‘A skeleton covered in skin’: Aid workers on Gaza’s malnourished children
Nutritionist Rana Soboh says she has been pushed to her wits’ end after seeing two extreme malnutrition cases in Gaza, which is on the brink of famine due to Israel’s aid blockade.
The first was a woman who was rushed to an emergency room after fainting while she breastfed her newborn, who had not eaten for days, the humanitarian worker with MedGlobal told the Associated Press news agency.
The next day at another medical facility, Soboh found a severely malnourished one-year-old boy weighing 5kg (11 pounds), less than half what is normal on average. He had not grown any teeth and was too weak to cry, the report quoted Soboh as saying.
The mother was also malnourished, “a skeleton, covered in skin”.
When the mother asked for food, Soboh started crying uncontrollably. A feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed her. Soboh said sometimes she gives a little money or a bit of her own food. But now she, too, is struggling.
“This is the worst feeling, wanting to help but knowing you can’t. I wished the earth would crack open and swallow me,” she said. “What more cruel scenes does the world need to see?”
Gaza’s mothers fight to survive as Israel destroys last maternity hospital
In an Al Jazeera interview, obstetrician Dr Asil Jallad described Gaza’s catastrophic maternal healthcare collapse after two medical missions.
During her first deployment, partial hospital functionality allowed limited care for displaced women, but her second trip, during a brief ceasefire, revealed utter devastation: the sole OBGYN hospital serving 400,000 now lies in ruins.
Every pregnant woman suffers severe malnutrition and anaemia (some with life-threatening haemoglobin levels of 4.3), with births occurring in tents or via phone-guided deliveries.
Israel’s siege has blocked all medical aid, leaving women to labour in darkness, transported by donkey carts when ambulances are bombed. Despite this, 67,000 births have occurred since October, a testament to resilience amid what Dr Jallad called “the worst period of the war”.
Aid likely to enter Gaza ‘can’t cover people’s massive needs’
As we have reported, the Israeli government has announced it will allow limited aid into Gaza. But what exactly does “limited” mean?
Wassem Mushtaha, the Gaza response lead of aid group Oxfam, says humanitarian workers understand this to mean “minimal quantities of food, water and medicine, which cannot cover people’s massive needs”. Any aid, he added, is unlikely to include fuel, hygiene kits or other sanitation supplies that are crucial for hospitals.
“Currently, people are not just starving, they are traumatised, sick and displaced,” Mushtaha told Al Jazeera. “While any help is welcome, its scale and depth should be increased.”
He added that his organisation does not “have clarity” about Israel’s plan to subvert existing aid networks and distribute aid its own way, but that Oxfam would not be part of a system that “compromises… the rights of the people we serve”.
“What is urgently needed is not new obstacles on the ground, but real access, safe corridors and respect for international humanitarian law,” he said.
Israel’s plan to get limited aid to Gaza ‘insufficient’: Netherlands
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp has slammed Netanyahu’s announcement that Israel will allow limited aid into the war-torn enclave, calling it “flawed and “insufficient”.
“Massive humanitarian aid is urgently needed to end food insecurity and human suffering in Gaza,” Veldkamp said in a post on X. “There must be an immediate ceasefire, and Hamas must release all hostages.”
