Food alone will not save the hungry population of Gaza | Hunger

Israel has imposed artificial famine on the population of Gaza since the aggression against the enclave began in October 2023. This campaign was considerably intensified after March 2025, when the Zionist occupation implemented even more severe restrictions on the already rare aid authorized in Gaza. Since then, hundreds of men, women and children have died of serious malnutrition. Doctors survive every day on skinny breadcrumbs and oil, often using sea water to ingest essential electrolytes. Journalists have become too weak to exercise their functions, and men are too fragile to risk their lives on GHF sites. The population now resembles the stretched skin attempted on the bones.

Such severe malnutrition has unfortunately been observed throughout history, and its effects on the human body are well documented. The systems have closed one by one, the fatigue envelops the victims and the body begins to consume itself to death. Cooling accounts between 1920 and 1940 in the Soviet Union paint a similar table. The artists collapsed halfway through, dying where they stood. People fell dead in the streets as if he just fell asleep. Despair has reached such extremes that the judicial archives tell a mother dismembered her unconscious husband, believing the dead, to feed their children.

What is often overlooked, however, is that the recovery of famine can be just as devastating. Ironically, one of the first recorded accounts of this phenomenon comes from the siege of Jerusalem in 70 EC. For five months, under the command of Titus, son of the Vespasian emperor, the Roman army cut all the help of the Jewish city of the time. Like the population of Gaza today, the citizens of Jerusalem have been wasted, insured by the disease and forced to eat leather. After the Romans violated the doors and captured the city, Flavius Josephus, a Jewish commander who defeated the Romans, reported that many survivors died shortly after eating. Malnutrition citizens would threate on food to the point of vomiting, with many dying in a few hours.

After the Second World War, similar accounts emerged involving Japanese prisoners of war. Malnutrition soldiers released from captivity in the Philippines, New Guinea, and elsewhere have been full of calorically rich foods provided by their liberators. About one in five of these prisoners died due to this realization process. Medical examinations have revealed narrowed organs, heart failure and other serious complications. Comparable observations have been reported on several occasions in hungry civilian populations after relief of famine, in postoperative patients, individuals with mental anorexia and chronic alcoholics.

Now commonly known as the reality syndrome, this condition describes a dangerously rapidly rapid passage of a catabolic state to an anabolic state. In famine, the body suppresses insulin and relies on the rupture of muscles and fat, exhausting the essential intracellular ions. Once the power of Curriculum Vitae, insulin is increasing, which means that glucose and electrolytes flood in cells. This sudden cell lag highly lowers blood levels of phosphate, potassium and magnesium. Insulin also promotes sodium and water retention in the blood circulation, leading to fluid overload. If it is not treated, these changes can cause catastrophic damage to the heart, lungs, nerves and blood, causing arrhythmias, respiratory failure and death.

It is important to emphasize that the refeeding syndrome is not simply “too many calories too quickly”; It is a metabolic shock. A controlled power supply is insufficient. Patients need carefully planned treatment, starting with supplementation in electrolyte and vitamins before the start of the diet. A qualified and multidisciplinary team and routine laboratory tests are essential to ensure that recovery is safe. Pharmacists, psychiatrists, laboratory technicians and other specialists must work together to breastfeed malnutrition to health.

In the context of the genocide in Gaza, imagining such care is heartbreaking. The medical infrastructure is collapsed there. Doctors only deal with urgent cases. Anesthetics have almost exhausted and vinegar, if found, is used to clean the wounds. Children’s members are amputated while they are fully aware and suffering. It is not a remote system capable of rehabilitating two million hungry people. Israel deliberately assures this by applying a blockade to medical supplies and brutally targeting health workers, ambulances and hospitals.

Tragically, we cannot count on hungry individuals to control their own networks. Hunger twists the mind, which makes a person obsessively fixed to food. Thought “it may be your only chance to eat, so eat as much as possible” becomes overwhelming. In monitoring Ancel Keys malnutrition experiences, it was noted that several recovered participants continued to work in the food and catering industry. The reality is that a seriously poorly nourished person cannot be supposed to regulate their diet once the food is available.

It is therefore crucial to demand international pressures on Israel to allow the immediate entry of medical equipment, laboratory facilities and specialized teams in Gaza. More crucial, they must stop targeting health workers and health establishments. It is almost as vital as the entrance to the aid itself. Western governments have a range of tools to force Israel to stop its genocidal aggression and allow humanitarian and medical assistance, but they choose not to use them. They are accomplices of one of the most horrible genocides in modern times. Citizens of the world must put pressure on their governments to act. We must remain aware that without the medical infrastructure that accompanies aid, thousands of people may die from the refeeding syndrome.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.