00:01They crowd around a soup kitchen, waving empty bowls in despair and clinging to survival
00:07as hunger in Gaza has reached a critical point.
00:12Foreign aid drops fall short, leaving starving families desperate.
00:16My children sleep without food, or if I can find something or beg for my neighbors, I will.
00:24And sometimes I send my son and tell him to beg from houses, bring a loaf of bread, rice
00:28to cook, just for his little sister, thank God.
00:33But I am unable to do much more than that."
00:37Gaza's hunger crisis has grown over 22 months of war due to aid restrictions and worsened
00:44by Israel's two-and-a-half-month blockade of food and supplies back in March.
00:50Gaza's Ministry of Health says that more people in Gaza have died of starvation in almost two
00:55weeks than in the previous 22 months of conflict.
00:59NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders and the World Food Programme report that 25% of children
01:05under five in Gaza face acute malnutrition, with one in three people going for days without
01:12food.
01:13Yes, items available like a kilo of flour now cost a staggering $100.
01:20What we are seeing unfold right now is this systematic destruction or the systematic blockade
01:25of every single thing that a human being needs to survive.
01:29We've submitted multiple requests to the Israeli authorities to bring those food parcels into
01:35Gaza and they have been denied with a four-word answer saying food is not the priority.
01:40Experts warn that Gaza has descended into the worst-case scenario, a full-blown famine.
01:47According to a classification system on food security known as the IPC, a famine is declared
01:54when 20% of households in a region face severe food shortages, 30% of children suffer from acute
02:00malnutrition and two in 10,000 adults die daily directly due to hunger or malnutrition.
02:08The UN has not yet officially declared famine in Gaza due to a lack of supporting data.
02:14Israeli officials have denied the existence of mass starvation, stating without evidence
02:20that Hamas has stolen or hoarded aid and blaming hunger on UN distribution failures.
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