Press Release: Veritas Press C.I.C.
Author: Kamran Faqir
Article Date Published: 07 Aug 2025 at 10:32 GMT
Category: Middle East | Palestine-Gaza | US-Israel At War
Source(s): Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies
A Preventable Tragedy:
Amjad Shawa, head of the NGO Network in Gaza, warns that at least 200,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition, as reported to Al Jazeera Arabic. He emphasises that the lack of baby formula and nutritional supplements is claiming countless lives, and that pregnant women are enduring extreme hardship due to widespread malnutrition.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) paints a grim picture: of 74 malnutrition-related deaths in 2025, 63 occurred in July, including 24 children under five, one older child, and 38 adults. Many died en route to, or shortly after arriving at, health facilities, with bodies displaying overt signs of severe wasting.
Alarming Trends In Child Nutrition:
- In Gaza City, nearly 1 in 5 children under five now suffer from acute malnutrition, and Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) has tripled since June. In Khan Younis and the Middle Area, GAM rates have doubled in under a month.
- In just the first two weeks of July, over 5,000 children under five were admitted for outpatient malnutrition treatment, 18% with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), the deadliest form. June saw 6,500 admissions, the highest since the conflict began.
- Hospitalisations for children with SAM and complications rose to 73 in July, up from 39 in June, totalling 263 inpatients in 2025. With only four specialised treatment centres in Gaza, now operating beyond capacity and running out of fuel, the collapse of health services is imminent.
Maternal Malnutrition Crisis:
Nutrition Cluster screenings reveal that over 40% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are severely malnourished. The Middle Area has seen a tripling since June, and severe increases are also present in Gaza City and Khan Younis, doubling in just weeks.
Death And Desperation On The Hunt For Food:
Since 27 May, at least 1,060 people have been killed, and 7,200 injured, while trying to access food. WHO insists that hunger is not the sole killer; the deadly desperation to survive is compounding the carnage.
Famine Indicators: A Terrifying Reality.
UN agencies confirm that food consumption and nutrition indicators have breached famine thresholds. 39% of Gazans are going days without food, and over 500,000 people, almost a quarter of the population, are living under famine-like conditions. The UN warns that all children under five, some 320,000 individuals, are at imminent risk of life-threatening malnutrition, due to breakdowns in nutrition services, lack of safe water, and scarce substitutes for breast milk.
Human Stories: Faces Behind The Numbers.
- Ibrahim al-Najjar, grieving the loss of his son to malnutrition, now struggles to feed his remaining children. His 10-year-old son shows malnutrition signs; even bread and salt are luxuries.
- Babies like three-month-old Muntaha are being fed ground chickpeas via syringe, causing her pain and illness. Mothers, malnourished themselves or deceased, are unable to breastfeed, while formula costs exceed $100, forcing harmful alternatives that threaten infant lives.
- A six-month pregnant woman, Fatima Arfa, suffers from severe malnutrition and anaemia. Displaced and unsupported, she prays for a healthy birth amid insufficient hospital supplies in Al-Helou and other facilities.
Therapeutic Solutions Exist, But Are Blocked:
Plumpy’Nut, a ready-to-use therapeutic food proven highly effective in treating SAM, is hamstrung by political constraints. Thousands of RUTF tons remain undelivered at Gaza’s borders; global production and funding have dropped, particularly due to the suspension of USAID, denying a critical lifeline to starving children.
Slight Shifts And Ongoing Blockades:
Israel has announced a slight easing of restrictions on private-sector goods, food, baby supplies, produce, and hygiene items to Gaza. But aid groups say these efforts remain far short of needs, and thousands more continue to die searching for aid.
Famine Declared, Yet Preventable:
Reports, including from The Guardian and UN-backed IPC, declare a full famine across Gaza, with a catastrophic death toll now exceeding 60,000 and the entire 2.2 million population affected. Experts emphasise that this famine is entirely preventable and stems from deliberate policies blocking humanitarian aid, fuel, and medical support.
In Summary: Starvation As Strategy, And Theatre As Shield.
Gaza is now facing what experts describe as the most severe famine in the 21st century—entirely man-made and wholly avoidable. Children, pregnant women, and families are starved not just of food, but of hope.
The crisis in Gaza is not a failure of logistics. It is not the inevitable cost of war. It is not a tragedy born of chance. It is a deliberate act of cruelty, a siege calculated to collapse a people’s ability to survive, and to do so under the cover of political theatre, manufactured optics, and strategic distraction.
The starvation of over 200,000 children, the death of premature babies in incubators, and the collapse of Gaza’s malnutrition wards are not merely human rights violations; they are the outcome of state policy. Israel’s blockade, control of food and fuel flows, and obstruction of humanitarian aid have turned Gaza into a vast open-air prison where hunger is not incidental but instrumental.
Yet what intensifies this atrocity is not just what is being done, but how it is being masked.
While children in Gaza waste away, Israeli spokespeople conduct global media campaigns showcasing sanitised footage of aid trucks at crossings or field kitchens inside military zones, stage-managed optics to counteract images of starving civilians. The United States and its allies echo this theatre, praising “humanitarian corridors” while arming and funding the very regime enforcing the blockade. Trump’s administration officials speak of “difficult choices” and “supporting Israel’s security”, abstract language for complicity in war crimes.
In Europe, hollow statements about “international law” come from governments still licensing weapons and surveillance technologies used to tighten the siege, allowing Israel access to weapon markets through international pooling. The West, with all its institutions, press freedom, and diplomatic influence, has chosen to obscure a genocide rather than stop it. Even international aid agencies, under pressure and funding constraints, often toe a cautious line, describing “crisis” but avoiding naming the perpetrators.
And what of the so-called Muslim world?
While Gaza starves, many Muslim-majority governments have responded with gesture diplomacy and hollow declarations. Emergency summits without action. Trucks at borders without access. Leaders wrapping themselves in Palestinian flags while maintaining quiet military, intelligence, or trade ties with Israel. Theatre, not solidarity. The populations of these countries often care deeply, but their regimes have turned Palestine into a symbol for domestic consumption while avoiding meaningful confrontation with the West or Israel.
Some, like Egypt, act as gatekeepers of the siege, keeping the Rafah crossing sealed or conditional, tightening control over humanitarian flows under the guise of coordination. Gulf states, flush with billions, offer pledges while Palestinians die before any aid materialises. Others offer televised outrage, knowing full well that the children whose names they invoke will die before dawn.
This is not neutrality. This is complicity wrapped in performance.
Meanwhile, those who try to break the silence, journalists, doctors, and humanitarian workers, are threatened, arrested, bombed, or discredited. Gaza is not just being starved of food; it is being starved of truth, justice, and visibility.
And in the face of this, international law has proven a paper shield. Institutions like the International Criminal Court investigate, but move at the pace of bureaucracy, not urgency. UN agencies issue warnings, while their staff are targeted or detained. The same states responsible for the catastrophe wield vetoes that silence the global response.
Let it be clear: this is not a humanitarian disaster; it is a politically manufactured famine, executed through siege and maintained through propaganda, performance, and international cowardice.
The question now is not whether the world knows. It does.
The question is what will be done, and who will be remembered not as bystanders, but as enablers.
Starvation is being used as a weapon. Silence, theatre, and complicity are its camouflage.
Urgent, sustained, and unhindered humanitarian access is not optional; it is existential. Plumpy’ Nut, therapeutic feeding, safe water, formula, and maternal care must flow now. Every hour of delay is a child’s life lost.
If there is any justice to be claimed from this moment, it must begin by tearing away the veil and holding every actor, every government, every apologist accountable.
Not in history books. But now.
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