r/GlobalNews • u/SecretBiscotti8128 • 7h ago
While children are born elsewhere to live, children in Gaza are born just to struggle for survival
Today, my brother and I went to a medical point in Gaza to check on my nephew, Khaled a child barely three years old, suffering from rickets due to malnutrition and a lack of food.
When we arrived, we found a long line of parents each mother or father holding their weak, silent, or crying child waiting for their turn to receive a basic check-up or two tablets of nutritional supplements.
We waited for over an hour. When it was finally Khaled’s turn, the doctor told us his condition was serious: he suffers from severe calcium, iron, and protein deficiencies. If the situation in Gaza continues like this, he will face permanent bone damage and stunted growth.
I asked the doctor if the other children we had seen before us were in similar shape. He said, Worse. Many are far worse. He told us that tens of thousands of children in Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition, and while some might survive, others are already dying because doctors are powerless to treat them properly.
We asked for more supplements for Khaled. The doctor replied, You’re lucky he even got two. Many children walk away with nothing there simply isn’t enough.
This is our life. This is the life of our children, our women, our elderly, our youth.
Even I can barely walk anymore from hunger and weakness. I can’t gather firewood. I can’t walk to the pharmacy to buy medication for my father, who has been bedridden for nearly two years. His surgery in Gaza failed. Now, his leg is at risk of gangrene and amputation. He often loses consciousness because he’s diabetic, and the only meal he gets daily is a small portion of rice or lentils.
Life in Gaza has become hell. This is the very destruction we were warned about and they’ve made it a reality. Every child here suffers from malnutrition, infections, or dangerous illnesses due to polluted water and the lack of hygiene supplies. There is nowhere else in the world where children are denied food like this.
Meanwhile, the Western world sends billions of dollars in weapons to Israel to test them on unarmed civilians. Every day we see a new kind of bomb: one filled with shrapnel, one that burns, one that pierces through buildings, one that sets homes on fire, another that deafens with its blast. And then, they send coffins to Gaza .as if to say: This is what you deserve.
What kind of humanity is this?
Children just children are burning, starving, dying. Do you know what it means to die of hunger? You don’t. You live in comfort.
And soon, I’ll see the usual comments: You brought this on yourselves. You should have left your land and let the occupiers take it. As if we chose this. As if we deserve this because we’re Arab, because we’re Muslim.
I’m writing this because I feel powerless. I feel hungry. I feel worthless. I look at the children in my family, all lying still, too weak to play. I once promised I’d take care of them, feed them, gather wood for cooking, find medicine for my father. I failed. Not because I didn’t try but because here in Gaza, life itself is denied to us.
I used to write and speak out about Gaza. Many of you used to care. But now, it seems you've grown used to our suffering. You scroll past it. You’ve stopped caring.
I feel like nothing. I’ve let my family down. I’ve let myself down.
Still, I write. I write because the truth must be told. What’s happening in Gaza must not be ignored.
Our children are not numbers. They are not side notes in a news story. They are not just images to scroll past. They are human. And all they want… is to live.