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by Adnan Hmidan

In Gaza, mornings no longer begin with the sound of explosions — but with the quiet, urgent cries of hunger.

Mothers wake to infants with no milk. Children search for scraps to ease empty stomachs before the bombs return to flatten what little hope remains.

This isn’t exaggeration. It’s a grim, documented reality. Gaza is not only under bombardment — it’s under siege. And the weapon now cutting deepest is starvation. Because hunger is silent, the world looks away, as if a slow death does not count.

For months, Gazans have faced a dual siege: daily airstrikes and international indifference. Border crossings remain closed. Those searching for food are shot. Humanitarian supply lines are systematically broken. Bread has become a fantasy. Water is a daily fight. Medicine, a rare miracle.

“Humanitarian catastrophe” no longer captures it. What’s unfolding now is a deliberate campaign of starvation — one that meets every definition, legal and moral, of genocide.

Footage smuggled out of Gaza shows children collapsing while queuing for bread, families surviving on weeds, mothers dividing a single loaf between four hungry children. It’s not the bombs killing them — it’s the slow wasting of malnourished bodies.

The people of Gaza are not asking for the impossible. They are asking for a shred of global conscience.

But what hurts even more than the hunger is the silence.

Urgent appeal: The catastrophic situation in Gaza, a people starving to death amid global silence

In the early days of the assault, Western leaders issued cautious statements: calls for restraint, reminders of international law, expressions of concern. But those voices have since faded. Forgotten. Buried in old press releases. No action followed. No policies changed.

Instead, support for Israel intensified. Some governments even suspended funding to the UN’s main relief agency, UNRWA — in the middle of Gaza’s collapse.

Have you ever heard of a government withdrawing aid from a humanitarian agency while children are starving?

It happened. And it happened quietly.

As Nelson Mandela once said:

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.”

Today, Gaza is being punished not only with bombs, but with hunger — a form of collective punishment enabled by an international consensus too timid to speak out. You won’t find this consensus in official statements, but you’ll see it in every sealed border, every empty bowl, and every child who cries from thirst.

According to UN agencies:

Food insecurity has reached catastrophic levels.

Over 90 per cent of children in Gaza are malnourished.

Infant deaths from starvation and dehydration are now a daily reality.

Yet the world remains still.

Worse still, some governments continue to justify Israel’s actions under the banner of “self-defence” — as if using starvation as a weapon were somehow legitimate.

But it isn’t just the West that bears responsibility.

Egypt too must answer for its role. The Rafah crossing — Gaza’s only exit not controlled by Israel — has been shut for months. Cairo waits for Tel Aviv’s permission to let aid in or patients out. When will we stop pretending this is neutrality? This is complicity.

And what of the Arab governments who have normalised ties with Israel? Some have remained silent. Others have gone further, publicly strengthening relations while Gaza starves. At least the West doesn’t claim kinship. But these regimes do — while doing nothing to stop the suffering of fellow Palestinians.

As former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once warned:

“When food becomes a weapon, humanity itself has collapsed.”

Gaza is facing that collapse — and the international system is allowing it to happen.

Yet despite everything, Gaza endures. Its people turn hunger into defiance. They resist, even when stripped of everything. In Gaza, dignity isn’t found in comfort — it’s found in survival.

Ominous plans: Making Concentration Camp Gaza

But let’s be honest: Israel cannot sustain this alone. It relies on silence. On selective outrage. On diplomatic cover. And that is exactly what it gets from world powers who claim to care about human rights — but choose which victims matter.

So who is really standing with Gaza?

Not governments. Not institutions. But ordinary people. Protesters. Citizens. The ones who still have a conscience and refuse to look away.

Gaza doesn’t want pity. It wants justice. It demands an end to the genocide — and accountability for those who enable it.

The question is no longer: What is happening?

We know.

The question is: Who will act?

And when history is written — who will be remembered for their silence?

Because silence, in the face of starvation, is not neutrality.

It is complicity.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.