
Four more Palestinians die from starvation amid Israeli-imposed famine
Three of them were children identified as the infant Yousef al-Safadi, Abdel Hamid al-Ghalban, 14, and Ahmad Hasant.
The four person was a 32-year-old woman with special needs named Raheel Rosros.
Medical officials confirmed the deaths occurred across Gaza's north and south, underscoring widespread starvation amid severe shortages of food and aid.
Rosros' father, Muhammad Rosros, told Middle East Eye that his daughter's suffering from malnutrition and dehydration began over a month ago.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
"From before the start of the war, she used to eat whatever she wanted, but she had lost everything she once used to ask for," he said.
He indicated that she could not stomach the types of food brought into Gaza in the past few months.
'I stopped fearing for my children from the constant shooting and strikes. Now, I am afraid for them because of hunger'
- Muhammad Rosros, Palestinian father
Several Palestinians have previously told MEE that upon receiving their box of aid they found the supplies to be woefully inadequate.
Rosros explained that his daughter used to weigh around 50 kilograms. She died weighing less than 25 kilograms.
He added that her sister, who also had special needs, was killed as a result of Israeli bombing earlier this year.
"One died as a result of shelling, the other died due to malnutrition," he said. "Praise be to God."
Rosros worries that he might lose his other tow children, one deaf and the other autistic, from malnutrition.
"I stopped fearing for my children from the constant shooting and strikes. Now, I am afraid for them because of hunger, that's all," he said.
"The hunger that has struck us is not normal. We would have never imagined. No one cares about us, not any Arab, Muslim or western country, none of them sympathise with us and what is happening to our children."
Israel 'starving civilians'
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, accused Israel on Sunday of 'starving civilians', including a million children, through its siege on vital food and medical deliveries into the Gaza Strip.
Unrwa called on Israel to lift its blockade and allow humanitarian aid to flow freely. At militarised distribution sites run by the US- and Israel-backed GHF civilians trying to access the food are being shot and killed by the Israeli army.
Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defence agency reported that infant deaths caused by starvation are rising.
Gaza extermination: What is your last thought when you're starving to death? Read More »
'These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula and the absence of basic healthcare,' civil defence spokesperson Mahm0ud Bassal told AFP.
Since Israel broke a six-week ceasefire in March, Israel has maintained a tight blockade on Gaza.
Although limited aid has trickled in since late May, supplies accumulated during the truce have run out, pushing the territory into the worst shortages since the war began.
The situation is particularly dire for pregnant women and newborns. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says its clinics are seeing record numbers of malnutrition cases.
'Many babies are being born prematurely due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women,' said MSF doctor Joanne Perry.
According to Palestinian medical officials, at least 23 people have died from malnutrition in the past two days alone.
In total, 86 Palestinians, including 76 children, have died due to lack of food.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The National
5 hours ago
- The National
UN famine expert: Trauma and shame of Israel's starvation of Gaza will last generations
The trauma and shame inflicted on Gaza as it starves under an Israeli blockade will last for generations, a UN expert on famine has told The National. The pain felt by parents helplessly watching their children fade away, the lengths for survival that some have had to go to like eating rotten flour, picking up chickpeas from the ground that someone else had left behind, or eating animal fodder – all of these experiences of suffering are bound to be carried forward, said the UN 's special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri. 'Starvation campaigns create a social trauma because if you survive, then you've had to make impossible decisions and decide who to feed and deny food,' said Mr Fakhri, who has spoken to descendants of people affected by Ireland's famine in the 19th century. The survivors of times like these would have had to endure watching others slowly die in agony, Mr Fakhri said. 'There's a sense of shame for having survived, and it is very difficult to speak about publicly and recover from it psychologically.' Officials in Gaza say at least 113 people, many of them children, have died of starvation during Israel 's blockade on life-sustaining aid, which includes baby food. On top of that, almost all of Gaza's population of 2.2 million people is displaced, the death toll from direct bombardment is inching towards 60,000 with more than 143,000 injured, and living conditions are squalid, unsafe and rife with disease. Israel's government maintains it is not to blame for harrowing images of emaciated children in Gaza begging for food, or crying at some of the last remaining charity kitchens for a spoonful of beans. It says there are unused aid supplies in Gaza and accuses Hamas and the UN of preventing their delivery. In the past 24 hours, two new deaths were recorded from malnutrition and hunger. As the UN inches closer to declaring a famine in Gaza, the clearest tell-tale sign of famine is how it affects the youngest in a population, Mr Fakhri said. 'When children start dying from hunger and malnutrition, you know there's a famine because any community – when there's hunger – will feed their children, and adults will deny themselves food for days to prioritise their children,' he said. So when those children begin to die from hunger, as in Gaza, Mr Fakhri said, it can be concluded that there is a famine and that the entire social structure of that community is under attack. But while the semantics over what constitutes a famine are being discussed, Mr Fakhri said it is not debatable that Israel is inflicting mass starvation on Gaza, in what he describes as a war crime. Starvation is not only the direct deprivation of food, he said, as a person can be held liable for the crime of starvation if they wilfully impede relief supplies. Israel has blocked large quantities of aid from entering Gaza since at least March. 'The denial of food, water, medicine and destruction of homes, is starvation,' Mr Fakhri said. 'You don't have to measure the impact and count dead bodies and measure misery to wait to find that there is starvation. All you need to show is intent and action.' Another of the world's leading experts on famine, Alex DeWaal, compared this diagnosis to a physician not needing to look at a patient's test results to determine the disease they have. Whether it's under the legal definition of starvation according to international humanitarian law, or the UN 's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which has its own technical definition of famine, Mr Fakhri said: 'By any definition, Israel has conducted a starvation campaign'. In November last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defence at the time, Yoav Gallant, for the war crime of starvation. They remain free and Israel continues to deny the impact it has had on the population.


Sharjah 24
11 hours ago
- Sharjah 24
89 Palestinians killed in 24 hours as Israeli attacks continue
Soaring death toll since October 7 The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that the Palestinian death toll since October 7, 2023, has reached 59,587, with 143,498 others injured. The majority of casualties are women and children. Aftermath of ceasefire breach in March Following Israel's breach of the ceasefire on March 18, 2024, the toll has continued to climb. Since then, 8,447 Palestinians have been killed and 31,457 injured. Victims trapped under rubble In the past 24 hours, hospitals received 89 bodies, including 10 recovered from beneath the rubble, alongside 453 injured individuals. Authorities noted that many victims remain trapped under debris, inaccessible to ambulances and rescue teams. Humanitarian aid deaths rise The ministry also confirmed that 23 bodies and 68 wounded people were received in the past day, all of whom were attempting to collect humanitarian aid. This brings the total number of "bread-seeker" martyrs to 1,083, with 7,275 injured while seeking food. Ongoing catastrophe in Gaza Since resuming its offensive after the truce ended in March, Israel has intensified airstrikes across Gaza, pushing the region further into a severe humanitarian catastrophe. Rescue efforts are hindered by ongoing bombardment and lack of access to victims under the rubble.


The National
17 hours ago
- The National
Gazans reduced to 'walking corpses' by food shortages, UNRWA chief says
Gazans have been reduced to "walking corpses" as food shortages push the territory towards starvation, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Thursday, after two more people died from malnutrition. The latest deaths brought the toll from starvation to 113, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Conditions inside the enclave have deteriorated sharply amid widespread acute hunger that has shocked the world. More than two million people are facing severe food shortages, with more than 100 NGOs warning that ' mass starvation ' is spreading. Israel has been accused of restricting the flow of aid but says Hamas is looting supplies and blocking distribution. "One in every five children is malnourished in Gaza city as cases increase every day," Mr Lazzarini said, citing UNRWA figures. He quoted a staff member working inside Gaza when he described Palestinians as "neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses". Most children that UNRWA teams encountered were emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they do not receive treatment urgently, he added. Parents were too hungry to care for their children and "families are no longer coping, they are breaking down, unable to survive". He called for unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance, saying UNRWA has "the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies in Jordan and Egypt" waiting to go. The International Rescue Committee said it was "horrified" by the reports of starvation, calling for "full, unfettered humanitarian access". "Lives are hanging by a thread ... This is a man-made hunger crisis driven by severe restrictions and a near-total blockade on aid and goods. It is preventable and it must end," said Scott Lea, the IRC's acting country director in the Palestinian territories. There was no sign of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks as Israel recalled its negotiating team from Qatar. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's office said that "in light of the response Hamas provided this morning, it has been decided to return the negotiating team to continue consultations in Israel". The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said all options remained on the table if Israel does not deliver on an agreement made with the bloc this month to improve conditions. International pressure on Israel to alleviate "unbearable" suffering in Gaza is set to increase at an upcoming conference in New York in support of a Palestinian state, the EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica has told The National. The EU deal includes a substantial increase in daily aid lorries entering Gaza, the opening of several more crossing points in both the north and south, and the reopening of Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation, has said Gaza is 'witnessing a deadly surge' in malnutrition and related diseases, and that a 'large proportion' of its roughly two million people are starving. But Israel has denied it is blocking humanitarian aid, claiming that 700 truckloads were on the Gaza side of the border waiting for international organisations to collect and distribute the supplies. Israel also said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May. The UN responded on Thursday by saying it did not know how many truckloads were awaiting distribution inside the Gaza border because Israel has not granted it access. "Despite our repeated requests, Israel has not allowed the UN to be present at the crossings, which are militarised areas," said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA. "We therefore cannot verify the amount of supplies currently at the crossing," he added. Mr Laerke explained that the UN needed multiple authorisations from Israeli authorities: firstly to get aid across the border from Israel into Gaza, where it is dropped off, then a second permit for those trucks to return to Israel. A third approval was needed to drive more trucks from inside Gaza to the border areas to pick up the aid that was brought in. "It is very important to stress that it is not just about denials of requests to pick up the cargo," he said. "They must provide the green light for trucks without unnecessary delays, allow teams to use multiple, safer routes, and order troops to stay away from the convoys, and never shoot at civilians along the allocated routes - or anywhere else," Mr Laerke added. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian people are facing the "greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time", accusing Israel of a war crime. "How can the world abandon its humanity?" he pleaded. International news agencies AP, Reuters and AFP, as well as the BBC, said their reporters in the enclave were "increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families". They called on Israel to allow journalists freedom of movement in and out of Gaza. With the enclave sealed off, many media groups around the world depend on Palestinian reporters based in Gaza who are working for international news agencies. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said this month that more than 200 journalists had been killed in the territory since the war began. Meanwhile, in Israel, the military said eight soldiers were wounded on Thursday when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop in what police called a "terror attack". The army said two soldiers were "moderately injured" and six "lightly injured" in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel. Police said they located the suspect's vehicle but were still searching for the perpetrator, who abandoned his car in the area. There has been a spate of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. The war was sparked when Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel's response has been a devastating military campaign that has to date killed close to 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Most of Gaza's two million residents have been displaced by the war, more than once in many cases, and swathes of built-up areas have been reduced to rubble.