John, I just got back from Gaza, and even though it’s hard to write and hard to hear, I need to tell you what I saw.

Children are everywhere you look in Rafah, many without shoes. Children are not in school; instead, they’re running around searching for food and clean water. The chairs, desks and books that survived bombing are being burned by desperate civilians trying to stay warm. 

One mother told me: “We need mental health support more than food.” That’s saying something with 1 in 3 children under the age of 2 severely malnourished.

Almost 350,000 children under the age of 5 are at risk of starvation as we speak. The world is staring down the barrel of a man-made famine.

As children get hungry, their bodies weaken. Their muscles waste, vision blurs, immune systems fail. At this stage, children are too weak to cry. Organs fail, hearts stop. Severe malnutrition is not a quiet or painless death.

Families are sheltering under pieces of plastic with just a couple of wooden poles. Quite often, many people share a very small space. Infectious diseases and lack of hygiene are some of the biggest risks, with one bathroom for up to 1,000 people. One bathroom per 1,000 people. Can you imagine? 

Overall, the situation in Gaza is as dire as it comes. All of the humanitarians I’ve met are telling me the same thing: They’ve never seen anything like it. 

Human life is not being prioritized – not the lives of civilians, of children and women and certainly not the lives of humanitarians. We need action. We need change. And, we need it now.

But the solutions here are pretty straightforward.

1. We need a definitive ceasefire. Give humanitarians safe access and a ceasefire, and we can save lives. 
2. We need all hostages safely released. 
3. More humanitarian aid must be allowed to enter Gaza.
4. And humanitarians need to be able to do their work – delivering food, water and shelter – safely and securely.