By Dayo Ade Olusola | M10News | 24 July 2025
A 12-year-old girl in Gaza has lost half her body weight since Israel imposed a blockade and sealed border crossings into the territory in March, according to aid workers and medics.
Huda, who lives in southern Gaza, says she no longer recognises herself in the mirror.
“Before, I used to look like this,” she says, pointing to a photo of herself on a tablet. “The war changed me. Malnutrition has turned my hair yellow because I lack protein.”
Her mother says the family’s needs are modest—fruit, vegetables, fish, or some meat—but such items are unavailable or unaffordable.
Huda now clings to one hope: “Can you help me travel abroad for treatment? I want to be like you. I’m a child. I want to play and be like you.”
In another part of Gaza, three-year-old Amir is recovering from surgery after an airstrike hit the tent where he lived with his family. He survived, but his mother and siblings were killed. His father, suffering from trauma, has reportedly stopped speaking.
“His father won’t accept reality,” Amir’s aunt said. “What did these children do? Tell me, what was their crime?”
Doctors say they are unable to feed Amir properly. Instead, he receives only dextrose—sugar and water—with no nutritional value.
Aid blocked, not absent
Humanitarian experts say the food crisis is not due to a lack of supplies, but to restrictions on aid access.
Large quantities of food are reportedly stalled at Gaza’s border crossings or in local warehouses, but distribution has ground to a halt.
Israel and the United States have taken over food delivery in place of the United Nations, which has been unable to operate hundreds of aid centres shut down amid security and bureaucratic constraints.
The UN says it is attempting to run limited aid convoys, but many are delayed or blocked entirely due to permit issues and what it describes as “draconian” restrictions.
At makeshift communal kitchens known as tikiya, residents queue for basic rations—but many leave empty-handed.
“It’s been two months since we ate bread,” one young girl says. “There’s no food, there’s no nutrition. I want life to go back to how it was. I want meat and flour to come in. I want the end of the tikiya.”
A preventable crisis
Dr Adil Husain, an American physician who recently spent two weeks at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, treated a severely underweight three-year-old named Hasan.
At just 6kg, Hasan weighed less than half the normal weight for his age.
“He needs special feeds, and these feeds are literally miles away—right there at the border,” Dr Husain said. “But it’s being blockaded. They’re not letting them in. It’s intentional and deliberate starvation.”
Hasan died two days after being examined.
“This is man-made,” Dr Husain said. “It’s a man-made starvation. A man-made crisis.”
Israel disputes famine claims
Israel maintains that it has not identified starvation in Gaza and has accused the United Nations of failing to distribute aid effectively.
But humanitarian experts say the growing number of child deaths paints a different picture—one of a preventable tragedy unfolding in plain sight.
