Children face starvation in Gaza as Israel’s blockade of food, medication reaches 2 months

WARNING: This story contains images of severely malnourished children.

Mona Al-Raqab glances at a photo of her son, a once-healthy preschooler, from before the war in Gaza. Now five, he lies in a hospital bed emaciated with his ribcage and bones protruding.

“The last time he ate meat was the first day of Ramadan [Feb. 28],” Mona told CBC News on April 25 from Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

“And after that, it just wasn’t affordable. Now, everyday his condition is worsening.”

Osama suffers from severe malnutrition and malabsorption and causes difficulty in the digestion or absorption of nutrients from food. Gaza’s health ministry says roughly 60,000 children are currently showing signs of malnutrition amid the renewed bombardment and Israeli-imposed blockade on goods entering the besieged Palestinian territory.

He weighs about 20 pounds, roughly 13 pounds less than what doctors say his current weight should be, Mona said. The toll of the total blockade, which has been in place since March 2, has significantly worsened his condition. 

Osama, lying in bed frail and weak, pleads with his mother: “I want to leave.”

For two months now, Israel has blocked the entry of medical, fuel and food supplies into the war-torn territory — the longest such closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced. Aid organizations, including the Red Cross, have since sounded the alarm, saying the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the verge of “total collapse.”

The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also warned of acute malnutrition worsening among children in Gaza.

‘I fear for my son’s life’

Because of malnutrition throughout the war in Gaza, Osama requires a high-protein diet and special medication, his mother said, that he has not had access to due to the blockade. Before the blockade, Mona said she would be able to feed her son small portions of eggs, avocado, nuts and chicken. But after March 2, she said prices of food became exorbitant and unaffordable, before food supplies further depleted.

“I fear for my son’s life,” she said, urging international groups to press for an immediate evacuation for Osama to seek medical treatment. 

Hani Al-Fleet, head of the pediatric department at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said the hospital is treating a significant amount of malnutrition cases in babies aged one year or under.

“The worst is coming, in my opinion, because long-standing malnutrition will lead to starvation and starvation treatment is much more difficult to treat,” Al-Fleet told CBC News on April 26.

Mahmoud Taleb Al-Kahlout says his six-month-old daughter Ghazal is suffering due to the lack of treatment in the territory. 

In addition to showing signs of malnutrition, he says his daughter, who suffers from brain atrophy and was born with a hole in her heart known as ventricular septal defect, weighed just four pounds when she was born. Now, she weighs close to seven pounds, severely below the average weight for girls her age of about 16 pounds.

“All of this in addition to the closure of the crossings resulted in severe weakness in [Ghazal],” he told CBC News, adding that he is urging the borders to open to seek medical treatment for his daughter.

Some 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition in children: UN

Last week, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that famine is no longer a looming threat and is becoming a reality, adding that 52 people, including 50 children, have died due to hunger and malnutrition since the blockade was imposed.

In a report Monday, the OCHA said it has identified about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified across Gaza, including 1,600 cases of severe acute malnutrition, since the start of 2025.

Israel claims its decision to block the supplies was aimed at pressuring Hamas to free hostages as the ceasefire agreement stalled. Hamas has said it is willing to release all remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel and for an end to the war in Gaza, but has rejected an interim truce.

Deputy Director General Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization Emergencies Programme said the current level of malnutrition in Gaza is “causing a collapse in immunity.”

“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit,” he told reporters at the WHO’s headquarters Thursday.

“As a physician, I am angry. It is an abomination,” he said.

People scavenging waste to survive, says aid worker

Israel has previously denied that Gaza is facing a hunger crisis and says there is still enough aid to sustain the population but residents and aid groups saying food that was stockpiled during the ceasefire that began on Jan. 19 has all but run out.

On Friday, Olga Cherevko, an OCHA aid worker in Gaza City, said food stocks have mainly run out and access to water for Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million population has become “impossible.”

She said hungry people were scavenging in mounds of waste for “anything that would help them survive.”

“I am seeing children and I’m seeing elderly people rummaging through these piles of trash, not only in search of things to burn, but also things to eat daily,” she said.

Conditions in the enclave have only worsened in recent months, though waves of hunger and famine conditions in Gaza have been reported throughout the 19-month-old war. Aid deliveries have been restricted since Oct. 7, 2023, leaving much of the population vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.

Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

More than 1,600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its assault on Gaza on March 18.

Israel has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its offensive on Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.