When the bodies of starving children in Gaza reach a ‘point of no return’
A child suffering from severe malnutrition, Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Younis, 20 July 2025
Tareq S. Hajjaj reports in Mondoweiss on 22 July 2025 :
Within a 24-hour period, 19 people have died from malnutrition in Gaza, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Sunday. A total of 86 deaths from malnutrition have been recorded since the start of the genocide, 76 of them children. The Ministry describes these deaths as a “silent massacre.”
The Israeli-backed and U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claims to have distributed over 80 million meals over the last two months, but the signs of famine in Gaza are too apparent to deny. Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians are killed every day at or near GHF distribution sites, a fact the organization continues to aggressively deny in the face of ubiquitous evidence and countless testimonies.
On Saturday, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis recorded 32 people killed and over 70 injured in the Tineh area, west of Rafah city, where the GHF distributes aid. The injuries reported were of sniper bullets to the head and chest. On Sunday, the UN’s World Food Programme said that Israeli forces opened fire on starving civilians who rushed an aid convoy that had entered Gaza from the north.
“Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP stated. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”
The Health Ministry reported that 90 people were killed in that massacre alone. That number does not include the hundreds of injured who will later succumb to their wounds due to the lack of appropriate medical care.
The WFP added that the starvation in Gaza has reached new levels: “People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment. Nearly one person in three is not eating for days. Food aid is the only way for most people to access any food – as the cost of a one-kilogram bag of flour has surged to over USD100 in local markets.”
“People die daily from malnutrition,” says Dr. Atef al-Ghoul, Director of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. “If we speak in the language of numbers, the numbers speak for themselves — hundreds of people have died in the past two months trying to get food for their families, only to return to their starving families in body bags.”