As Israel’s pressured hunger tightens its grip on Gaza’s total inhabitants, an growing variety of Palestinian households are frantically looking for information of kin who undertook perilous journeys to get meals from assist distribution factors, by no means to return.
Khaled Obaid has been looking for his beloved son, Ahmed, for 2 months, scanning each passing automobile on the coastal street in Deir-el-Balah, hoping towards all odds that one in every of them may carry him dwelling.
The boy had left the displaced household’s tent within the central city to seek out meals for his dad and mom and sister, who misplaced her husband throughout the struggle, and headed to the Zikim crossing level, the place assist vans enter northern Gaza.
“He hasn’t returned till now. He went as a result of he was hungry. We’ve nothing to eat,” the distraught father informed Al Jazeera, breaking down in tears along with his spouse underneath the blue tarpaulin the place they’re sheltering.
Khaled reported his son’s disappearance to the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross, and each official physique he may attain, to radio silence. To today, he has obtained no solutions on Ahmed’s whereabouts.
Khaled’s story is all too frequent underneath Israel’s ongoing punishing blockade of Gaza, the place the largely displaced inhabitants faces a stark selection between hunger or braving the bullets fired by Israeli troopers and United States safety contractors in a bid to get meals from Gaza Humanitarian Basis (GHF) websites. These distribution factors have been dubbed “dying traps” and “human slaughterhouses” by the United Nations and rights teams.
It’s a life-or-death gamble that has taken the lives of practically 1,400 individuals, gunned down primarily by the Israeli military, on the assist websites since they began operations in late Might, in keeping with figures launched by the UN this week. That’s with out counting the untold numbers of lacking assist seekers, like Ahmed.
Human rights screens have been gathering harrowing first-hand accounts of people that have gone lacking in Gaza, solely to be discovered later, killed by Israeli forces.
“In lots of instances, those that went lacking are apparently killed close to the help distribution factors, however because of the Israeli focusing on, their our bodies remained unreachable,” Maha Hussaini, the pinnacle of media on the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, informed Al Jazeera.
“Many Palestinians left dwelling with empty palms, hoping to return with a bag of flour. However many by no means got here again,” mentioned Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir-el-Balah. “In Gaza, the road between survival and disappearance is now heartbreakingly skinny.”
Because the variety of lacking assist seekers mounts, famine stalks the enclave, with greater than 80 adults reportedly dying of hunger over the previous 5 weeks alone, and 93 youngsters succumbing to man-made malnutrition for the reason that struggle started.
Authorities in Gaza say a mean of 84 vans have entered the besieged enclave every day since Israel eased restrictions on July 27. However assist organisations say no less than 600 assist vans are wanted per day to satisfy the territory’s primary wants.
‘Dying circle’
On Monday, amid rising worldwide condemnation over mass hunger extensively seen as intentionally engineered by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to double down on his struggle objectives.
Netanyahu introduced that he would convene a gathering of his cupboard Tuesday to make sure “Gaza will now not pose a menace to Israel”. Israel’s Channel 12 cited an official as saying that Netanyahu was tending in the direction of increasing the offensive.
The announcement got here on one other bloody day within the Strip, with no less than 74 Palestinians killed in Israeli assaults since daybreak on Monday, together with 36 assist seekers, in keeping with medical sources.
Among the many assaults, no less than three have been killed by an Israeli strike on a home in Deir-el-Balah, in keeping with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A supply at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza Metropolis reported that seven individuals have been killed in Israeli shelling on a number of areas within the Shujayea neighbourhood, east of Gaza Metropolis.
Emergency companies mentioned that two have been killed in an Israeli bombing of Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza.
It additionally emerged on Monday {that a} nurse at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah was killed when he was hit by an airdropped field of assist.
This week, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described the harmful airdrops as a “distraction” and a smokescreen.
On Monday, UNICEF warned that 28 youngsters – basically a complete “classroom” – are dying a day from Israeli bombardment and lack of assist.
“Gaza’s youngsters want meals, water, medication and safety. Greater than something, they want a ceasefire, NOW,” mentioned the UN company on X.
Dying by bombardments.
Dying by malnutrition and hunger.
Dying by lack of assist and important companies.
In Gaza, a mean of 28 youngsters a day – the scale of a classroom – have been killed.Gaza’s youngsters want meals, water, medication and safety. Greater than something, they want a… pic.twitter.com/7QIQQ6IAoG
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) August 4, 2025
The Palestinian Overseas Ministry referred to as on the UN Safety Council to “assume its duties” by imposing a right away ceasefire in Gaza, conducting an official go to to the territory and implementing calls at a latest UN convention in New York for a two-state resolution.
In an announcement posted on social media on Monday, the ministry warned that greater than two million Palestinians in Gaza are “residing in a decent dying circle of killing, hunger, thirst, and deprivation of drugs, remedy, and all primary human rights”.