Hunger kills a child in Gaza, but it is world leaders who should be dying of shame

I never thought I would say the words “I’m hungry” out loud. Now I say them every day.

For most of my life, I barely cared about food. I often skipped meals and sometimes lost my appetite entirely – especially during exam periods.

At home, I was used to being scolded for not eating properly, while my friends at school teased that I ran on solar energy.

But nothing I experienced – no amount of missed meals – could have prepared me for this.

This isn’t a loss of appetite. This isn’t a phase. This is starvation in Gaza – an Israeli-imposed famine. It swallows every thought and strips your body down to survival. There is no comfort, no strength, no focus – only the sharp, unrelenting ache of hunger.

And it’s not accidental. It’s engineered by a genocidal government that wants to punish us.

Today, we are starving – and the world is watching.

The worst part? It’s not just physical. Hunger has taken over our minds. It’s all we think about – not our studies, not our futures. Just food. How to find it. How to pay for it. How to survive.

Punishment not prices

On Friday, 18 July, this was the cost of basic food items in Gaza:

We do not eat because we want to, but because hunger is a war we fight every day

1kg flour = 200 shekels ($60)
1kg sugar = 400 shekels ($120)
1kg pasta = 100 shekels ($30)
1kg rice = 150 shekels ($45)
1kg potatoes = 100 shekels ($30)
1kg lentils = 80 shekels ($26)
1kg tomatoes or aubergines = 90 shekels ($24)

These are not prices – they are punishments.

And even if you manage to collect enough money, there’s another problem: the currency itself. Shopkeepers reject old bills, torn bills, and even slightly dirty ones. And if they do accept them, they charge a 45 percent commission.

Imagine having no money and then being punished for the little you do have.

The price of flour jumps from 70 to 200 shekels overnight. Everything is volatile, as if basic food has become a commodity on a stock market where survival is traded by the hour.

Four of you can search five different markets and still come back empty-handed. And if you’re lucky enough to find food, it’s rarely enough to satisfy a single stomach.

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Cooking what little food we have is no longer a comfort. We ignite fires with whatever we can find – wood, plastic, scraps of cloth. The smoke chokes our lungs, stings our eyes and clings to our skin like a heavy blanket. It brings coughing fits, worsens asthma, and steals breath from the old and the weak.

Standing by the flame drains what little strength we have left. Hands tremble as they stir the pot. We do not eat because we want to, but because hunger is a war we fight every day.

Children starving

New figures are announced each day. And every one of them represents a real child, a real death.

On 22 July, at least 15 Palestinians – four of them children – starved to death in a single day, bringing the total starvation-related deaths since 7 October 2023 to 101 – including 80 children.

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According to Unicef, more than 6,000 children were hospitalised in June alone for acute malnutrition. An estimated 930,000 children are now facing catastrophic hunger, while 650,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 115 people have died from hunger and malnutrition in the Strip – including 81 children.

Yet the world watches, cold and silent.

As a message circulating in Gaza declared to the Arab and Islamic world: “You are our adversaries before God. You are the adversaries of every child, every orphan, every widow, every displaced and starving person. Your silence empowered this genocide. We hold you accountable for this bleeding.”

Where are you, world? Where are your hearts? Where is your shame?

Those in power sleep in peace. Their children eat and laugh. Ours cry themselves to sleep begging for food – and sometimes, they don’t wake up.

The haunting question

I talk to my friends about what we’ll eat today. I don’t mean the way people typically plan meals. I mean it literally. “What can we eat today?” becomes a haunting question.

Most of us survive on one meal a day – if you can even call it a meal. Some drink only water. And even that isn’t clean. But it’s all we have. At this point, nobody cares if it’s clean or not. Hunger breaks all standards.

Even worse, some merchants are hoarding food. I’m not afraid to say this out loud – because we’re all angry. These few traders don’t represent the people of Gaza.

Put simply, they are not the body – they are the sickness feeding off it.

We are trapped in a cycle of pain and hunger. Our emotions have frozen. Loved ones die, and we don’t even get the chance to say goodbye. We just keep moving – numb and hungry.

My friend Hala told me a heartbreaking story: her married sister lost her husband in an air strike. She has young children. She cries every day – not because she misses her husband, but because she has nothing to feed her kids. 

These are not dramatic exaggerations. This is our reality. And there are even worse stories – so dark that words cannot describe them.

Hunger hell

From the window of her room, my best friend Aya watches the scene unfold.

The soup kitchen – now named after its founder, Abu Shafea, who was killed just weeks ago – sits beside the Stars Stadium. Once a place for games, it is now a landmark of survival.

Before sunrise, people begin to gather. They wait in silence, in dust, in hunger, clutching empty pots, as if the act of waiting might summon food.

Sixteen massive pots boil lentils – yellow or brown – or thin soup bulked with whatever scraps are left.

There is no salt, no spice, no real flavour. It doesn’t matter. If they don’t eat from the soup kitchen, they don’t eat at all.

Each person receives one ladle. Just one. It can’t fill a single stomach, let alone feed a family of ten. Children, elders, mothers, even young men – they all press forward. The crowd surges. Bodies crush together. Boiling lentils spill on bare arms. People don’t flinch. Pain is second to hunger.

There is no line, no order. Just need. Just survival. Children barely ten years old stand at the front, responsible for bringing back something – anything – for their families. And still, the pots run out before the line does.

Aya saw people collapsing in the street from hunger – falling to the ground as their depleted bodies gave up.

She saw a mother crying, holding her son – not because he was wounded, but because he looked at her with teary eyes and whispered: “Mama, I want to eat.”

And she had nothing. Not even a crust of bread.

Starvation genocide

In Gaza, children cry not from broken toys, but from hunger.

We are not starving by accident. We are being starved by design

One child died in his sleep – not from a bomb, not from bullets – but from starvation.

Hunger killed him. Silence buried him. Where are you, Arabs? Where are you, humans? Why is the world deaf and blind to Gaza?

Why has bread become a fantasy, and water a dream?

Gaza does not need pity. Gaza needs action. Gaza needs voices. Gaza needs this silence to be shattered.

That little boy died hungry, but it is world leaders who should be dying…of shame.

As a university student, I try to distract myself with my studies. I write articles like this one to survive mentally. I take my final exams online, studying English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza – the same university that Israel destroyed.

I sit for my exams on an empty stomach, with a fogged mind and a weakened body. My fingers shake as I try to write answers that make sense. The questions blur before my dry eyes. Hunger steals my focus, crushes my thoughts and drains my energy. I can’t sit upright and can barely breathe.

The drone’s buzzing and the roar of warplanes haunt my sleepless nights. Exhaustion weighs me down, but I push through. Failing is not an option, even if my body feels like giving up.

We are not starving by accident – we are being starved by design. This is not a natural disaster, but a deliberate, man-made catastrophe. A starvation genocide.

Can you not see it? Can you not hear it? Children with swollen bellies. Mothers fainting in food lines. Grandparents wasting away.

Do you have eyes to see? Ears to hear? Then name it for what it is.

But we will not forgive, and we will not forget.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.