A video clip showed a Palestinian girl from the Gaza Strip crying from extreme hunger, saying that she sometimes wakes up from her sleep and hears the sound of her stomach empty of food, but she quickly puts the cover on her stomach for fear that her mother will hear the sounds and be affected by pain and agony.
In an interview conducted by Palestinian photojournalist Amr Tabsh on his page on the Instagram platform, the girl said, “Can you imagine, uncle, if you had daughters like me (like me), would you leave them suffering from cold and hunger like me, and when they feel hungry they put the forbidden (cover) over their mouth, so that their mother does not feel them.” “Like we do.”
Regarding her experience with hunger, she said, “At night I am hungry, and so that the sound of hunger does not come out of my stomach, I put what is forbidden on my stomach so that my mother does not hear me and feel pain because of me. Praise be to God in any case.”
The little girl wonders, “Why can’t we be like the children of the world in countries like Turkey, Japan, China, America, and Europe? Why don’t we live like them? Their father, mother, and siblings are next to them with their books, and they go to school carrying their bags. Why don’t we live like them? Anything they ask for they find immediately, but we We ask for something a hundred times and no one responds to us.”
This was not the first child to reveal the state of hunger experienced by thousands of residents in the Gaza Strip, as a woman named Nisreen Qudeih told the story of her 15-year-old niece, Jana Hani Deeb, who died of hunger.
Nisreen wrote on her Facebook page on December 8, saying, “Jana was suffering from cerebral palsy and could not bear hunger, and her family could not find anything to protect her. For 3 consecutive days, during which Jana drank nothing but non-drinking water.”
According to what the child’s aunt, Jana, tells us, her father was forced to bury her in a “temporary grave” in the school yard, even though the cemetery is not more than 800 meters from the school, due to the non-stop aerial and artillery bombardment surrounding the school, which is surrounded by tanks, and the Israeli army prevents Movement in the area and leaving school has become a big risk.
A Palestinian child recounted his suffering and the tragedy of the children of Gaza, as he complained of hunger and thirst, saying in a video clip on Facebook, “We cannot find food. We cannot find food. We cannot find flour. I am dying of hunger. We (want) to eat, we want to drink. We (want) a solution.” “Oh world, we want to eat.”
A video clip showed hunger eating away at the innocence of children in Gaza in light of difficult living conditions following the ongoing Israeli occupation bombing of the Strip.
In a video clip on Facebook, a displaced woman in Rafah, south of Gaza, complained that the bread they were eating was mixed with sand, and she began screaming from hunger, saying, “I swear to God, we will never find ourselves breaking our fast. This is the bread we eat, oh Arab rulers.”
Yesterday, Tuesday, the Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said in a post on the X platform, “I never thought that we would witness mass famine of such proportions in the 21st century. However, this is the case in Gaza.”
1/2. I never thought we would witness mass starvation of these proportions used in the 21st century. Yet here it is in Gaza, after 100 days of bombing, with insufficient food, fuel & water allowed in. Children are dying first. Adults will follow. Before our eyes.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 16, 2024
“After 100 days of bombing, with not enough food, fuel and water allowed in,” Albanese added, “the children are dying first. The adults will follow. Before our eyes.”
On December 30, the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, Thomas White, said, “People are hungry and desperately searching for food in Gaza City, and 40% of the population is at risk of starvation.”
People are hungry and just desperate for food @UNRWA convoy in #Gaza City this week.
40% of the population at risk of famine.
More regular supplies needed – require safe and sustainable #humanitarain access everywhere including to the North of Gaza pic.twitter.com/ylZ3ors6RN— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) December 30, 2023
In previous statements to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, the head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, Dr. Rami Abdo, said that they had received “reports of children dying from starvation in UNRWA schools in the southern Gaza Strip, after they suffered from health complications as a result of malnutrition.”
On December 7, the United Nations World Food Program renewed its repeated warning of an “imminent humanitarian catastrophe” in the Strip, and said in a statement, “The renewal of the war in Gaza will intensify the catastrophic hunger crisis.”
“Food and water supplies are practically non-existent in Gaza, and only a small portion of what is needed reaches across the border,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “With the onset of winter, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and a lack of clean water, civilians face the immediate possibility of starvation.”
McCain added, “There is no way to meet the current hunger needs through one operating border crossing, and the only hope is to open another safe corridor for humanitarian aid to bring life-essential food to Gaza,” according to the UN official. This is confirmed by other local and international organizations regarding the Rafah crossing, which is not prepared to supply a larger number of trucks.
According to the director of the government media office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, the sector needs the entry of a thousand trucks of real aid and supplies on a daily basis, in order to respond to the actual priorities and needs of the population, in addition to one million liters of fuel daily.
Samer Abdel Jaber, Director of the World Food Program in Palestine, says, “Our ability to provide bread or transport food to those in need has severely deteriorated, leading to the cessation of life in Gaza. People are suffering from hunger.”