🩸 He Could've Been Saved. Instead, They Starved Him to Death
17-year-old Atef Abu Khater was a healthy teenage boy before this genocide. Today he was starved to death by Israel and the United States. He's the 149th known starvation victim.
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His name was Atef Abu Khater. He was 17 years old.
He was not terminally ill. He had no disease. He was not injured in an airstrike. He was not in the rubble of a destroyed building.
He was in a hospital.
And they still couldn’t save him.
According to medical staff at Al-Shifa Hospital, Atef was hospitalized earlier this week in intensive care.
His body was failing — not from trauma, but from hunger.
"He had been in good health before the war," a medical source said.
His father told the press that Atef had stopped responding to treatment. There was no more nutrition to give. No protein. No milk. No medicine.
There was nothing left but a slow death.
They let him starve to death.
Let me say this plainly:
Atef could have been saved.
He was in a hospital. With staff. With monitoring. With family.
What he didn't have was food.
What he didn't have was access to the global aid being blocked, bombed, and burned by Israel and the United States.
What he didn't have was a world willing to act before it was too late.
His photo was taken by Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Awadia
It shows Atef before he died.
Still alive. Still breathing. Still possibly savable.
But every bone in his face tells the story. His body had already begun to disappear.
His death brings the confirmed starvation toll to 149.
How many more will it take?
How many children, teens, elders, women, and yes, men — must be intentionally starved before the world calls this what it is?
Genocide.
Gaza is not starving. Gaza is being starved.
This is not a famine. This is not a drought. This is not nature.
This is a siege.
This is a policy.
This is a war crime.
This is murder by starvation.
And Atef’s death must be remembered as such.
📸 Photo by Mahmoud Awadia
🏥 Reported from Al-Shifa Hospital
🕊️ Atef Abu Khater, 17 years old, Gaza
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Please, I beg each of you, do not grow cold to this. Do not let it become normal for you.
We will not forget, the world will not forget Atef Abu Khater and the victims of this genocide. The perpetrators of this holocaust will pay for this, because for all time they will be on the wrong side of history and the world will never forget and the perpetrators will never be able to erase their guilt and their shameful criminal record.