‘Brother, I haven’t eaten in 3 days’

Iftikhar Gilani

Muslim Network TV Desk

ANKARA, Turkiye (MNTV) – Having reported from conflict zones since the early 1990s—Kashmir, Syria, Palestine—I believed I had developed the emotional calluses required to carry on. But Gaza breaks you. Reporting from this besieged Palestinian strip is not about bullet trajectories, ceasefires, or negotiations. It is about starvation. It is about shame.

A few days ago, I called a fellow journalist in Gaza. We’ve exchanged notes over the past two years, and often grieved. This time, his voice wavered. “Brother,” he whispered, “I haven’t eaten in three days. As soon as I get a loaf of bread, I’ll call you.”

He never did. And I did not call again.

I sat with the phone in my hand, stunned—not just by his words, but by the quiet dignity with which he said them. It felt obscene to have disturbed him at that moment.

What right does a journalist have to ask for a quote from someone who hasn’t eaten in days? That moment shamed me more than any checkpoint ever has. In that instant, I was no longer a reporter chasing a byline. I was a witness to a moral collapse.

Gaza today is not just about bombs or blockades. It is about hunger. A famine not born of drought or disaster, but designed, enforced, and militarized. It is not merely the stomach that is empty—it is the soul of the world.

For this write-up, Istanbul-based Palestine international media organization Tawasol helped to reach out to Abu Ramadan, 28, a resident of al-Nasr city in Gaza. His words were soaked in a mixture of bitterness and disbelief.

When I shamelessly asked him what he would eat today, he replied: “Unfortunately, we still haven’t found an answer to what we might eat today. Every day brings its own fate. Sometimes a scrap of stale bread, sometimes nothing. It’s all dipped in bitter za’atar—that’s if you even have za’atar.”

I asked what hunger felt like. He paused, then gave me a metaphor I will never forget:
“It’s like being stabbed in the heart while your hands are tied. You watch your children cry for food, and you can’t promise them anything. There’s no comfort, just silence.”

He told me how families boil seawater in a pot as the children watch, believing food is being prepared, only to fall asleep with empty stomachs. “You can have money in your pocket,” he added, “but there is no food around to buy.”

He called the aid distribution points “death traps”: “Everyone knows the risk. You either return with a white bag of flour—or you’re carried back in a white shroud. Still, we go. We have no choice.”

Starving nation, official voice

To understand this enforced starvation, MNTV, through Istanbul-based Dr. Mohammad Makram, Secretary General of the League for al-Quds and Palestine, spoke to Dr. Ismail al-Thawabta, Director General of Gaza’s Government Media Office. His testimony left no doubt.

“The famine is the direct result of Israel’s prolonged military blockade, its systematic restriction on food, fuel, and medicine, and repeated disruption of distribution lines inside the Strip. Safe access is impossible.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has confirmed that ‘the worst-case famine scenario is already unfolding’ and that indicators for food consumption and malnutrition have exceeded famine thresholds across much of Gaza.”

Despite global awareness, he said, Israeli field restrictions and attacks on aid routes have made any large-scale increase in supplies practically impossible.

On legality, he was unequivocal: “The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in binding orders issued on 26 January, 28 March, and 24 May 2024, required Israel to ensure unimpeded access for humanitarian aid and to protect civilians.

Israel’s continued closure of crossings, obstruction of relief, and targeting of distribution sites violate these orders and international humanitarian law, which prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

Asked about the U.S.-backed “deconfliction mechanism” created in May 2024, he dismissed it: “Extremely limited. Notification and protection systems have repeatedly failed. There have been security and logistical breakdowns, and delivery capacity falls far below actual needs.

Food distribution days often coincide with spikes in shooting injuries among those seeking aid. Independent reports say the notification system is broken. New arrangements collapsed quickly, and the floating pier failed to create a functional inland transport network.”

On Western governments, he said: “Most have either directly supported Israel militarily and politically or failed to enforce international legal obligations. This has allowed restrictions to persist. Their failure to fix deconfliction, open crossings, or enforce ICJ orders has deepened the collapse. Awareness without action is complicity.”

He called the crisis unprecedented: “At this scale, and live on air with daily visual documentation, it is without parallel. We are seeing systematic starvation of 2.4 million civilians, repeated shooting at queues of starving people, and deliberate destruction of supply networks. This is not a risk of famine—it is the famine itself.”

And when asked what his family ate, he answered with devastating simplicity: “Today, only lentil soup. This week, we alternated between lentils and a quarter-portion of rice per person per day, with only water to drink. When my daughter asks for a loaf of bread and I cannot give it, it is the hardest moment of my life. It is tragedy and oppression, and a stark example of the world’s double standards.”

At the aid points, he said, “the blood is proof. So far, more than 1,838 people have been killed and over 13,409 injured while trying to access food. Investigations show repeated Israeli gunfire at hungry crowds, with head, neck, and limb wounds. No enemy has ever starved a people, lured them to dangerous zones for food, and then shot them in the head.”

On coping with hunger-related diseases, he explained: “There is almost no treatment. Crossings are closed and medicines are blocked. Acute malnutrition, infections, and communicable diseases are rising.

The UN warns all Gaza children under five are at risk. Neighbours share what little they have. Some cook one kilogram of beans in 10 liters of water with a little sauce, then share it among households. This solidarity exists despite the blockade and daily killings.”

He himself has lost 16 kilograms. “My cousin Mazen has lost 51, and Maher has lost 46. Resentment is growing against governments that supply the occupation with weapons while preaching morality. This policy is crushing 2.4 million people.”

And his closing message to the world was blunt: “Stand with the oppressed. Since 7 October 2023, Israel has killed 61,599 Palestinians whose bodies reached hospitals, injured 154,088, and left about 9,500 missing under rubble. These are families, not numbers. Open the crossings, protect aid corridors, halt arms transfers used in violations, and hold those responsible accountable for starvation as a method of warfare.”

Collapse of survival

Dealing with hunger-related illness in Gaza has become a dead end. It is not a matter of lacking medical expertise—the doctors are skilled, dedicated, and doing all they can. But under unrelenting siege and deprivation, how does one prescribe nutrition to someone who hasn’t seen real food in weeks? “This isn’t healing,” Abu Ramadan had said. “It’s a slow death, and we’re all watching it happen.”

Yet even amid collapse, people still share. “If someone has a piece of bread—and it’s never truly ‘extra’—they’ll share it with their neighbour, trusting it will be returned. When we go out toward the death traps, we go together. If one of us is martyred, the other brings the flour back—so both families can survive.”

But what remains of survival in a place where the very idea of life has been stripped away? “It’s not living—it’s just surviving,” Ramadan said. “Since hunger took over, even looking in the mirror has become unbearable. Our faces no longer look like ours—just hollow, exhausted shadows.”

He believes the world does not truly grasp what is happening. “If they did—if they truly saw us—this war wouldn’t still be going. Not even for one more day.”

His words echoed a searing new report from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which described the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—an Israeli-US-backed aid scheme—as a “laboratory of cruelty.” They documented 1,380 casualties from GHF sites in six weeks, including 80 children treated for gunshot wounds, many shot in the chest or head.

“This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing,” MSF wrote bluntly. The precision of the injuries shows these are not accidents. Aid sites have become theatres of targeted dehumanisation, often “secured” by American private contractors. According to survivors, the message is clear: starve, or die trying not to.

Engineered starvation

As images of aid trucks roll across television screens, the truth on the ground tells a different story—one of chaos, hunger, and humiliation. “Children’s stomachs remain empty,” writes Gaza-based journalist and author Rasha Abou Jalal, piercing through the fog of curated footage and diplomatic posturing.

Since March, when Israel imposed an aid blockade amid stalled ceasefire talks with Hamas, Gaza has plunged into engineered famine. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 200 people—including 97 children—have died of hunger.

Aid workers estimate that 500–600 trucks a day are needed to meet Gaza’s basic needs. The actual number that is allowed to cross is less than 100.

“What’s happening is a complete farce,” says Khaled Tanira, a father of six. “A military plane flew over our neighbourhood and dropped seven air balloons of aid. Thousands fought over them—although the supplies could barely feed a few dozen families.”

Abou Jalal shares her own ordeal: two days of waiting for food aid, ending in defeat—buying a kilogram of looted flour for $25, once sold for $1. In the new Gaza economy, baby formula sells for $80 a can, up from $10 before the war. Mothers have sold their wedding bands and gold heirlooms to feed their children.

Even when trucks do enter, they are often ambushed before reaching the UN warehouses. As Talal Okal, a columnist for Gaza’s Al-Ayyam, put it: “Unless land access for aid improves significantly and security is restored, acute malnutrition and hunger will continue to worsen across the strip.”

International airdrops—some hailed as moral gestures—are widely viewed in Gaza as tragic performance art. Doctors Without Borders called the airdrops “notoriously ineffective and dangerous.” They’re theatrical—but not redemptive.

A nurse at one of the MSF clinics recounted a case of a five-year-old boy, crushed in a crowd, his face blue from asphyxiation. She described another child, just eight, with a bullet wound through the chest. “We treat only a fraction of those wounded,” she said. “But we see enough to know this is no longer about war. This is something else. Something darker.”

Khadija Khudair, 42, a mother, added: “My four children are shrinking. We eat one loaf of bread every three days. And that’s on good days.”

This famine is not just physical. It is moral. It is political. Not a single truck enters Gaza without the permission of America and Israel. This is not an unfortunate outcome of war—it is the strategy. A weaponization of hunger.

Palestinians are now reduced to waiting for Israeli trucks to bring bread into their own soil. It is a humiliation no nation should endure.

As a journalist, I find myself unable to write. The hunger has silenced my pen. What can I report that does justice to a father watching his child waste away? Or a teenager gunned down while clutching a sack of flour?

The story of Gaza has a new chapter. Its title is simple. Hunger.

And when future generations read this chapter, they will not ask why Palestinians were angry. They will ask: how did the world keep eating while Gaza starved?

And yet, the world continues to be fed an illusion.