Israeli-orchestrated starvation takes toll on children in Gaza
From tents to hospitals, the presence of starving and malnourished children is becoming more common in Gaza.
Mosab al-Dibs is among them. The 14-year-old has been at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for about two months after suffering a severe head injury when an Israeli air raid struck his family’s tent in May.
The boy is largely paralysed and severely malnourished because the facility no longer has supplies to feed him. “Mosab now suffers from severe malnutrition,” his mother, Shahinaz al-Dibs, said. “He suffers convulsions as a result of a hit that affected his brain. Even his nerves are stiff.”
Due to an Israeli blockade, the UN says the impact of hunger, which has been building for months, is quickly worsening, especially in Gaza City and the north.
In recent weeks, only a trickle of aid has entered Gaza, leading to alarming levels of Israeli-orchestrated starvation. “During this period, the children suffered malnourishment due to starvation,” Suzan Marouf, a doctor at Friends of the Patient Hospital, said, adding that medics are struggling to provide care.
“There are not enough nutritional supplements. We have some children that we keep in the hospital to observe due to extreme malnutrition.”
Forced starvation stalking Gaza’s most vulnerable first
Months of an Israeli blockade in Gaza has affected children with pre-existing health conditions – and those wounded in Israeli attacks – the most. At a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza, Samah Matar cradles one of her sons.
Six-year-old Yousef and his four-year-old brother Amir have cerebral palsy and need a special diet. With little food in the past few months, their fragile little bodies have begun to shrink.
Youssef weighed 14kg (31lb) before the war. Now, he weighs 9kg (20lb). Amir, who weighed 9kg, is now less than 6 (13lb).
“These children have special feeding needs. Now, there is no baby formula or diapers, and I can hardly find flour for them. Sugar, the main ingredient in their meals, is unavailable,” Matar said. “Before the war, their health was excellent. They were provided with special meals, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.”
A Palestinian child fills his schoolbag with leftover flour instead of books
While children across much of the world are enjoying their summer holidays, children in Gaza are preparing for another day of hunger, displacement and living under siege.
In a video verified by Al Jazeera, a Palestinian boy is seen bending down to scoop up leftover flour from the ground and place it carefully into his schoolbag.
“A child collects the remaining flour on the ground and puts it in his school bag, which was supposed to contain his school books and enable him to learn like the rest of the children of the world,” wrote Mohammed Al-Yaqoubi, the photographer and filmmaker who recorded the footage.
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