Nearly every Gaza child at risk of famine: Save the Children
The international charity Save the Children has warned that about 93 percent of the children in Gaza – about 930,000 minors – are at critical risk of famine after the release of the IPC data.
“Without urgent action to end the siege and to allow food and medicine into Gaza, one million children are at risk of starvation, disease and ultimately death,” it said, adding that the Israeli war and blockade on the entry of aid have pushed families to take “unimaginable measures to survive”.
In a statement, Save the Children said its staff members have received reports of families in northern Gaza resorting to eating animal feed, expired flour and flour mixed with sand out of desperation to survive.
“We know what hunger feels like – we’ve tasted death,” the statement quoted a 25-year-old mother of four in northern Gaza as saying. “Our children are just waiting their turn to die.”
Save the Children Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe Ahmad Alhendawi described the situation as a “deliberate humanitarian catastrophe” and a “crisis of access”.
“Children are being starved by design, under Israeli authorities’ total siege. We have the food, we have the aid and we know how to treat malnutrition in children – what we don’t have is access,” Alhendawi said.
“At any given moment in Gaza, a child, someone’s whole world, could be killed by bombs and bullets, starvation and disease. The international community must act now to open the crossings and deliver life-saving aid. We cannot stand by while an entire population is starved in plain sight.”
Palestinians, mostly children, wait in long lines to get food distributed by charities at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on April 28
‘Man-made’ spread of starvation in Gaza ‘unconscionable’
As warnings of imminent famine grow after the release of the IPC’s analysis, Jolien Veldwijk, country director for CARE International in Palestine, condemned the “man-made” nature of the crisis, calling it “unconscionable”.
“For more than a year and a half, we have witnessed the spread of starvation across Gaza, which has accelerated since the Israeli government’s block on aid, a siege that has been going on for over two months now,” Veldwijk said.
She described the psychological toll of the crisis as “haunting” as mothers arrive at clinics with their babies weighing as little as 2kg (4.4lb) and families watching their loved ones grow thinner each day.
“Meanwhile, supplies that could be used to treat them sit just a few kilometres away at the border, blocked,” she added.
Veldwijk urged the international community to “exhaust every effort” to secure an immediate and lasting ceasefire and the return of the captives, warning that only a full-scale flow of humanitarian aid could halt further starvation and death.
‘Preventable famine unfolding in real time’
We’re hearing more reaction to the latest IPC report, which warns Gaza is at critical risk of famine if Israel doesn’t end its total blockade.
In a statement, Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam’s food security and livelihoods coordinator, condemned what he called “the use of starvation as a weapon of war”.
“Gaza’s starvation is not incidental – it is deliberate, entirely engineered – and has now created the largest population facing starvation anywhere in the world,” said Alsaqqa. A preventable famine is unfolding in real time. It is unconscionable and is being allowed to happen.”
Alsaqqa said Israel’s ongoing siege – in place since March 2 – is blocking essential food, water and medicine from entering Gaza , while “thousands of trucks filled with life-saving supplies … are waiting at the border, metres away.”
He described the scenes in Gaza as “defy[ing] belief,” with families wasting away, malnourished children too weak to cry, and camps where only five out of 500 families had flour left to make bread. “We distributed our last food parcels weeks ago,” he said.
Oxfam also condemned Israel’s plan to militarise the aid distribution, calling it “an egregious violation of international humanitarian law” that “turns aid into a tool of control”, further endangering both civilians and humanitarian workers.
“Silence in the face of this man-made starvation is complicity,” Alsaqqa said.
