Four children have died from hunger within a week: Kamal Adwan Hospital director
The number of children who have died in the hospital due to malnutrition has risen to four within one week, Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital has announced.
“We lost a child in the nursery department of the hospital during the past few hours. He is the fourth child to die in the hospital in the last week due to malnutrition,” he said in a news conference held in the northern Gaza Strip.
Children starving to death as hunger spreads in Gaza
UN agencies are warning that over one million Palestinians in Gaza could face severe starvation by mid-July.
‘Our future is gone. Our education is gone’
Up to 39,000 senior high school students in the Gaza Strip should be sitting very important exams at the moment, called tawjihi, which would enable them to enrol in higher education.
But due to the ongoing Israeli military assault, students such as Doaa al-Zaanin can only hope for the war to end so that they can go back to school.
“Before the war started, I was studying. I worked really hard,” al-Zaanin, from Beit Hanoon, told Al Jazeera. “I had my lessons and then would go home, revise, do extra lessons and exams with special teachers.”
Since the war started in October, the majority of Gaza’s schools and universities have been destroyed, including al-Zaanin’s. “Our future is gone. Our education is gone. But I won’t give up. I’m continuing with my studies. I study in my shelter which is a school.”
There are no facilities in Gaza capable of hosting students for the exams.
“We’ve [UNRWA] got about 300 schools in Gaza. Almost two-thirds of them have been damaged or destroyed,” he said, adding that the schools that haven’t been destroyed are being used to shelter displaced people.
“Unfortunately, these places, as we know, are not always safe. Five hundred people to date have been killed inside UNRWA schools.”
