In Gaza, the war didn’t end when the bombs stopped. After the smoke from the explosions subsided, another kind of death began to creep in silently: death by starvation and disease. Children are no longer just victims of bombs, but victims of a deliberate deprivation of the most basic necessities for survival.

Behind every closed crossing, a meal is held hostage, a vaccine dose is postponed, and a refrigerator storing blood or baby milk is shut down. Thus, politics becomes a tool of slow execution for an entire generation born amidst the rubble, finding nothing to keep them alive.

Gaza starvation — deliberate blockade

Bullets aren’t always fired from a gun barrel; sometimes death comes in the form of a confiscated milk carton or a refrigerator full of vaccines prevented from crossing. In Gaza, children don’t need a missile to die; it’s enough for the crossings to be closed to food and medicine.

The UN says nearly a million cans of ready-made infant formula have been stuck since last August, while shipments of syringes, solar refrigerators, and spare parts for medical generators are being blocked under the pretext that they are “dual-use items.” This means they can also be used for millitary purposes somehow.

But in reality, as aid organisations describe it, this is a siege policy designed to sever the lifeline of the Gaza Strip.

In a makeshift camp near Khan Younis, Khitam, a mother of twins who has been displaced for months, searches for a can of formula among the few stalls that are still selling anything. Her voice, a mixture of exhaustion and hope:

I gave birth to my twins a month before the end of the war. They wouldn’t breastfeed, and now I go from tent to tent looking for formula, which I only find by chance… or by borrowing.

Her story is not unique; hundreds of mothers are experiencing the same situation, while Ministry of Health reports indicate a sharp rise in child deaths due to hunger and malnutrition, and the complete absence of any guarantee of food or medical care.

Thousands of children at risk

In Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Perez warned that the continued detention of aid supplies “threatens the lives of thousands of children suffering from acute malnutrition,” emphasising that the aid that entered Gaza—some 5,500 truckloads in the past month—did not include the most critical life-saving items.

Meanwhile, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation are attempting to implement an emergency vaccination campaign targeting more than 40,000 children under the age of three, following months-long vaccine shortages. However, the two organisations say the campaign is at risk of being halted at any moment due to a lack of syringes and refrigeration equipment.

Save the Children described the situation as a silent food and health catastrophe, noting that rates of acute malnutrition have doubled, while cases of preventable diseases such as measles and polio are on the rise due to the collapse of cold chains and fuel shortages.

Behind the numbers lies a far more horrific reality: children going to bed hungry, mothers squeezing out the little milk they have left, and hospitals shutting off ventilators because generators have run out of fuel.

This is how war in Gaza manifests itself today—not as an explosion, but as a calculated slowness of death, where the siege becomes a silent weapon that first steals life from the youngest hearts.

Featured image via Reuters

By Alaa Shamali

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