The struggle for basic needs extends beyond food. Diapers are unattainable, forcing S to tear her clothes for makeshift ones, which are impossible to wash due to lack of clean water – the result of the destruction or severe damage of Gaza’s water and sanitation systems. The tent in which she lives with her husband and two children is infested with rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches. Her baby daughter developed a bacterial skin infection, which she is unable to treat because antibiotics and ointments are unavailable.

Humanitarian workers at two organizations who spoke to Amnesty International on condition of anonymity mentioned that their organizations’ requests to bring in antibiotics were rejected by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit at Israel’s Ministry of Defense tasked with processing requests for the coordination and approval of entry of supplies.

The mental harm of starvation, including trauma, guilt, and shame, are also shared by pregnant women interviewed by Amnesty International. Hadeel, 28, a four-months pregnant mother of two, described her fear for her fetus as she barely feels its movement or heartbeat inside her. She feels guilt for her pregnancy, knowing that she cannot feed herself: “I fear miscarriage, but I also think about my baby: I panic just thinking about the potential impact of my own hunger on the baby’s health, its weight, whether it will have [birth defects], and even if the baby is born healthy, what life awaits it, amidst displacement, bombs, tents…”

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Aziza, 75, told Amnesty International of her wish to die:

“I feel like I have become a burden on my family. When we were displaced, they had to push me on a wheelchair. With toilet queues extremely long in the camp where we stay, I need adult diapers, which are extremely expensive. I need medication for diabetes, blood pressure and a heart condition, and have had to take medicine which has expired. I always feel like these young children, they are the ones who deserve to live, my grandchildren. I feel like I’m a burden on them, on my son.”