I run a soup kitchen in Gaza. The horrors of starvation here are indescribable.
Each morning, as the sun rises over the dust and debris, my focus narrows to one thing: feeding the hundreds who rely on the lifeline we call our soup kitchen in northern Gaza.
It's been more than two months since Israel hermetically sealed all of Gaza’s borders and banned the entry of all food, water and other lifesaving aid, once again weaponizing hunger against the entire population of 2 million people, half of whom are children.
Each morning, as the sun rises over the dust and debris, my focus narrows to one thing: feeding the hundreds who rely on the lifeline we call our soup kitchen in northern Gaza, with what meager supplies I manage to find that day, if any at all. Meats, fruits and vegetables are a distant memory. Finding a can of beans feels like a small victory. The smell of woodsmoke has become the only comfort in our shattered northern Gaza neighborhood, once teeming with the joyful banter of schoolchildren.
Unwilling to honor the terms it had agreed to months prior, Israel broke the ceasefire agreement, with the approval of the Trump administration, soon after reimposing a total siege on Gaza on March 2.
Humanitarian agencies now warn that starvation across Gaza has reached a breaking point. As the United Nations reports, "Since January, about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified, including 1,600 cases of severe acute malnutrition." Their very survival is at risk.
Each meal I can provide is a small act of defiance against the gnawing engineered starvation that has become a constant companion, part of what legal experts and human rights groups have called a genocide – one that aims to erase us from existence.
I see the starvation in Gaza every day. It's by design.
We see this every day now in the sunken eyes of emaciated children, whose laughter has been replaced by quiet desperation, in the hospital patients weakened by injury and lack of nourishment, and in the desperate pleas of mothers who tell us their breast milk has run out from stress and hunger.
I saw it in the eyes of 8-year-old Hiba, who showed up alone recently, bowl in hand, after a doctor told her she urgently needed food to stay alive. We had nothing to give her, so I offered her my own dinner instead.
The people of Gaza are being starved, not by accident but by design: Israel has been systematically blocking access to the necessities of life and destroying Gaza’s food infrastructure, including its bakeries, farms and the entire fishing sector, and has controlled Gaza’s foodways and borders for decades.
Despite warnings from the United Nations and multiple humanitarian organizations, Israel's defense minister recently declared that Israel will continue to block the entry of lifesaving supplies into Gaza.
Inside our humble kitchen, a large poster of my late brother, chef Mahmoud Almadhoun, watches over us. His warm laughter used to echo through these walls as he ran this very kitchen with love and unwavering dedication. An Israeli drone killed him on Nov. 30, but we feel his presence. We haven’t stopped since his death. We can’t. The hunger here doesn't take a break. It is a slow, agonizing death.
Our lives are in the hands of world leaders. Will they let us die?
I wear many hats – mother, grandmother, wife, sister, daughter. But the most sacred role of all is feeding the children who have no one else.
The stark reality I witness daily at the soup kitchen is children with pale complexions and skin sores, thinning hair and weakened bodies. It is in those moments, when no cameras are rolling and the world isn’t watching, that we come face to face with the cruel consequences of our abandonment by the world.
My sons work beside me in the chaos of the kitchen. I need them close, not just for the extra hands, but because I need to keep my eyes on them. I don’t even know what I’m protecting them from anymore. The threats in Gaza are both everywhere and nowhere at once, a constant and invisible hum of danger.
As I write this, the ever-present military drones buzz overhead.
There was a time we welcomed journalists, believing that the media coverage would pressure Israel to stop its atrocities. But a chilling fear has taken hold. The very attention we once sought now feels like a threat, painting a target on our backs. Israel’s targeting of journalists, aid workers and essential services like our soup kitchen has become a grim reality. Death is everywhere. It feels inescapable and inevitable.
More than 90% of the population of Gaza has been violently displaced from their homes by Israel over the past 19 months, and our communities have been systematically destroyed. Most, including my family, are refugees, expelled from their homes during Israel’s establishment in 1948.
And now, in addition to being starved, we face the threat of being driven out of our homeland entirely.
Israel’s finance minister declared May 6 that what little remains of Gaza will be “totally destroyed” in the coming months, and that the surviving population will be “concentrated” in a small area in the south along the border with Egypt.
Meanwhile, the government is preparing to forcibly relocate us to third countries, a process that Israeli officials euphemistically refer to as “voluntary transfer” or “migration,” in line with President Donald Trump’s vision.
Israel has also announced a plan to take control over aid distribution using private companies, which the U.N. and aid groups have condemned. They warned this would allow Israel to weaponize aid further and result in “de facto internment conditions” for the displaced population.
I implore President Trump and the international community to intervene immediately to end Israel’s siege and plans to drive us out of Gaza. Our lives are in their hands. The situation in Gaza is a cruel, man-made humanitarian catastrophe. Immediate action is needed to force Israel to allow the unrestricted entry of food, medicine and other essential aid ‒ and to end our unimaginable suffering before it’s too late.
Faten Madhoun is a mother of seven who leads the largest soup kitchen in northern Gaza.