Drowning in baby clothes intended for newborns, Siham stares with hollow eyes at the hospital wall, struggling to make a faint cry.
Just one year old, she is emaciated and sick from consuming contaminated water and food since being born in a displacement camp in southern Gaza.
Her mother, Ikhlas, 28, who fled Israel’s ferocious bombardment of northern Gaza four times, says she was herself so malnourished she struggled to breastfeed.
With no baby formula available since Israel cut off all supplies to the besieged Strip, Ikhlas was forced to feed Siham regular milk, which only made her daughter sicker.
“We used to eat bread, sometimes with thyme. Now we are dependent on rice and pasta because we ran out of flour,” she tells The Independent from the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital (PFBS) in Gaza, where medics are fighting to keep Siham alive.
“All the people of Gaza are living in a state of famine. If the crossings remain closed, I fear I will lose my baby, as some children have already died in recent weeks.”
Across the devastated strip, families are trying to survive on rice, salt and water – including mother Wedad Abdelaal, whose three children including 9-month-old son Khaled are all suffering from malnutrition in a tent in al-Mawasi, along Gaza’s coast.
In the wake of the collapse of a truce in Gaza in March, Israel imposed a total ban on aid to the enclave, which is just 25 miles long and home to over two million people. Israel justified its actions by accusing the Hamas militant group of stealing aid to “feed its war machine”.
But it has forced families into famine-like conditions, and medics on the ground tell The Independent that people are starving to death, children are losing their sight, and babies like Siham may not survive.
And so the United Nations, along with aid agencies and human rights groups, have sounded the alarm about the crisis and called on the international community to take immediate action.
Donald Trump is due to visit to the Middle East next week—his first major international trip since resuming office in January. He is expected to visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, mostly to discuss arms and trade deals, though reports suggest he may also attempt to broker a Gaza deal.
Ahead of the trip, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said a US-backed plan for distributing aid into Gaza would take effect soon, claiming “several partners have already committed to the aid arrangement”, but declined to name them, leaving rights groups sceptical.
But pressure is growing for an end to the blockade. This week UN experts went as far as to warn Israel’s allies—including the UK—that continued political and material support, especially arms transfers, to Israel “risks complicity in genocide and other serious international crimes.”
Amnesty International said this month that the ongoing two-month aid ban amounts to “genocide in action”, urging the international community to take immediate steps, including concrete measures to pressure Israel to lift the total siege and allow unrestricted humanitarian access across Gaza.
Israel launched an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza in October 2023, following Hamas’s bloody 7 October attacks on southern Israel, during which over 1,000 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Since then, Israeli bombing has killed more than 52,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has displaced over 90 per cent of Gaza’s population, and nearly 60 per cent of all buildings across the Strip have been destroyed.
There are growing fears the crisis will escalate despite the outcry. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to dramatically expand military operations and indefinitely occupy swathes of Gaza.
This week, Israel’s far-right security minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said Gaza should be “completely destroyed” and Palestinians forcibly transferred to another country.
Israeli officials say a final decision on the plan may hinge on the outcome of negotiations for a hostage deal, expected to conclude by the end of Trump’s visit.
Meanwhile, European leaders and humanitarian groups have criticised a plan proposed by Israel, to allow private companies to take over humanitarian distribution in Gaza.
A separate proposal is circulating among the aid community for a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that would distribute food from four “secure distribution sites” but drew criticism that it would effectively worsen displacement among the Gaza population.
Back in the hospital wards, the families are desperate for supplies to save their children’s lives as blockade remains in place.
Two-year-old Hala, born just two months before the start of the war and treated in the same unit as Siham, weighs just over 3kg—the equivalent weight of a newborn.
Her mother, Alaa, 24, says she was born with a condition that causes a deficiency in potassium and sodium, but her treatment was cut off in the bombardment. Now both mother and baby are suffering from malnutrition, and Alaa is also worried her baby might die.
“There was no opportunity to treat malnourished children due to the closure of most of the hospitals,” she tells The Independent in desperation.
“Now the crossings have been closed for more than two months and there is not enough food.”
