Gaza between the jaws of famine and the collapse of hospitals

In an alleyway in Khan Yunis (south), Umm Ghaleb Abu Azoum sat on a crumbling stone, holding her five-year-old son, his face as pale as a piece of paper. She tried to persuade him to swallow a mouthful of dry bread, while his sunken eyes searched for something other than food: water.
But water was no longer within reach.

The daily ration for the family of eight was no more than a few liters, barely enough for drinking and washing hands. “My son is dying slowly,” the mother said, her voice faltering, speaking to Al-Quds Al-Arabi. “There’s no food, no medicine, not even a drop of clean water.”

This story is a reality for more than two million people in Gaza. Famine is no longer a foreseeable danger; it’s a reality witnessed daily in the faces of children and in the silence of the elderly, who have lost the ability to scream. Hospitals, once the last refuge for the wounded and sick, are also collapsing one by one under the weight of bombing, siege, and fuel shortages. Bloody Numbers

Zaher Al-Wahidi, director of the Health Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, confirms that the 22-month war has claimed more than 63,000 lives and injured more than 160,000.
He points out that these numbers “do not reflect the full tragedy,” as many victims remain under the rubble or on roads that rescue teams have been unable to reach.

He added to Al-Quds Al-Arabi that women and children constitute more than half of the martyrs: approximately 16% are women, 30.5% are children, and 7.5% are elderly. He describes this demographic distribution of deaths as “clear evidence that the war is targeting the most vulnerable groups.”

Gaza, according to Al-Wahidi, has officially entered Phase 5 of the global food insecurity classification, the “famine” stage. More than 641,000 people are currently living under the immediate threat of starvation, while dozens of malnutrition-related deaths are recorded daily, most of them children and the sick.