Food shortages now killing Gaza’s children
Many now eating weeds and rabbit food
AFTER months of warnings over the risk of famine in Gaza under Israel’s bombardment, offensives and siege, children are starting to die. Hunger is most acute in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by Israeli forces and has suffered long cutoffs of food supply deliveries.
At least 20 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration at the north’s Kamal Adwan and Shifa hospitals, according to the Health Ministry. Most of the dead are children – including ones as old as 15.
Particularly vulnerable children are also beginning to succumb in the south, where access to aid is more regular.
At the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, 16 premature babies have died of malnutrition-related causes over the past five weeks, one of the senior doctors told The Associated Press.
“The child deaths we feared are here,” Adele Khodr, Unicef’s Middle East chief, said in a statement earlier this week. Malnutrition is generally slow to bring death, striking children and the elderly first. Other factors can play a role. Underfed mothers have difficulty breastfeeding children.
Israel largely shut off entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies after launching its assault on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, allowing only a trickle of aid trucks through two crossings in the south.
Israel has blamed the burgeoning hunger in Gaza on UN agencies, saying they fail to distribute supplies piling up at Gaza crossings.
UNRWA, the largest UN agency in Gaza, says Israel restricts some goods and imposes cumbersome inspections that slow entry. Distribution within Gaza has also been crippled.
UN officials say convoys are regularly turned back by Israeli forces, the military often refuses safe passage amid fighting, and aid is snatched off trucks by hungry Palestinians en route to drop-off points.
Meat, milk, vegetables and fruit are nearly impossible to find. The few items in shops are random and sold at hugely inflated prices.
Most people eat a weed that crops up in empty lots, known as “khubaiza”. Fatima Shaheen, a 70-yearold who lives with her two sons and their children in northern Gaza, said boiled khubaiza is her main meal, and her family has also ground-up food meant for rabbits to use as flour. “We are dying for a piece of bread,” Shaheen said.
Qamar Ahmed said his 18-monthold daughter, Mira, eats mostly boiled weeds. “There is no food that suits her age,” said Ahmed, a researcher with Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and an economic journalist.
His 70-year-old father gives his own food to Ahmed’s young son, Oleyan. “We try to make him eat and he refuses,” Ahmed said of his father.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the acting head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told the AP his staff currently treats 300 to 400 children a day, and that 75% of them are suffering from malnutrition. Recent airdrops of aid by the US and other countries provide far lower amounts of aid than truck deliveries, which have become rare and sometimes dangerous.
UNRWA says Israeli authorities have not allowed it to deliver supplies to the north since January 23. The