Israeli-made famine starving Gaza's animal companions alongside humans

In the makeshift displacement camps scattered across Gaza, survival has been stripped down to crumbs and scraps.

31-year-old Mahmoud Zidan, a Palestinian man from al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, shares those precious crumbs with his two cats, Loza and Sahaba, who have followed him across the bombed-out streets ever since Israel's war began last October.

"I put them in a cardboard box every time we flee," Mahmoud says, recalling three separate times he was displaced since his family was forced to leave Gaza City under Israeli attacks. "People abandoned their animals, but I couldn't do that. They are part of my family, part of my life," he told The New Arab.

On a fraying blanket inside his tent, Mahmoud breaks hardened bread into crumbs and places them before Loza. The white cat, once well-fed and playful, sniffs the crumbs and tries to chew, her movements weak.

"Before the war, she used to eat chicken, canned food, and play all day, but now she can barely move. All the time, she is starving," he described.

Before Israel's war, Mahmoud would budget to buy canned food to feed his cats twice a day. Now, he grinds leftover bread with lentils or beans, serving it as a single meal per day.

"Even my cats know that there is no food any more. I see their suffering in their eyes, but they cannot ask me," he remarked.

Companions in starvation

In the ruins of northern Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, 26-year-old Ahmed Hamouda stands with his dog, Rex, who is tethered to a leash.

Once a muscular 30-kilogram German shepherd, Rex now drags his thin body along the ground, his ribs jutting out, his energy drained.

"Before, he ate meat, he ran with me every day. He was strong […] Now he is sick, weak, and has lost half his weight. Sometimes I think he won't make it," Ahmed told TNA.

"The current war did not differentiate between Palestinians and animals […] It is a genocidal war against everything here in Gaza; people, trees, animals and everything," he added. 

Veterinary clinics across Gaza have shuttered, their supplies all gone. Ahmed said he contacted his vet, who told him Rex needed urgent treatment for diarrhoea and severe malnutrition. "But what treatment? There are no medicines," Ahmed lamented. "I've cut down my meals to leave food for him. I won't abandon him after everything."

Not everyone has been able to hold on. Umm Alaa, displaced from Gaza City's Shujaiya neighbourhood, told TNA that she was forced to release her dog out to the streets when she could no longer share her family's food rations.

"For several months, I fed him from what we had until it was impossible. I saw him afterwards, looking for me in the rubble. I cried every night," she said. 

On Gaza's streets, stray cats and dogs are often seen, reduced to skin and bones, rummage through garbage heaps or ruins of bombed homes to look for any scrap of food. Some gather at aid distribution points, circling food queues, and children are often seen breaking their bread with kittens or dogs, a testament to the shared desperation.

Hidden consequences

The devastation facing Gaza's animals cannot be separated from the broader collapse imposed by Israel's collective punishment and blockade.

Since launching its war in October 2023, Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians and displaced most of the coastal enclave's population. The situation got worse on 2 March, when negotiations for a second phase of a ceasefire collapsed. Israel sealed Gaza's crossings, halting the entry of most goods. What little aid trickles in is not enough to meet human needs, let alone sustain livestock or pets.

UN data highlights the scale of the deprivation. Before the war, Gaza received around 500 trucks of goods daily. Since March, the figure has plunged to fewer than 80 trucks, less than 15 per cent of the minimum requirement.

Gaza's media repeatedly declared that the coastal enclave needs at least 600 trucks per day to stave off famine. The current trickle, it warns, "does not satisfy even the hunger of people."

For many Palestinians, caring for animals amid war and starvation has become a form of resistance, a refusal to surrender humanity in the face of devastation. Pets have become symbols of resilience, companionship, and fragments of a normal life that has all but vanished. Palestinians believe that pets are more than companions; they are also witnesses to war, sharing the hunger and the struggle for survival.

As Israeli bombs fall and its siege deepens, it seems more and more likely that Gaza will become a land emptied of all creatures, stripped of the fragile bonds that still tether life to dignity.