GazaHerald – Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed the deaths of two more people from malnutrition, including a six-year-old child and a 30-year-old man, bringing the total death toll from Israel’s forced starvation in the besieged enclave to 227.
The Nasser Medical Complex identified the victims as six-year-old Jamal Fadi al-Najjar and 30-year-old Wissam Abu Mohsen. Their deaths were announced shortly after the ministry reported that five other Palestinians had died of famine within 24 hours, more than 100 of them children.
The crisis is being driven by Israel’s ongoing blockade on food supplies. Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Tuesday that Israel is preventing the entry of more than 430 food items into the territory, despite allowing a limited number of aid trucks through last month under international pressure.
The banned goods include frozen meat and fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruit, alongside “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick,” the office said.
It also accused Israel of directly targeting food sources, not only by restricting aid but also by deliberately bombing 44 food banks, killing dozens of workers, and striking 57 food distribution centers.
The office described these actions as part of a systematic policy of starvation, dismissing claims from Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) about aid deliveries as “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime.”
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that air-dropping aid will not be enough to avert the famine now threatening half a million people in Gaza.
“Airdrops will not prevent the famine,” said Corinne Fleischer, the WFP’s Director of Supply Chain, stressing that the organization is ready to “flood the Strip with food” if Israel allows aid to enter by land.
