Reality of Gaza hunger games explained as starvation kills scores

India Today

6 hours ago

Gaza is in the grip of famine. Children reach hospitals wasting away before the eyes of their parents, bodies thinning to near invisibility, like figures evaporating into the air. Tiny ribs protrude, limbs dangle helplessly, faces once full of life now blank and hollow as hunger settles in. At the same time, a video has emerged of 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David, hollow-eyed and frail, forced to dig what he said was his own grave. These parallel images expose a war where hunger seems to have been weaponised.advertisementIn July, starvation claimed more than 60 lives, including children under 5, while hundreds were shot at as they rushed toward food trucks in search of the next morsel. Parents are braving bullets to get some food for their starving children.However, Israel has stated that Hamas, which steals aid supplies, is to blame for the mass starvation.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "Hamas monsters starve the hostages like the Nazis starved the Jews. Hamas doesn't want a deal. They want to break us."In Gaza, the hunger crisis drives people to hospitals in search of relief, yet even the doctors treating them are themselves fighting to survive. Journalists have spoken about famine eating into their colleagues reporting from Gaza."There is no one in Gaza now outside the scope of famine, not even myself," Dr Ahmed al-Farra told The New York Times, who is the head of the paediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. "I am speaking to you as a health official, but I, too, am searching for flour to feed my family."ONE-THIRD OF GAZA POPULATION STARVING FOR DAYS: UN BODYThe World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, stated this week that the hunger crisis in Gaza had reached "new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row".All through the war, UN agencies and independent aid groups have charged that Israel is letting far too little food into Gaza, warning that famine looms over its two million residents.Israel, in turn, has insisted that sufficient supplies are entering, accusing Hamas of diverting aid and faulting international groups for poor distribution.This is a war beyond bombs and bullets. Even journalists reporting on the war find their bodies testifying to the extremities of starvation.Both sides have embraced one of the oldest cruelties in war: starvation. From Caesar at Alesia to the Mongols at Baghdad, from mediaeval sieges to the blockades of the World Wars, armies have long used hunger to break their enemies.IS STARVATION NOW BECOMING THE NEW NORMAL FOR GAZA?Today, starvation is slowly becoming normalised.The World Health Organisation has confirmed 74 deaths from malnutrition in 2025, with 63 of them in July alone, including at least 24 children under five.Doctors in Gaza's remaining hospitals say most patients arrive skeletal, unresponsive, often too weak to be saved. UNICEF and Save the Children report that cases of acute malnutrition in children have surged tenfold.advertisementMore than 5,000 children were admitted for treatment in the first two weeks of July, nearly matching the total for the whole of June.But even those who try to find food often never return.Between late May and late July, UN officials confirmed over 1,050 Palestinians were killed while trying to collect aid, 766 at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites and 288 near UN or partner convoys.Witnesses described tanks, drones, and snipers opening fire on hungry crowds before dawn, turning food lines into killing grounds.
As starvation increases in Gaza, UN officials say over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since May while trying to collect food. (Image: AP)
ISRAELIS AT 'DEATH'S DOOR' AND 'CAN'T LIVE OR BREATHE'On the other hand, families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas speak of the same weapon used against their loved ones.Relatives of freed hostages say many lost as much as 15 kilos during captivity, surviving on scraps of bread or rice.advertisementRecent videos showed men like Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski visibly emaciated, begging for food and water, describing deliberate deprivation.Evyatar David, a 24-year-old Israeli, was kidnapped during the October 7 Nova music festival attack and has since been held in Gaza by Hamas terrorists.In recent videos released by Hamas, he appears emaciated, ribs visible, describing days without food and surviving on little more than beans and lentils.At one point, he is shown digging what he called his own grave, marking starvation on a wall calendar as his body wastes away.Another hostage, Rom Braslavski's family, also allowed the publication of one such video released by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.In it, he appears in tears, saying he is "suffering with pain that doesn't look good", and that he can no longer stand or walk."I don't have any more food or water. Before, they would give me a little bit, (but) today, there is nothing," he said, describing how he ate "three crumbs of falafel" that day, and a day earlier "barely a plate of rice"."I can't sleep, I can't live, you have to stop what you're doing here," he pleaded. "I am at death's door, and I'm sure that all the other [hostages] are in the same mental state," he said.advertisementIS INTERNATIONAL FOOD AID REALLY REACHING GAZA?International aid agencies now say Gaza needs at least 62,000 metric tonnes of dry and canned food each month, around one kilogram per person per day, just to meet minimum requirements. Yet what has been delivered falls far short, they say.Israeli officials, however, have alternated between denying mass starvation, blaming Hamas distribution failures, and pointing to chaotic food drops by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as proof food was available.One study even claimed that after adjusting for losses, each Gazan had access to an average of 3,000 calories a day with sufficient protein and fat, even exceeding WHO minimum requirements, except for iron.But these figures collapse against the reality on the ground. Gaza spent March and April under total siege, with no food allowed in.In May, Netanyahu agreed to restart shipments after international pressure over a "starvation crisis". Yet the quantities that trickled through were only enough to slow famine, not prevent it.The UN's own data shows that just a few weeks of expanded food shipments during a ceasefire in January and February briefly pulled Gaza back from the brink. But as the flow dried again in May and June, starvation surged back with a vengeance.advertisementWhat is the way out? No one can say.Starvation here is not an accident of war. It's a chosen weapon, a cruelty refined over time. It echoes the Stanford Prison Experiment, where ordinary people, placed in positions of unchecked authority, quickly abandoned empathy and inflicted suffering as if it were routine.Six more people died from hunger in the Palestinian territory, bringing the total deaths to 175, Reuters reported on July 3, quoting the Gaza health ministry.The report came even as celebrated Israeli writer David Grossman was shocked at the situation and termed it "genocide" by Israel.Gaza has become that experiment on a vast, merciless stage: food withheld, bodies wasted, humans stripped away. And the longer it endures, the easier it becomes to forget that those reduced to shadows are human beings at all. Who is to blame? Everyone. Even those who are accomplices with their silence.- EndsMust Watch