For months, the Gaza Strip has been facing a dramatic malnutrition crisis that mainly affects women and children. The latest data is alarming: as many as 90 000 youngest and mothers urgently require specialized treatment to survive.
A humanitarian disaster on an unprecedented scale
Imagine your father standing in front of you, trembling with hunger. Imagine your father starving before you. Here in Gaza, fathers die before their children, because hunger kills them quietly, while they try to hide their pain so that their children do not feel it.
The UN World Food Programme warns that almostevery third person in the Gaza Strip has no access to food for days. The organization warns against a sharp increase in malnutrition – over 9,000 women and children need immediate nutrition assistance. With the tightening of the conflict, the supply of aid virtually froze.
World Food Programme estimates predict that from May to September 2025 around 470,000 Gazans may experience the so-called "catastrophic hunger", i.e.highestthe level of threat by scale of the UN food crisis.
Children and women most at risk
Israel continues to kill children in the Gaza Strip, starving them and preventing them from supplying food.
Zainab, a very small Palestinian girl, died of starvation in the Gaza Strip.
The difference between Gaza in 2025 and the Warsaw ghetto in 1945 is that the world still has a chance to stop hunger in Gaza.
According to the World Health Organisation and humanitarian organisations:
- 71,000 children under the age of 5 are extremely undernourished, another tens of thousands at risk of loss of health and life.
- About 25% of young children and pregnant women show signs of malnutrition or are at high risk.
- In the northern part of Gaza, 1 out of 5 children are already suffering from malnutrition – this number increases rapidly every day when help does not reach.
Most affected: children and women
Two brothers, Abdul Rahman Matar (6 years old) and Anni (4 years old), are threatened with death due to serious malnutrition. Both suffer from cerebral palsy and physical and intellectual disabilities.
Organization Doctors without Borders report that as many as one in four children and pregnant or nursing women are facing severe malnutrition and the number of young people requiring urgent interventionShe's tripled in the last two weeks.
According to local authorities, the number of deaths of hunger has already exceeded 120 people, most of whom are children.
UN reaction to global inactivity
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his deep concern about the worsening hunger situation in Gaza.
He stated that the situation in the Gaza Strip is not just a humanitarian crisis, but a moral crisis that shakes the conscience of the world.
In his latest statement, Guterres revealed how severe the famine in the region is. He said that children in the Gaza Strip are now talking about wanting to go to heaven because they believe that at least "there is food there."
"Children talk about wanting to go to heaven because, at least to them, there is food," said Guterres.
UN Secretary-GeneralAntónio GuterresHe strongly condemned the international community for "no compassion and no action" against the scale of the disaster and famine in Gaza. He called it "a moral global crisis."
List of key challenges:
- No access to food and water
- Medical and sanitary infrastructure destroyed
- Special increase in severe malnutrition among infants, pregnant women and young mothers
- Risk of outbreak and further starvation
What's the emergency?
The siege made food, water and medicines unavailable and families feed on what they find –often animal feed or plant roots. The destruction of infrastructure and extremely limited access to aid further exacerbate the drama.
Doctors, volunteers and humanitarian workers, despite their shortcomings, are trying to treat babies and mothers in makeshift feeding centers. However, the measures are insufficient - the need for an immediate increase in the supply of food and medicines.
Causes of tragedy and threat to humanitarian convoys
The UN and aid organisations point out that the main causes of the growing crisis are:
- A limited influx of humanitarian aid caused by military and bureaucratic blockades.
- Destroyed infrastructure preventing efficient transport and distribution of food.
- Frequent attacks on convoys with help – food recipients often become targets of fire.
International call for ceasefire and the abolition of blockades
More than 100 humanitarian organisations call for an immediate permanent ceasefire, the abolition of any blockades and the full and secure access of humanitarian aid to the people of the entire Gaza Strip.
