Doctors and humanitarian workers inside Gaza report dark and heartbreaking details of generalized malnutrition, especially in children, because the hunger crisis would continue to worsen in the middle of the Israel-Hamas war.
The Gaza Ministry of Health managed by Hamas said Thursday that 27 people have died of hunger in the last three days, bringing the total to 113 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. Total deaths due to hunger, 81 were children, according to the Ministry of Health.
MercyyCorps, a help organization that provides humanitarian services as well as a hotline for psychosocial support in Gaza, said that she had received testimonies from parents who had trouble providing food for their children.
“This is one:” Last night, I thought of killing my children because I cannot take care of them or raise them in the right direction “”, relayed the group to ABC News. “‘I can’t even provide food. I had to send them to neighboring tents to start the bread to eat. I really don’t know what to do.'”
Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain – A volunteer at the Al -Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Central Gaza and a worker of the medical data service of doctors without borders (MSF), or doctors without borders – said that there are only four stabilization centers for malnutrition in Gaza and that the admission capacity is severely limited due to over -the -ground overlying.
The Palestinian mother moved Samah Matar holds her son suffering from malnutrition Youssef, who suffers from a cerebral paralysis, in a school where they shelter in the middle of a hunger crisis in Gaza City, on July 24, 2025.
Mahmoud Issa / Reuters
He said the emergency services for Gaza hospitals have been overwhelmed by injuries since the start of the war. However, in the past two weeks, they have been overwhelmed by people who have been injured while trying to get help, as well as people who collapse hunger.
“A child came to us as two days ago, begging something to eat, a piece of bread,” Alamrain told ABC News. “We don’t have them. We gave it from our lunch, [a] Cup of chickpeas. … Life seems dystopian recently. “”
MSF said that 25% of pregnant or breastfeeding children in the Gaza clinics on Thursday were malnourished and that severe malnutrition cases in children under the age of 5 have tripled in just two weeks.
Caroline Willemen, MSF project coordinator in Gaza City, said That on July 19 and 20 at the Al-Helou hospital in the north of Gaza, the MSF medical teams could not provide food for women and children in pediatric rooms and maternity and there were not enough baby formulas for the 23 babies of the neonatal intensive care unit.
On July 20 and 21 at Nasser Hospital in Central Gaza, 168 patients admitted to pediatric and maternity services could not access food, she said.
In addition, Edouard Beigbede, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Thursday That for two weeks in July, 5,000 children were admitted to their clinics with acute malnutrition and, in the city of Gaza alone, the number of children detected and detected with acute malnutrition is four times higher than it was in February.
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of Medglobal, told ABC News that 19 children had recently been admitted to non -profit clinics in Gaza suffering from acute serious malnutrition, which is a number that the organization has never seen.
Five of these children, between three months and 4.5 years old, died in the last 72 hours, from Wednesday, said Sahloul.
“This is an emergency because up to 50% of children with a serious acute malnutrition can die,” Sahloul told ABC News. “Without a spectacular increase in the amount of helping, more children will die.”
The Palestinians are waiting to receive food from charity, in the middle of a hunger crisis in Gaza City on July 23, 2025.
Mahmoud Issa / Reuters
Kate Phillips-Barasso, vice-president of global policy and advocacy at Merckycorps, said that her team on the ground in Gaza reports that many people spend days both without eating at all.
“Everyone spends their day in pursuit of how they are going to eat,” she told ABC News. “They lose hope. They wonder if they or their families will come on the other side.”
Mercycorps was one of Over 100 aid groups This has published a joint statement this week by warning “mass famine” in Gaza.
“We have the impression of switching to this precipice where more people will die,” continued Phillips-Barasso. “We are already starting to hear relationships of more children dying. It happens, and when it looks, it is really difficult to put this upside down. It happens to a point where they need therapeutic and treatment, not just more food supplies. It will start to make snowball and be very difficult to walk.”
Aid organizations said their workers and medical staff also have trouble getting food.
MSF said that its staff are treating patients for hunger while fighting to feed themselves and their families when they register 25 new cases of malnutrition every day in Gaza City.
Alamrain told ABC News that he had lost 27 kilograms (59.5 pounds) since the start of the war in October 2023 and eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) in the past two months.
Recently, his family cooked his last 0.5 kilograms (1 book) of flour to make seven pieces of bread, he said. Although his family has money to spend, markets have no food.
During the last week, Alamrain said he had consumed between 700 and 1,400 calories per day, even if his recommended number of calories per day is 2,500.
Palestinians in search of the aid of the Gaza humanitarian foundation supported by the United States wore bags near Rafah, in the Southern Gaza Strip on July 24, 2025.
Ramadan Abed / Reuters
“These days are like the worst of the whole war in terms of food insecurity. We are not hungry [because] We are poor. We are hungry because there is no food to buy, or if there are any, it’s like [a] Crazy price, “he said.” There is as a feeling of mass of dizziness towards people because of hunger. “”
The Israeli government has denied that it limits the amount of aid entering Gaza and said Hamas Steals helps civilians. Hamas has denied these claims.
An Israeli security official said this week that 950 humanitarian aid trucks are waiting for crossings, pending collection and distribution by United Nations agencies.
David Mencer, a government spokesman, told ABC News on Thursday that there was “no famine caused by Israel, but there is a shortage of human origin which was designed by Hamas”.
Likewise, Thursday, the deputy spokesperson for the State Department, Tommy Pigott, denied that Israel – or the United States by extension – weapons humanitarian aid.
“This humanitarian conflict is at the foot of Hamas, which could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages and putting their arms,” he said.
