WJWC: Gaza's Starving Children Are a Conscience Stain

Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) stated today that the continued deaths of Palestinian children from starvation in the Gaza Strip

represent a profound stain on the conscience of the international community, which remains largely passive while Israeli occupation forces weaponize hunger against civilians — in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and in open defiance of rulings by the International Court of Justice, which ordered Israel to ensure the unobstructed delivery of humanitarian aid.

On Saturday, May 3, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the number of children who have died from hunger and malnutrition has risen to 57, according to Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, Director of Field Hospitals. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that over 10,000 children have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition in Gaza since the beginning of 2025, including 1,397 children in critical condition.

In recent days, WJWC has documented dozens of visual accounts showing civilians collapsing from extreme hunger and scavenging through waste in search of food, as long queues stretch outside communal kitchens — many of which have also been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris confirmed that the number of children able to access treatment is significantly lower than expected, due to bombardment and Israeli-imposed access restrictions that have made reaching health centers nearly impossible.

WJWC holds the Israeli authorities fully responsible for the catastrophic collapse of food and health systems affecting more than two million Palestinians in the besieged enclave and warns that thousands are now on the brink of famine-induced death.

Back in April, WJWC had already warned of the Strip’s descent into deadly starvation, as food insecurity indicators reached critical levels and aid delivery remained effectively blocked by the ongoing siege.

Deliberate Attacks on Food Sources

WJWC has documented recurrent violations of the right to food, including:

·         Preventing the entry of essential goods and humanitarian supplies;

·         Bombing community kitchens (known locally as “takyat”) that feed displaced families;

·         Targeting bakeries and flour mills.

In a major development, World Central Kitchen announced on Thursday, May 8, a complete halt to its food distribution after exhausting its supplies, due to a total blockade of border crossings lasting more than six weeks, enforced directly by the Israeli government.

Likewise, the World Food Programme (WFP) declared its warehouses empty as of April 26, emphasizing that Israel has prevented the entry of food trucks meant to serve over 700,000 people.

WJWC asserts that the Gaza Strip has now formally entered a stage of famine, as food access becomes more restricted and people increasingly rely on canned goods and limited charity meals. In some cases, families are forced to survive on a single meal every two or three days. Reports also confirm that Israeli forces have targeted food distribution efforts, further deepening the crisis.

Gaza now falls within critical levels of food insecurity, categorized between "crisis," "emergency," and "famine" on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale.

Aid as a Weapon: A Dangerous Military Tactic

WJWC warns against an Israeli plan to distribute humanitarian aid in designated zones outside populated areas, near Israeli military checkpoints — a strategy that effectively forces civilians to displace themselves in search of food, laying the groundwork for forced demographic change and de facto annexation of parts of Gaza under the guise of "humanitarian coordination."

This approach represents an attempt to militarize hunger, allowing the Israeli army to exert total control over aid flows and use humanitarian access as a tool for extortion, surveillance, and displacement in an increasingly hostile and unsafe environment.

In this context, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated on Tuesday, May 6, that the UN verbally rejected the Israeli plan, declaring that it fails to meet basic humanitarian principles of impartiality and independence, and amounts to using aid as a weapon against civilians.

WJWC links these starvation tactics to a broader strategy of forced population displacement. Since March 18, 2,545 Palestinians — mostly women and children — have been killed in Gaza. The overall death toll since October 7 has surpassed 52,653, according to the Ministry of Health.

Israeli forces now control more than half of the Gaza Strip. Entire residential neighborhoods have been ordered to evacuate, only to be systematically destroyed and absorbed into what Israel calls "buffer zones" — a clear effort to empty Gaza of its people and reshape its geography through violence.

WJWC affirms that international silence and inaction in the face of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza amount to complicity in what increasingly appear to be acts of genocide against a civilian population being besieged, starved, and killed in full view of the world.

The organization renews its call for the international community to:

• Enforce an immediate ceasefire;
• End the deliberate starvation of civilians;
• Guarantee unhindered entry of food and medical aid;
• Dispatch independent fact-finding missions to assess the humanitarian and health situation;
• Launch urgent international investigations into the use of starvation and collective punishment by Israeli authorities.