“#GazaIsStarving”.. A Hashtag Cries Out in Pain Under the Rubble of War (News Report)

Kokcha News Agency: The hashtag “#GazaIsStarving” has seen widespread interaction on social media platforms in recent hours, as Palestinians from within the besieged Gaza Strip document the catastrophic hunger ravaging civilians. The hashtag serves as a cry for help amid Israel’s genocidal war, supported by the United States.

Platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram have been flooded with heart-wrenching posts and videos showing children, women, and the elderly suffering from severe malnutrition and hunger amidst scenes of destruction. Voices from within and outside Gaza are urgently calling for immediate intervention to open crossings and allow the entry of food and humanitarian aid.

Today, Palestinians in Gaza can no longer secure the bare minimum for survival. Most have lost access to flour needed to make bread, while the little available on the black market is priced beyond the reach of the starving population.

Since March 2, 2025, Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza, blocking the entry of food and medical supplies, leading to widespread famine in the enclave.

Children on the Brink of Death
In one widely circulated video, a young girl cries in front of the rubble of a destroyed home, saying, “Enough talking about patience as if we’re not human. We’re hungry, longing for bread and life.”

In another video, a reporter asks a hospitalized child how he is feeling. The child, with tears in his eyes, replies, “Hungry.”

Other images circulating online show emaciated children with protruding bones and elderly people too weak to stand. One woman, waiting in line at a charity kitchen for a meal, says, “We’re suffocating, moving from one charity to another, searching for a bite of bread. What is our crime?”

Cries from Within Gaza
Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif wrote on X: “No voice is louder than the sound of empty stomachs, no conversation precedes the cries of hunger in Gaza’s streets,” adding, “Hunger has hurt the old before the young.”

Lawyer Yahya Sahl posted on Facebook: “I cry for the people’s situation before my own. They are starving, world!”

In another post, Sahl added: “Hunger devours souls before bodies. The feeling of helplessness, hunger, betrayal, and oppression is unbearable.”

Munir Al-Barsh, Director General of Gaza’s Health Ministry, wrote on Telegram: “In Gaza, food is no longer a right but a delayed wish, repeated every night on the lips of mothers and in the eyes of children who sleep hungry, embracing air instead of milk, dreaming of a loaf of bread as if it were a lost treasure.”

Al-Barsh added: “In Gaza, hunger doesn’t knock on doors; it lives in homes, eats away at people’s lives, and grinds their dignity under the weight of global neglect.”

He emphasized that bread has become a “rare currency in Gaza,” while the lack of baby formula is not just a lack of food but “a promise of life aborted by the siege, now an impossible dream for a child dying in an emergency room.”

Artistic Expression of Hunger
In a powerful artistic expression, cartoonist Kamel Sharaf published a drawing of Gaza’s map appearing as an empty food bowl, symbolizing the severe food shortage and the food insecurity plaguing the besieged enclave.

The interaction with the hashtag was not limited to Gaza; activists from various Arab and Western countries joined in, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to immediately open the crossings and allow food and medicine to reach the remaining Palestinians in Gaza, who are living through one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history.

Warnings of Mass Death
Gaza’s Health Ministry had previously warned of the “potential death of hundreds of starving Palestinians, following an unprecedented influx of people into hospitals suffering from severe exhaustion and fatigue.”

In a statement on Friday, the Ministry said: “Unprecedented numbers of starving citizens of all ages are arriving at emergency departments in a state of extreme exhaustion and fatigue.”

The Ministry warned that “hundreds of those with emaciated bodies will fall victim to potential death due to hunger and the inability of their bodies to endure.”

In a subsequent statement on Saturday, the Ministry said Gaza is experiencing “an actual famine, characterized by a severe shortage of basic food supplies, widespread acute malnutrition, and a complete lack of medical resources to address the consequences of this disaster.”

The Government Media Office in Gaza reported on Friday that the number of children who have died from malnutrition has risen to 69 since October 7, 2023.

The Office added that the number of Palestinian deaths due to lack of food and medicine has also risen to 620 since October 7, 2023.

It also noted that 650,000 children are at risk of death due to malnutrition, hunger, and food shortages, while 60,000 pregnant women face a real danger due to the lack of food and necessary healthcare.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a genocidal war on Gaza, involving killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to stop.

The genocide, backed by the U.S., has left more than 199,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, with over 9,000 missing and hundreds of thousands displaced. The famine has claimed many lives.