The slow death inflicted on Gaza by Israel’s blockade and aggression continues to worsen, with medical sources confirming on Saturday that two more children have died in the last 24 hours due to starvation and malnutrition.

According to health officials, the total number of Palestinians who have lost their lives to hunger has now risen to 459, including 154 children. Since the International Crisis Group (IPG) officially declared a state of famine in Gaza on August 22, at least 181 people have died of starvation, among them 39 children.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global standard used to measure famine and food crises, confirmed the devastating reality: famine is already occurring inside Gaza. The report warned that unless urgent and unrestricted humanitarian access is granted, the famine will expand further into Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September.

According to the IPC, more than 500,000 Palestinians are already trapped in “catastrophic conditions” — classified as Phase 5, the most severe stage of food insecurity, defined by extreme hunger, death, destitution, and critically high levels of acute malnutrition.

Palestinian health authorities and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that these deaths are the direct result of Israel’s deliberate starvation policy, part of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. The occupying power has continued to block the entry of sufficient food, medicine, fuel, and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, reducing an already besieged population to conditions unfit for human survival.

International observers stress that famine in Gaza is not a natural disaster, but a man-made crime created by the siege, systematic targeting of farmland and bakeries, and restrictions on aid convoys.

While UN agencies and humanitarian organizations have sounded the alarm for months, the famine is rapidly deepening due to the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable. The images of starving Palestinian children, their bodies wasted by malnutrition, have shocked the world but have yet to translate into decisive global action.

Analysts warn that unless the siege is broken and aid flows unimpeded, Gaza could face famine on a scale unseen in modern times.

For the Palestinian people, the mounting starvation deaths are not only a humanitarian tragedy but also a grim testament to Israel’s ongoing war crimes — and to a global order that has allowed the deliberate starvation of an entire population to continue unchecked. (ILKHA)