At least 21 children in Gaza have died from malnutrition and starvation over the past 72 hours, according to Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The update comes amid other figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reporting 15 additional deaths from hunger in the past 24 hours, including four children. According to Abu Salmiya, the territory’s children are facing a dire emergency, with around 900,000 suffering from hunger. Of these, some 70,000 are already malnourished, he said, putting them at imminent risk of death without urgent intervention. He further states that patients with diabetes and kidney disease are also at extreme risk due to a lack of essential treatment. According to the ministry’s latest data, these recent deaths raise the cumulative number of people who have lost their lives due to starvation-related causes in Gaza to 101, 80 of whom are children. These fatalities come amid a continuing blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, which has severely limited access to food and essential supplies. With food scarcity accelerating, reaching “new and astonishing levels of desperation,” and medical infrastructure collapsing under pressure,…
21 Children Starve to Death as Gaza’s Humanitarian Crisis Deepens
July 22, 2025
By Nadine Tag
Journalist
