The specter of famine has returned to Gaza, creeping through its shattered streets like a thief in the night, stealing the breath of children, the strength of mothers, and the dignity of fathers. It is a slow, cruel death—one that does not come with the sudden roar of bombs but with the silent gnawing of empty stomachs, the hollow eyes of those who have not known bread for days.
This is not Gaza’s first famine. Only last year, in January 2024, the people of the north endured a hunger no less severe than the current torment. Then, as now, flour, sugar, lentils—staples that once seemed too humble to notice—became treasures beyond reach. Families rationed grains like gold, stretching meager supplies to keep their children alive. Even then, medicine was a luxury few could afford. My own father, a diabetic, clutched his dwindling pills with trembling hands, counting each one, measuring his pain against the fear of running out.
Now, famine has returned, darker, deeper. The markets, if they can be called such, are graveyards of empty stalls. The few who find a sack of flour guard it like a secret, grinding it into coarse bread that tastes of dust and despair. Children no longer cry for sweets; they have forgotten the taste of sugar. Instead, they whimper weakly, their bellies swollen with hunger, their ribs pressing against skin stretched too thin.
And still, the world watches. Still, the trucks are stopped, the aid is delayed, the borders remain choked. Gaza starves in plain sight, while the powerful debate the arithmetic of suffering—how many calories a person needs to survive, how many grams of rice constitute a meal. But famine is not numbers. It is a father breaking his last piece of bread in half, pretending he is not hungry. It is a mother boiling water with a handful of salt, calling it soup. It is my diabetic father, counting his pills, praying they outlast the siege.
Gaza has known hunger before. It knows it too well. But how many famines must a people endure before the world remembers they are human?
Malak Ridwanis a writer from Gaza