I am Ghaydaa, a Palestinian girl from Gaza. I'm starving.
Palestinian Children gather next to a collection of jugs hoping to find water in Khan Yunis, Gaza, July 20, 2025. Photo Credit: Ghaydaa kamal Alabadsaa
I am Ghaydaa, a Palestinian girl from Gaza. I no longer write to express, but to scream. To tell the world: We are dying of hunger. We are dying.
I'm writing these words on an empty stomach. I haven’t eaten anything for three days. Nothing comes into my mouth except bitter water. No flour, no rice, nothing. I don't even have a piece of bread to silence my stomach, which is eating away at me from the inside. Hunger has become a creature residing in my gut, slowly consuming me, mercilessly.
This is not a literary metaphor, it is biological reality. I've been living it every day for weeks, and I don't know if I'll make it through the month alive.
On the streets of Khan Yunis, I walk and see scenes the mind cannot imagine. Young men suddenly fall, fainting as they walk, not because they are injured, but because their bodies are emaciated. You see them leaning against walls to keep from falling, breathing with difficulty, dragging their feet, as if they are ghosts of people once alive.
I saw with my own eyes a young man fall to the ground in the street from extreme hunger and exhaustion. His head hit the asphalt. He remained lying on the sidewalk, as people passed by him almost accustomed to the scene. Who will save him?
In the tent, in the place where I am displaced, the only sign of life is the sound of groaning. No one speaks. No one laughs. No one even cries. Exhaustion has worn down our souls before our bodies. We have no energy to cry.
Hunger has put my life on hold. I am a university student. I used to study, plan and dream. Today, I can't even read a single sentence. My thoughts are confused. My memory is eroded. All that concerns me is: Will I eat today? Will I live until tomorrow?
All the roads leading to aid are closed. The aid sites themselves are death traps. The crossings are closed. There is no flour. Israel is starving us to death, slowly and painfully. For a moment I forgot about the bombs because I’m so hungry.
Yet the world remains silent. Where is the United Nations and UNRWA? It was our only lifeline and now its gone. Where are the Arabs? Where is the world? Where is the so-called rules based world order? Strongly worded statements do not provide us any calories at all. We need food and water. For god’s sake, why are you starving us to death?
Do you know what it means to see a child sucking his thumb from hunger? To see a girl crying because she cannot find any flour? To see a young man rummaging through piles of garbage in search of food scraps? These are not scenes from the distant past. This is Gaza, right now, as I pen these words to paper.
I am Ghaydaa and I write with anger, hunger, and brokenness. I don't want pity, I want the world to hear me and to act. I want them to know that we are dying because someone decided to kill us, slowly, painfully. That someone is Israel.
Seventy children have died of hunger in the past few months, and these are only the confirmed cases, and this is just the beginning. We are being buried in in darkness and silence.
Is our blood cheaper than yours? Or will I, Ghaydaa, just become another number on the list. I have become afraid of sleeping, not because I fear the bombing, but because I fear not waking up. Hunger is killing me. It could be tomorrow or the day after, but our days are numbered. Will I live to write again?
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