Gaza – Saba:
Though she is nine years old, her frail frame resembles that of a child half her age. In Gaza City, Maryam Dawas lies motionless at “Friends of the Patient” Hospital — a skeletal figure whose suffering tells a harrowing story of over two million people subjected to starvation as a weapon of war by the Israeli occupation.
Maryam’s body, emaciated and too weak to move, has been ravaged by systematic starvation enforced by the Israeli regime — a policy executed with U.S. backing, Western complicity, and disturbing international silence. Over the past 22 months of genocide and blockade, Maryam has lost more than half her body weight, dropping from 25 kilograms to just 10.5.
Her protruding bones and lack of nutrition or care are not unique in Gaza, but her case serves as a painful symbol of one of the most brutal starvation campaigns witnessed in modern history.
Her mother, herself displaced from Beit Lahia and now sheltering in a camp in western Gaza City, recounted to Anadolu Agency how her daughter’s decline began a year and a half ago. Despite her desperate efforts to obtain therapeutic milk and medical peanut butter, she said, nothing has improved.
“Maryam is disappearing before my eyes, and no one is saving her. We no longer have food or any therapeutic milk,” her mother said in a voice drained by fear, hunger, and exhaustion.
She added that even after a month-long stay in hospital last month, Maryam left with no improvement — still dangerously underweight. She also accused Israeli authorities of intentionally blocking or redirecting humanitarian aid, ensuring it rarely reaches the families who need it most.
According to a report released today by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the death toll from starvation now stands at 180 — including 93 children — with five people dying in just the last 24 hours alone from hunger and severe malnutrition.
UNICEF has described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as catastrophic, warning that children are dying at an “unprecedented rate” due to the use of starvation as a method of collective punishment.
Inside a small hospital room, Maryam continues her silent battle with death, while her starving mother clings desperately to hope.
“This is a child,” she pleads. “She doesn’t deserve to die like this. Aid is a human right. Would you remain silent if this were happening anywhere else but Gaza? Why won’t you force the enemy to let the aid in?”
Maryam’s story is not an isolated case. It is a brutal emblem of an ongoing genocide against over two million people — killed not only with bombs, but through starvation, with U.S.-European backing, regional complicity, and a deeply troubling global silence.
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