Children Starve in Gaza as Hunger Crisis Deepens

Fatma Wahid is used to the aching feeling of an empty stomach. What she can't bear is the sound of her three young children crying out for food.

- Feliz Solomon, Abeer Ayyoub & Summer Said

Sometimes they wake her in the middle of the night, she said, begging for a taste of something sweet.

"It breaks my heart," said Wahid, 39, who lives in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah. "The kids are never full."

Across the Gaza Strip, families like hers face a worsening daily struggle to find food. Child hunger, a key indicator of food shortages among the broader population, is spreading quickly. Palestinians and aid organizations say shortages of food, which for much of the war cycled through subregions of the enclave, are now hitting all parts of it at once.

Israel cut off supplies in March to pressure Hamas and then began allowing limited amounts of aid starting in May, but the needs of Gaza's more than two million people far outstrip the amount of food getting in.

Data published by the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, shows that the number of children diagnosed with malnutrition increased from just over 2,000 in February to more than 5,800 in June.

At least 10 children starved to death in Gaza this month alone, according to the U.N.'s humanitarian office. That compared with seven child deaths from malnutrition reported by U.N. partners during the entire first half of the year.

The United Nations says at least ten children died of hunger this month; malnutrition is rising quickly.

They were when they were used in the spring of 2024.

But conditions in Gaza are deteriorating fast. Residents, medics and aid workers in Gaza told The Wall Street Journal they are experiencing what they believe is the worst hunger crisis since Hamas's deadly attacks on southern Israel sparked the war in October 2023.