In Gaza today, hunger is not a by-product of war – it is a weapon. It is engineered, deliberate and merciless. For my family and me, this grim truth is not abstract. It constantly gnaws at our bodies and stalks our every breath.
And now we are facing another calamity: The Israeli military is about to take over Gaza City and forcibly displace the population of northern Gaza to the south. As I write these words, we have been ordered to leave by the military and we don’t know where to go.
I am a student and writer, sheltering in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, where I facilitate community-led educational spaces for young children.
Since Israel imposed a near total siege on Gaza several months ago, I have lost more than 22 pounds. What little food trickles into Gaza is symbolic: a little sugar, some cheese – but no meat, no fruit, no vegetables. Prices for the few available staples soar to double and triple their value, putting them beyond our reach. My six younger siblings and I survive on scraps. The taste of real food is a memory we can no longer recall.
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Starvation in Gaza is a weapon of war
Hunger here is not a silent affliction. It cries out in the voice of a desperate mother.
While working in northern Gaza recently, a woman called to me with urgency: “Please, cover my daughter’s story. My daughter is dying.” That is how I met her 9-year-old.
When I entered their shelter, I found the girl lying in the corner – skin and bone, her eyes dulled by exhaustion. She could not walk and could barely swallow. I filmed her condition, and her story soon spread across Arab and Western media. But the 9-year-old is not an isolated case. She is a window into the reality all of us endure.
Farida Al-Ghoul, a writer and educator, took this photo of a 9-year-old girl who is severely malnourished in northern Gaza.
Hunger is devouring my own brothers and sisters, too. The only difference is time.
Israel’s intent has been made explicit. In October 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.”
Since then, Gaza’s 2 million people have endured a siege that experts such as Alex de Waal, a British scholar of famine, describe as the most “minutely designed and controlled” starvation since World War II. In March, Israel tightened the siege further after breaking the six-week ceasefire, causing conditions to rapidly deteriorate.
The figures are staggering. In July, nearly 12,000 children under the age of 5 in Gaza were reported to suffer from acute malnutrition. At least 361 people have died from hunger and malnutrition over the past two years, including 130 children, the vast majority of them in the past few months.
The United Nations recently warned that more than 320,000 children under 5 are at imminent risk.
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The world must see the face of hunger in Gaza
About the time Netanyahu’s government approved the plan to take over Gaza City, the Israeli military carried out a targeted attack on a tent in front of a hospital housing journalists from Al Jazeera, killing correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. With Israel’s assassination of these journalists who would tell the world the truth of what is about to happen in Gaza, we understood a new brutal onslaught was beginning.
Then the shelling that rained on us felt like the first days of the war, relentless, deafening and everywhere all at once. Yet, here we remain, trapped under skies that burn and streets that echo with loss.
Since mid-July, my family has been displaced three times. Each time we moved, we carried nothing but fear and the fragile hope that the next place might be safer. But the bombs followed us, falling without warning, striking as if every inch of Gaza had been marked for destruction.
A child stands outside the tent where Farida Al-Ghoul, a writer and educator sheltering in northern Gaza, has been living with her younger siblings.
My family and I have decided to remain in the north, even if it means death.
Because no one outside understands the agony of displacement – moving from one place to another in your own country, without even a single tent to shelter your children, without a space to live like a human being. In one moment, you lose everything, and you are left lying on the bare ground, believing you are safe, only to discover there is no safety at all.
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Behind each number and statistic reported from Gaza is a person with a name, a face, a story. Mine. My siblings’. The countless children wasting away in displacement camps and hospital corridors.
So I write. Because the world must know.
Hunger and displacement are not accidental. They are deliberate, part of Israel’s plan. Hunger is not faceless. It is the 9-year-old’s frail body. It is my wasted frame. It is the hollow eyes of every child in Gaza.
Let the food trucks in. Let the children eat. Stop the endless displacement. End this calculated cruelty.
Farida Al-Ghoul, a writer and educator sheltering in northern Gaza, poses with her younger siblings.
Farida Al-Ghoul is a writer and educator sheltering in northern Gaza.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gaza hunger isn’t accidental. Starving us is Israel’s plan | Opinion