering a pit filled with flour, she pleaded for a portion and guarded it fiercely. “I walked alone, with the bag on my shoulder and a metal rod in my hand to defend myself in case someone tried to rob me. My brother got lost on the way, and I had to leave him behind to save the flour. It was more precious than gold to us.”
The UN’s World Food Programme has stated that in Gaza, nearly one person in three is not eating for days. In March 2025, Israel imposed yet another full humanitarian blockade on Gaza, cutting off access to food, water, and medicine for over 11 weeks. Despite growing warnings from the United Nations and humanitarian organizations about extreme hunger and famine, Israel maintained the blockade and later outsourced aid distribution to armed U.S.-registered private military contractors under the banner of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). These sites, far from offering relief, became militarized zones guarded by Israeli forces and foreign mercenaries. Since then, Palestinians seeking food have repeatedly been shot at by Israeli troops.
On July 20, Israeli forces opened fire on desperate civilians gathered at aid points across Gaza, killing at least 115 Palestinians, including 79 people at the Zikim crossing waiting for flour. This new aid regime reinforces apartheid, undermines international law, and deepens the machinery of genocide. Aid is not being delivered to Palestinians, it is being weaponized against them.
Children’s right to adequate food is enshrined in international law, including under the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Israel’s systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid and intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Israel’s intentional deprivation of life and life-sustaining resources in Gaza amounts to genocide, one for which the children of Gaza have long borne the brunt. Today, that suffering takes the form of prolonged, torturous, preventable hunger and deprivation.
