Caroline Willemen cannot forget the 11-year-old girl named Amina who once said to her at a water distribution point, “It would be better if we were all blown up by a big bomb than to slowly die like this.” This statement encapsulates the desperate situation in Gaza. After nearly 22 months of war, the famine crisis in Gaza is approaching a terrifying critical point.
As the coordinator of the No Borders Doctors Gaza City Clinic project, Caroline Willemen has witnessed the devastating consequences of food not reaching Gaza daily. The World Food Programme’s statement on July 29th stated that over one-third of the Palestinian population has been without any food for several consecutive days. Health officials in Gaza confirmed that in recent weeks, dozens, including children, have died from hunger.
On July 31st, 2025, local time, in Gaza City, a 6-year-old child, Miskeh Madhoum, weighed only 4 kilograms due to starvation leading to brain atrophy and severe malnutrition. Photo by Visual China.
Before this, more than 100 international aid agencies and United Nations organizations had warned that the food crisis in Gaza was worsening, with about 2 million Palestinians falling into widespread hunger, approaching the worst-case scenario of famine. Hunger, severe malnutrition, and death are rapidly spreading.
The Israeli blockade policy in Gaza is widely considered to be the main cause of this disaster. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu denied, “Gaza does not have a famine policy or a famine.”
However, with increasing evidence, dozens of governments around the world (including Israel’s allies such as the UK and France) issued joint statements condemning Israel. Even Israel’s closest ally, the United States, held a different viewpoint. President Trump expressed during his visit to the UK on July 28th, “That was a real famine, I saw it, it couldn’t be faked.”
To address the international public opinion pressure, the U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East urgently visited Gaza on the 1st to seek the formulation of a new aid plan.
How did the food crisis in the Gaza region evolve step by step? What is happening to the people there? At this moment of global attention, The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) interviewed international aid organization personnel who are involved in rescue operations locally. They shared tragic stories that unfolded there and called on the international community to take immediate action to prevent a larger humanitarian crisis from occurring.
In the struggle at the edge of despair, pregnant women, infants, and doctors
On this land, which has been besieged by war for nearly two years, hospitals have become the latest frontline of the hunger crisis, while the breathing sounds of newborn babies in incubators are questioning the conscience of the entire human society.
According to figures from Doctors Without Borders, since May 2025, their clinics in the southern Ma’vahiya and northern Gaza city have received over 700 malnourished pregnant women and nearly 500 severely malnourished children. The number of malnourished patients accepted by the Gaza city clinic where Willie works has continued to rise, especially among children under five, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. Severe acute malnutrition cases have doubled within weeks, with 326 cases involving infants aged between 6 and 23 months. “This is the scale of hunger never seen in Gaza,” said Willie to The Paper.
At the Elu Hospital in northern Gaza, Willie’s colleague Dr. Joanne Perry witnessed even more shocking scenes in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“Initially, it was two infants sharing one incubator—a situation that was hard to accept and shocking. Then, it turned into three infants, and last week we even saw five infants crammed into one incubator.”
With the onslaught against health institutions, there are currently only 36 insulated boxes in northern Gaza, a figure that was 126 before the conflict erupted in October 2023. “He said,” In local hospitals in Gaza, five infants share an insulated box. Joanne Perry/MSF image
Sharing an insulated box among several infants significantly increases the risk of infection. This is because their immune systems are not fully developed, especially premature infants. One reason for so many premature babies is the deterioration of mothers’ health conditions.
Not long ago, Perry had just treated the third pregnant woman weighing less than 40 kilograms and six months pregnant, “I never thought I would see such a scene.”
The Red Cross field hospital in Rafah, a southern city in Gaza, is the only fully functional hospital in the region remaining, operating at full capacity since May 2024. Hisham Mhanna, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza, told The Paper that he has lost six colleagues to the cause, with almost everyone losing loved ones, colleagues, or friends but still holding out amidst food and water shortages.
“They continue to stand by their posts every day because hundreds of thousands of people depend on the services they provide,” Mhanna said. He described how the hospital deals daily with civilians who were attacked while en route to aid points. People knowingly risk their lives to find food, just to exchange a few bowls of rice or pasta.
“This is not a humanitarian crisis; it’s a breakdown of humanity. By 2025, no one should starve to death in Gaza, but its hunger is already a deadly weapon,” Mhanna said.
Mhanna shared an experience of his own. One day, he saw a mother bringing two infants to seek help, one of whom was only one month old, pale and extremely weak. The children lay quietly, unable even to cry out from extreme hunger.
He told The Paper that in hospitals treating patients with severe malnutrition, such a quiet situation is common, indicating the body’s inability to function. Mothers of infants are unable to breastfeed because they themselves hardly have anything to eat. Their husbands are disabled, and the family is entirely dependent on external aid. This is just one example among two million people struggling in despair.
Weilly mentioned that she even couldn’t discharge patients from the clinic because their conditions hadn’t improved. The clinic could only distribute one to two peanut butter nutritional packets daily for children with malnutrition, but these should have been supplementary meals instead of the only food available as there were no regular meals. Even more tragically, these life-saving nutrients were often shared by families, as everyone was starving.
Hunger also engulfed the medical team. Community kitchens providing meals for the hospital repeatedly shut down, and even when operational, could only provide one meal of white rice daily, far from meeting the recovery needs of patients. The daily rice provided by Doctors Without Borders was the only food many Palestinian colleagues had every day, often choosing to bring it home for their children. Weilly said that chronic hunger led to a weight loss of 20 to 25 kilograms among some healthcare workers, causing doctors to faint due to low blood sugar during their rounds.
Hunger even spread to international news agencies. A statement published on social media by Agence France-Presse read: “For the first time since its establishment in 1944, we are powerless to watch our colleagues succumb to hunger.” A photographer in Gaza, Bashar, publicly stated he could no longer work. A representative of a relief organization said: “Every morning, ‘Can I have something to eat today?’ echoes throughout Gaza.”
Weilly arrived at the Doctors Without Borders clinic in Gaza in late June, not expecting that the already dire situation would worsen further.
“This crisis did not suddenly erupt; it was the result of long-term deterioration,” she said.
The war has lasted nearly 22 months, especially since March 2025, when several months saw Gaza receiving virtually no supplies—no food, no medicine. Only a small number of aid trucks made it until the end of May, which was far from enough,” said Weilvin.
Before the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October 2023, due to frequent closures of border crossings and ongoing conflicts, Gaza could hardly produce its own food and relied heavily on external supplies, with an average of 500 trucks entering daily.
On July 27, 2025, local time, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, near Qiyim, photo shows displaced Palestinians carrying flour at a food distribution point. (Visual China)
Nowadays, either there’s nothing available or prices are so high that most people can’t afford them. According to data from the World Food Programme, the average price for one kilogram of sugar in the area is $76 (approximately 544 RMB), and the price for one kilogram of potatoes or flour is nearly $30 (approximately 215 RMB). Many families survive on just one meal a day—usually rice, lentils, or pasta, unable to obtain bread, fresh vegetables, or sufficient protein. Many parents deliberately skip meals to feed their children, and women suffering from malnutrition also give their children nutritional supplements.
Muhana emphasized that despite continuous media coverage, long-term focus on humanitarian crises is not always the case. Nowadays, “hunger” has become the focal point, a result of the compounding effects of prolonged conflicts, limited aid access, and the collapse of legal order.
From January to February 2025, Israel and Hamas were on a ceasefire. After the ceasefire agreement broke down in March, Prime Minister Netanyahu cut off all supplies to Israel in March through May, citing Hamas stealing food aid as the reason. The New York Times quoted military sources saying that the military had never found evidence of systematically stealing UN aid by Hamas, instead admitting that the UN aid system played a crucial role in alleviating famine.
The New York Times and the World Food Programme’s analysis shows that since May this year, Israel has begun to replace the aid system previously led by the United Nations with one supported by a private American aid operation. The new aid system is managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-based private company led by former CIA operatives.
Israeli military sources indicate that since the resumption of supplies on May 19, half of the aid continues to be distributed by the United Nations, while the other half is delivered through GHF. However, GHF only established four distribution centers in the southern region for all residents of Gaza, whereas the previous distribution centers operated by the United Nations and other aid organizations numbered over 400. Currently, the United Nations averages only about 70 trucks entering from the north daily, far below the required 500 to 600 vehicles.
Weill and Muhana state that the blockade and subsequent establishment of the new aid system have led to the current crisis level of famine in Gaza, making the new aid system “deadly” for Palestinians receiving food. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, nearly 1,100 people have been shot while receiving food. However, Israeli officials say that sometimes it is not possible to sound the alarm due to crowding too close together.
Weill’s clinic sees dozens of patients each day who are burned, shot, or fractured by airstrikes. Without proper nutrition, these wounds are extremely difficult to heal. She describes how almost every day civilians queue at the southern GHF distribution points and are shot by Israeli forces. Many people have no choice but to risk their lives to get food when their children have not eaten for several days, praying for a miss.
In northern Gaza, United Nations trucks have also been targeted by Israeli fire. On July 20, Weill’s colleague witnessed many people being killed during a large-scale incident. According to The Washington Post, the event ultimately resulted in 79 deaths.
She stated that due to prolonged hunger, chaos often occurs at many distribution points, a situation exacerbated by Israel’s systematic policy of preventing food from entering Gaza.
Under international pressure, Israel recently announced the deployment of supplies, the establishment of temporary ceasefire windows, and humanitarian corridors. However, these measures remain far from sufficient. The United Nations and over 100 aid organizations have pointed out that Israel’s obstructions are key factors intensifying the famine. A large number of aid trucks are delayed due to approval processes or security issues. The GHF distribution points led by Israel are few and almost non-functional due to frequent shootings and lack of transparency.
Regarding the airdrop of food, Willie Wein criticized it as extremely dangerous. Over 80% of the land in Gaza is designated as “Red Zone,” with civilians concentrated in the remaining 15%-20% area. The landing of aid supplies on tents can cause harm, and many fall into the “Red Zone,” where pickers face the risk of being shot. Moreover, vulnerable groups such as single mothers, children, and disabled individuals cannot access food at all.
“Humanitarianism in Gaza has failed.”
The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip has reached an alarming level. United Nations agencies and international organizations continuously issue warnings about a massive famine approaching, shocking the world with images of weak and frail children.
Data from the Gaza Health Ministry controlled by Hamas shows that 151 people have died from malnutrition, 89 of whom were children, most of whom died in recent weeks. Global hunger monitoring agencies confirm that signs of famine are already evident.
On July 30, 2025, local time, Gaza City, Palestinians queued up to receive free hot meals distributed by charitable organizations. Photo by Visual China.
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, expressed sorrowfully, “Gaza’s frail children and infants are dying from malnutrition.” She emphasized the need for immediate and safe humanitarian assistance, expanding the supply of food, nutrition, water, and medicine.
Otherwise, parents will face the most dreadful nightmare—watching their children die from preventable hunger and disease.
According to a report by the Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), parts of Gaza have breached two out of three famine thresholds—a sharp decline in food consumption and severe malnutrition. The third criterion for famine, which is malnutrition leading to death, has not been proven, so the famine has not been declared yet.
Muhana stated that although he did not directly see starving victims, street children and cats and dogs were already emaciated, with even garbage being hard to find. When rescue workers appeared in red cross vests, the desperate crowd would immediately gather for help. Willie confirmed that she had witnessed two cases of malnutrition-related deaths in the emergency room of Gaza City. Although the organization does not accept the most critical patients, she pointed out that there was an increase in severe malnutrition cases at primary clinics, and she stated there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the 150 deaths reported by the Gaza Health Ministry.
In fact, authoritative bodies including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization have jointly warned that time is running out for a comprehensive humanitarian response. As of July 2025, over 320,000 children under five years old in Gaza face acute malnutrition risk, with thousands suffering from fatal severe acute malnutrition. In June, 6,500 children were hospitalized due to malnutrition, setting a record since the conflict began; within the first two weeks of July, it had already surpassed 5,000 cases. Currently, only less than 15% of basic nutritional treatment services are operational, with infant mortality reaching a historical peak.
The catastrophic situation in the region has sparked global outrage. Last week, a coalition comprising about 30 countries, including some traditional allies of Israel, called for an immediate end to the war. The UK, France, and Canada announced conditional recognition of Palestine’s statehood.
Even last week, even President Trump of the United States publicly acknowledged the famine in Gaza, a stance starkly contrasted with Netanyahu’s denial.
Muhammad nearly spent his entire life in Gaza. Before the war, he had already experienced it multiple times. He said that before October 7, 2023, 80% of the population in Gaza relied on aid, with an unemployment rate exceeding 47%, and youth unemployment reaching as high as 70%. The healthcare system has also become increasingly fragile due to prolonged lockdowns. He candidly stated that Gaza has never been an ideal place, but the current situation is far more desperate than before.
“All this should not continue; we cannot wait for more children to die of hunger before being deemed a ‘disaster’. No child should go hungry, nor should they die from hunger. We must take immediate action; this is the collective responsibility of all the international community and all relevant parties because humanitarianism has failed in Gaza,” he said.
Muhammad explicitly stated that the limited access to humanitarian aid is one of the main reasons for the current crisis. He pointed out that the ongoing conflict has lasted for over two years, and the failure to end the ceasefire has been over four months. Humanitarian aid alone cannot solve the problem. Only by achieving a political agreement, ending hostilities, opening aid channels, and releasing detainees can the humanitarian situation truly improve.
Regarding the external claim that Gaza is “a man-made hell”, he unhesitatingly agreed. He noted that this is not a natural disaster but a human-made one. He called for a long-term, sustainable solution that would give people living here hope. He expressed sorrow that some children were born into war and died in it, having never even encountered school, as schools had been destroyed or turned into “inhumane shelters”.
On July 15, 2025, local time, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, at the Hussein Hospital, Hosam Azami holds the body of his son who died in an airstrike. (Visual China)
However, even if the conflict ends, the recovery of Gaza will take several years.
The entire generation will bear the scars of a lifetime. Muhana, with tears in his eyes, reminisced about the scene of burying colleagues and the pain of receiving countless calls for help but not being able to respond to all of them.
“Medical staff, rescue workers, firefighters are digging through rubble with their hands, everyone is struggling on, but humanity has been continuously dismantled by conflict,” he said.
When asked if there was still hope for the future, Muhana paused for a moment before saying, “In Gaza, ‘hope’ is a dangerous emotion. Because every time hope is shattered, it’s more painful than despair. You wish for a ceasefire tomorrow, only to find attacks continue; you want to buy chocolates for your child, but can’t find them; you feel more heartbroken than your child does; seeing parents die from untreatable illnesses, you know you’ve done everything you could but still couldn’t save them. The people of Gaza are not at fault themselves; they were born into this land. But now, even the meaning of home has disappeared.”
Weilly often thinks of the story of a seven-year-old boy named Abdullah. In an airstrike targeting a school, he was burned 35% and his parents and four siblings perished. His uncle told her, “Do you know how precious he is to the family? He is the sole survivor.”
This is a question Weilly ponders every day and a plea she wants to make to the world: “Do you realize how precious these children are? In the current international situation lacking action, I wonder if the world truly understands the value of these lives.”