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CNN
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Anwar Abdul Nabi stands at the end of his bed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Her eyes are sunken with sadness.
A young mother gently holds the finger of her daughter Mila. Just a few minutes ago, a 7-year-old girl starved to death.
“My daughter was exposed to God's mercy because she lacked calcium, potassium and oxygen,” Nabi told CNN on Monday, crying in the arms of an elderly relative. “Suddenly everything fell off, because she didn't eat anything that contained iron or eggs. She ate eggs every day before the war. Now there's nothing. She died.”
Displaced Palestinians told CNN they are struggling to feed their children as Israel's strict restrictions on aid to the Gaza Strip deplete essential supplies. Doctors say starving mothers cannot produce enough milk to breastfeed their babies. Parents arrive at a crowded medical facility and beg for powdered milk. In northern Gaza, people are scrambling for relief supplies in search of rare humanitarian supplies. Medical workers say they are unable to provide life-saving treatment to malnourished Gazans, as the medical system has been overwhelmed by Israeli shelling and siege.
Gaza's Health Ministry announced on Tuesday that 364 medical workers have been killed since the start of the war. 269 medical staff were arrested. 155 medical facilities were “destroyed” and 155 ambulances “targeted”. CNN cannot independently verify the numbers because international media does not have access to Gaza.
Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the militant group Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 in southern Israel.
Since then, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 30,717 Palestinians and injured another 72,156, according to the enclave's health ministry, and the siege has drastically reduced vital supplies and the enclave's population. Approximately 2.2 million people remain exposed to high levels of radiation. Levels of severe food insecurity or higher, according to the Integrated Food Security and Trophic Classification (IPC), which assesses food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide.
Health Ministry Spokesperson Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra announced on Wednesday that at least 20 Palestinians have died of starvation in the Gaza Strip. Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said the youngest baby to die of starvation in the enclave was one day old. The actual number is likely to be even higher as aid agencies are unable to fully assess the situation on the ground due to limited access to northern Gaza. UN experts have accused Israel of “deliberately starving” Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel insists there is “no limit” to the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime for aid trucks means that only a fraction of the amount of food and other supplies that flowed into Gaza each day before the war were allowed to enter Gaza. Only part of the program has been accepted. I'm in now.
One-year-old Watin, who lives in northern Gaza, has become tired and weak from dehydration. Instead of drinking formula, she gets by with one or two dates a day.
“She has only eaten one meal,” said her father, Iklas Shehadeh, who is struggling to scavenge enough food to feed his baby girl. “She went without milk for a long time. This child is struggling with not being able to move,” he told CNN on Tuesday. “I don't know what to do.”
“Thousands of women's babies due to be born next month in the Gaza Strip are at risk of death,” UNICEF's Palestine Humanitarian Situation Report said on Tuesday. At least 5,500 pregnant women “have been unable to access prenatal and postnatal check-ups due to the bombing and have had to flee to safety,” the report said.
“Anxiety is also linked to premature birth,” the report added, citing information from the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF). The report also states that “more than 90% of women aged 6 to 23 months, pregnant and breastfeeding, face severe food poverty and lack of access.” Limit yourself to no more than two food groups per day. ”
CNN
Anwar Abdul Nabi, a young mother who lost her 7-year-old daughter Mira to malnutrition a few minutes ago. Israel's siege of Gaza has plunged the enclave's Palestinians into deadly famine.
Food shortages are reportedly worst in northern Gaza, where Israel focused its military offensive early in the war. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), child malnutrition in the region is about three times higher than in southern Gaza. Testing at health facilities in the region has so far found at least one in six children under the age of two to be acutely malnourished, said Richard Pieperkorn, WHO representative for the region. . He warned that those numbers were “likely to be even higher today.” Pregnant and breastfeeding women also face “serious health threats” posed by malnutrition, the Global Nutrition Cluster, a coalition of NGOs, reported in February.
Dr. Mohammad Salha, acting director of Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, told CNN that medical workers were treating cases of dehydration, gastroenteritis and hepatitis among women and children.
“There was an infant who died in the mother's womb and an operation was performed to remove the dead fetus,” he said on Monday. “Because of the conditions we find ourselves in, mothers are not eating and this affects their infants. Many children become dehydrated and malnourished, leading to several deaths. there is.”
Mohammed Salem/Reuters
A Palestinian child suffering from malnutrition is treated at a medical center in Rafah, southern Gaza, on March 4. Children and mothers are most at risk of severe malnutrition.
At least 1.7 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by Israeli shelling, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Many people fleeing the fighting are crammed into crowded shelters without basic sanitation, contributing to the spread of infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization, malnourished children, especially those who are severely malnourished, are at higher risk of dying from diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia.
Another doctor in northern Gaza, Ahmad Salem, said patients in intensive care units and neonatal units were dying from malnutrition and lack of oxygen, making treatment difficult amid the fuel shortage. “We are suffering from maternal hunger,” a health worker at Kamal Adwan Hospital told CNN. “We can't find a replacement for breast milk, which leads to the deaths of our children.”
Footage obtained by CNN shows scores of civilians desperately trying to grab food packs that had been dropped with aid in northern Gaza.
The United Arab Emirates and Egypt sent 42 tons of medical supplies and food to the region by plane on Tuesday, the Emirati Ministry of Defense announced. On the same day, the US military announced that it had parachuted more than 36,800 meals into northern Gaza with the Jordanian Air Force.
Kosai Al Nemer/Reuters
Palestinians watch as U.S. forces drop emergency relief supplies over Gaza City in northern Gaza on March 2. Human rights groups say the drops are a degrading means of getting aid to Gazans.
But human rights groups criticized the drops as an inefficient and degrading way to obtain aid to Gazans and called on Israeli authorities to lift restrictions on land crossings into the enclave. Melanie Ward, CEO of the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, called on Israel to “go to Gaza for aid workers to help people in need.” “We urge all countries to open all borders immediately.”
“Only safe and free access for supporters and aid workers, an end to the siege, and an immediate ceasefire can end hunger in the Gaza Strip,” she said in a statement on Saturday.
Even if aid reaches the Strip, retrieving it can be risky.
Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for aid in northern Gaza on Monday in an incident shortly before midnight at the Kuwait Roundabout on Rashid Street in Gaza City, witnesses told CNN. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.
Last Thursday, at least 118 people died trying to access food aid in Gaza City, in one of the worst single tragedies of the war so far. Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces used live ammunition as hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians gathered around a food truck, and Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour called the incident “an outrageous attack.” “It was a massacre,” he said. The Israeli military said it first fired warning shots to control the crowd, then opened fire on the “looters” who approached. Both witnesses and the IDF said most of the dead were rammed by support truck drivers as they tried to escape the gunfire and chaos. CNN cannot independently confirm this number.
Faraj Abu Naji, whose sister gave birth to twin girls a week ago, was able to obtain just three cartons of milk for his newborn niece during relief operations in northern Gaza. He told CNN that he injured his leg while trying to buy flour along Al Rashid Street.
“We thank God that humanitarian aid is being dropped from Jordanian and United Arab Emirates aircraft,” he said on Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to get milk from planes dropping aid so that we can provide milk for our nieces for as long as possible.
“Planes are dropping aid into northern Gaza and we are like dogs chasing a bone.”
