GazaHerald – Gaza’s mounting death toll from Israel’s starvation war reached a new and harrowing figure on Monday, as health officials confirmed that at least 222 people have died from famine and malnutrition since October 2023, including 101 children.
Among them was five-year-old Mohammed Zakaria Khader, who died on Monday evening at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. Medical sources said the boy’s life was claimed by severe malnutrition after months of famine, compounded by a motor disability that left him unable to eat properly. His weight had withered from 12 kilograms to just 3.
According to his father, Mohammed underwent more than five months of treatment across several hospitals, but the absence of sufficient food and medicine meant his condition could never improve.
“We lost him because of these conditions,” the grieving father said, as the family joined the thousands in Gaza facing the war’s most silent and cruel weapon, enforced hunger.
Dr. Ahmed Al-Farrah, director of the Pediatrics and Maternity Building at Nasser Medical Complex, described Mohammed’s body as “a skeleton covered only by skin, with no fatty or muscle tissue at all,” and stressed that the shortage of milk, food, and medicine in the besieged enclave directly caused his death.
UN Condemnation
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called the deaths of more than 100 children “a devastating milestone that shames the world” and demanded urgent action.
The World Food Programme warned that more than 300,000 children in Gaza are at extreme risk, with over a third of the population going days without food. It said at least 62,000 tons of food per month are needed to meet survival needs, far more than what Israel is allowing in.
While some food, fuel, and supplies entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday, OCHA reported that shipments were intercepted before reaching their destinations.
Israeli authorities are currently allowing around 150,000 liters of fuel per day, far short of the amount required to keep life-saving operations running.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned that children in Gaza are dying not only from hunger but also from constant bombardment, and that “families, neighborhoods, and an entire generation are being wiped out.”
The agency condemned the world’s inaction, declaring, “Silence in the face of this is complicity; it is time to turn words into immediate action.”
