A Palestinian girl suffers from malnutrition and is measured while receiving treatment at the Patient Friends Association Hospital in Gaza City, on July 22, 2025.
Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Health officials say Israel has starved at least 83 children to death in Gaza

By Sharon Zhang / Truthout

Israel’s “precisely designed mass starvation” campaign in Gaza has caused at least 83 children to die of hunger, health officials say, with many deaths occurring just in the last week as human rights experts warn that humanitarian conditions have surpassed a “tipping point” and will soon result in mass death if not stopped.

The Gaza Government Media Office reported on Friday that health officials have recorded 122 starvation deaths throughout the genocide, including 83 children. Nine of these deaths came in the past 24 hours alone. This is a result of “systematic starvation” and “famine” created by Israeli and U.S. authorities, as well as other complicit states like the U.K., Germany, and France, the Gaza officials said.

Nearly half of the recorded starvation deaths have come in the past few days alone, according to the official tally, which experts say is likely a vast undercount.

In recent days, images of children and newborn babies reduced to little more than skin and bone, their bodies screaming for sustenance, have flooded social media and are even plastered on front pages of news outlets.

But it seems as though even pictures of starving babies — their skin grey and sallow and their eyes, largely set within their skulls, pleading the viewer for a shred of salvation — have failed to move the needle whatsoever to shock the conscience of those responsible for the genocidal weaponization of food and other basic needs.

The spike in hunger deaths this week is a reflection of the starvation catastrophe — which humanitarian groups warned about throughout the genocide — surpassing a terrifying point of no return, save for a complete overhaul in policy by Israeli forces or other intervention, experts say.

Over 100 organizations, including major humanitarian groups like Save the Children and Médecins Sans Frontières, warned this week of “mass starvation” spreading across Gaza. Hunger is so dire and widespread that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are going days without eating, and even medical staff and humanitarian workers are becoming weak as a result of malnutrition.

“Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food,” one aid worker said, according to the statement.

The Global Protection Cluster, representing an international coalition of NGOs and UN agencies, further warned on Friday that “life is being extinguished in Gaza.” Between Israeli airstrikes, the destruction of the medical system, and the humanitarian catastrophe, Palestinians’ “lives are under threat like never before in Gaza,” the group said.

Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk warned that the spike in starvation deaths shows that the catastrophe is now rapidly hurtling toward “mass-scale starvation mortality.”

“The latest reporting shows telltale signs of rapidly accelerating mortality — the kind of classic famine scenario we know from places like Sudan or Somalia,” Konyndyk wrote on social media on Thursday. “Barring a massive reversal of Israeli policy, there is a little standing in the way of total collapse.”

“Once a famine gathers momentum, the effort required to contain it increases exponentially,” Konyndyk went on. “It would now take an overwhelmingly large aid operation to reverse the coming wave of mortality, and it would take months. Gaza is entering its darkest chapter yet.”

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Sharon Zhang

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.