At least 67 children have died of starvation in Gaza since October 2023, as Israel’s total blockade of the Palestinian territory enters its 103rd consecutive day, the government media office in Gaza said today.
The office warned that the number could rise dramatically, with more than 650,000 children under the age of five now facing severe and life-threatening malnutrition in the coming weeks due to continued food, medicine and fuel shortages.
“Starvation is now killing what bombs are not,” the office said, describing the siege as one of the “most extreme forms of collective punishment in modern history.”
The media office said that “dozens of additional deaths have been recorded in the past three days alone, as Israeli forces continue to block the entry of flour, infant formula and vital food and medical supplies.”
He accused Israel of “deliberately pursuing a policy of mass starvation.”
Currently, some 1.25 million people in Gaza are suffering from catastrophic hunger, while 96 percent of the population, including more than a million children, are acutely food insecure, the office said.
“Israel is fully responsible for the systematic and organized hunger campaign. We are sounding the alarm: this is a mass death sentence being carried out before the eyes of the world,” the office said, adding:
“Immediate international intervention is not optional, it is a matter of life and death.”
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli military has been conducting an offensive on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, since which more than 57,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed.
The relentless bombardment has devastated the enclave and led to food shortages and the spread of disease.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide charge before the International Court of Justice over the war in the enclave.
