Baby starves to death in Gaza weighing less than when she was born
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Gaza children starving to death in droves as horror images show suffering
WARNING: DISTRESSING IMAGES. At least 21 Palestinian children have died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 72 hours. Another 70,000 now suffering malnutrition, medical officials have declared. Horrific imagery of starving children are emerging with, one year-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, shown as having starved to less than a stone in weight. Israeli forces stormed the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah for the first time since the war broke out. They were accused of attacking the UN’s World Health Organisation housing three times, handcuffing staff and interrogating them. Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said: “The war in the Gaza Strip is one of the most complex the IDF has ever known” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want an end to the war.
WARNING: DISTRESSING IMAGES A major alert has been issued over Gaza’s starving children with as many as 900,000 lives at risk as Israeli troops press on with their attacks
Desperately needed aid could save lives such as little Muhammad, 1.5 years old (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
At least 21 Palestinian children have died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 72 hours – with another 70,000 now suffering malnutrition, medical officials have declared. Horrific imagery of starving children are emerging with, one year-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, shown as having starved to less than a stone in weight.
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, says a further 900,000 children are having to go without food and have been hit by hunger. The Hamas-run health ministry says another 15 people have died of starvation within the past 24 hours, highlighting growing alarm about the Gaza devastation.
Little Muhammad al-Matouq weighs less than a stone (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
The doctor warned they face alarming numbers of deaths, the doctor warns, with diabetic and kidney patients at particular risk. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was said to be “appalled” and declared that in Gaza the “last lifeline keeping people alive are collapsing.”
The starvation alert rang out as Israeli forces stormed the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah for the first time since the war broke out. They were accused of attacking the UN’s World Health Organisation housing three times, handcuffing staff and interrogating them.
Aid is needed to save Gaza’s starving children (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Palestinians have been forced to flee to al-Mawasi on the Strip’s south west coast as the death toll of Gazans since war began soared to 59,029, according to local officials. At least 43 Palestinians have been killed across the Palestinian Strip since dawn on Tuesday, local officials said.
According to reports from within Gaza at least ten of the dead were killed as sought aid. The WHO, a UN agency, said:”Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict.
Muhammad and other Gaza families are in desperate need (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint.” Israeli tank shelling killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded dozens others in a tent encampment in western Gaza City north of the enclave, local health authorities said today.
Medics said the tanks stationed north of Shati camp fired two shells at tents, housing displaced families, killing at least 12 people. There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident.
Israeli troops at the Gaza border (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Talking in general about the fighting inside Gaza Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said: “The war in the Gaza Strip is one of the most complex the IDF has ever known.
“We have achieved significant accomplishments. We will continue operating to achieve our objectives: the return of the hostages and the dismantling of Hamas.” Just 20 of the 50 hostages remaining in captivity inside Gaza are thought to be alive and talks are still underway to try and settle a ceasefire.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to continue the war (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
If a cessation in fighting is agreed it is likely to be for 60 days but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want an end to the war. He insists that even if a ceasefire is declared Israel will not stop the war until Hamas is totally destroyed or those that remain are then exiled. Hamas are insisting on meaningful talks about ending the war being part of the ceasefire period.
Mum of emaciated baby in Gaza says ‘I lost my husband… I don’t want to lose her’
In mid-May, the World Health Organisation assessed that there were “nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death” Israel’s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis. But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza. The United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies. The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions. Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin. Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face.
“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” its report concluded.
Warning: This article contains images of an emaciated child which some readers may find distressing
Israel’s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis.
But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza, and the United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items.
Israel-Gaza latest: Gaza enduring ‘atrocious death and destruction’, UN boss warns
“Strict quotas are being imposed on the goods we distribute, along with unnecessary delay procedures,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday.
“Essentials, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies, are prohibited. Nothing has reached the besieged north.”
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Image: Baby Aya at Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza is dangerously thin
“Today, we receive between 300 to 500 cases daily, with approximately 10% requiring admission. This volume of inpatient cases far exceeds the capacity of Rantisi hospital, as the facility is not equipped to accommodate such large numbers,” Jall al Barawi, a doctor at the hospital, told us.
At least 94% of the hospitals have sustained some damage, some considerable, according to the UN.
Image: Jall al Barawi, a doctor at Rantisi hospital
Paramedic crews are close to running out of fuel to drive ambulances.
The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions.
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Children are the worst affected.
Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin.
Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face. Her nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Image: Aya’s nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Lethal spiral
Her mother Sundush, who is only 19 herself, cannot get enough food to produce breastmilk. Baby formula is scarce.
Aya, like so many other young children, cannot get the vital nutrition she needs to grow and develop.
It’s a lethal spiral.
Image: This is what Aya looked like shortly after she was born
“My daughter was born at a normal weight, 3.5kg,” Sundush tells us.
“But as the war went on, her weight dropped significantly. I would breastfeed her, she’d get diarrhoea. I tried formula – same result. With the borders closed and no food coming in, I can’t eat enough to give her the nutrients she needs.”
“I brought her to the hospital for treatment, but the care she needs isn’t available.
“The doctor said her condition is very serious. I really don’t want to lose her, because I lost my husband and she’s all I have left of him. I don’t want to lose her.”
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Image: Aya and her mother Sundush
Some of the aid entering Gaza now is being looted. It is hard to know whether that is by Hamas or desperate civilians. Maybe a combination of the two.
The lack of aid creates an atmosphere of desperation, which eventually leads to a breakdown in security as everyone fights to secure food for themselves and their families.
Only by alleviating the desperation can the security situation improve, and the risk of famine abate.
‘We faced hunger before, but never like this’: skeletal children fill hospital wards as starvation grips Gaza
Seven-month-old Mohammed Aliwa is in hospital with severe malnutrition. His face is gaunt, his limbs little more than bones covered in baggy skin. The ward at the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society hospital is crowded with other skeletal children, some doubled up on the 12 beds. There are only two functioning paediatric teams left in Gaza City, and up to 200 children turn up daily seeking treatment. Gaza has never been hungrier, despite several warnings about impending famine over the course of nearly two years of war. Over just three days this week public health officials recorded 43 deaths from hunger; there had been 68 in total before that. The total amounts allowed in since the start of March are well below starvation rations for the 2.1 million population, and Palestinians are already weakened by the impact of prolonged food shortages. Even money or influential employers can no longer protect Palestinians. “Humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” more than 100 aid groups working in Gaza, including MSF, Save the Children and Oxfam, warned in a joint statement this week.
At seven months old, he weighs barely 4kg (9lbs) and this is the second time he has been admitted for treatment. His face is gaunt, his limbs little more than bones covered in baggy skin and his ribs protrude painfully from his chest.
“My biggest fear now is losing my grandson to malnutrition,” said his grandmother Faiza Abdul Rahman, who herself is constantly dizzy from lack of food. The previous day the only thing she ate was a single piece of pitta bread, which cost 15 shekels (£3).
“His siblings also suffer from severe hunger. On some days, they go to bed without a single bite to eat.”
View image in fullscreen Mohammed Aliwa is in hospital with severe malnutrition. Photograph: Seham Tantesh/The Guardian
Mohammed was born healthy but his mother was too malnourished to produce breast milk, and the family has only been able to get two cans of baby formula since.
The ward at the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society hospital is crowded with other skeletal children, some doubled up on the 12 beds. There are only two functioning paediatric teams left in Gaza City, and up to 200 children turn up daily seeking treatment.
Dr Musab Farwana spends his days trying, but often failing, to save them. Then he goes home to share meals that are too small with his own hungry sons and daughters.
The whole family are losing weight fast, because his salary buys almost nothing, and he doesn’t want to risk the deadly race for supplies handed out by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after another medic, Dr Ramzi Hajaj, was killed trying to get food at one site.
Gaza has never been hungrier, despite several warnings about impending famine over the course of nearly two years of war. Over just three days this week public health officials recorded 43 deaths from hunger; there had been 68 in total before that.
Faiza Abdul Rahman, who has stayed in Gaza City throughout the war, said even the time of the most intense controls on food entering northern Gaza last year were not as bad. “We faced hunger before, but never like this,” she said. “This is the hardest phase we’ve ever endured.”
Testimony from local people and doctors, and data from the Israeli government, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the UN and humanitarian organisations, shows food is running out.
Empty shelves are reflected in soaring prices, with flour selling for more than 30 times the market rate at the start of the year.
Even money or influential employers can no longer protect Palestinians. “Humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” more than 100 aid groups working in Gaza, including MSF, Save the Children and Oxfam, warned in a joint statement this week.
The journalists’ union at AFP said on Monday that for the first time in the news agency’s history it risks losing a colleague to starvation. On Wednesday the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said a “large proportion” of Gaza’s population was starving. “I don’t know what you would call it other than mass-starvation – and it’s man-made,” he said.
For months Israel has choked off food shipments. The total amounts allowed in since the start of March are well below starvation rations for the 2.1 million population, and Palestinians are already weakened by the impact of prolonged food shortages and repeated displacement.
“For nearly two years, children here have suffered from famine. Even if some days they felt full, it’s not just about being full, it’s about receiving the nutrients the body needs. And those are completely absent,” said Farwana, the paediatrician.
Those years of malnourishment make them more vulnerable to other diseases, and their low immunity is compounded by the severe shortages of basic medical supplies, which Israel has also blocked from entry.
“Often, I feel devastated because there’s something so simple the child needs to survive, and we just can’t provide it,” he said. Three severely malnourished patients died in intensive care this week, one of them a girl who would have probably survived if doctors had been able to give her intravenous potassium, normally a basic medication, and now impossible to get hold of in Gaza.
“We tried to give her oral alternatives, but due to her malnutrition and resulting complications, she had poor absorption.”
“These cases haunt me, they never leave my mind. This child could have gone back to her family and lived a normal life. But because one simple thing wasn’t available she didn’t survive.”
Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza from 2 March. When the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lifted it on 19 May he claimed the government was acting to prevent a “starvation crisis”, because some of the country’s staunchest allies told him they would not tolerate images of famine.
In fact the Israeli government simply shifted course to draw out the starvation crisis, letting in only minimal quantities of aid so that Gaza’s descent towards famine progressed a bit more slowly.
The Israeli government announced plans to channel all aid through a secretive US-backed organisation that runs four militarised distribution points.
Hundreds of people have been killed trying to get food handed out at sites Palestinians describe as “death traps”, which have handed out supplies that meet only a fraction of Gaza’s needs.
By 22 July, GHF had been operating for 58 days but the food it had brought in would only have sustained the population of Gaza for less than a fortnight, even if it was distributed equally.
View image in fullscreen The Khalidi family children: Sabah, 12, Saba, 11, Zeina, 10, Ammera, two, Mohammed, seven, and Yousef, 13. Photograph: Seham Tantesh/The Guardian
On Tuesday Umm Youssef al-Khalidi was preparing to try her luck at a GHF distribution centre for the first time. She had avoided them for months because her youngest child is two and her oldest 13 and her husband is paralysed and confined to a wheelchair.
“We have been silencing our hunger with water,” she said. “My fear for my family is greater than my fear for myself. I fear something bad will happen to me, and I’ll leave them without anyone to care for them.”
But her family went without food for four days last week, and when they broke the fast, eight of them had to share a bag of rice and two potatoes given to them by a passing stranger.
The children were excellent students before the war, who always won scholarships. Now they spend their days sitting on the edge of the street under a bombed mosque in al-Wehda neighbourhood in Gaza City, where the girls try to sell bracelets rather than just begging.
There is little demand for cheap jewellery in Gaza today, and although sometimes a passerby takes pity on the gang of skinny kids with dirty faces and tattered clothes, soaring prices means it buys little food.
View image in fullscreen The Khalidi family sit in front of the rubble of a bombed mosque while in front of them is a table where children sell bracelets made of beads. Photograph: Seham Tantesh/The Guardian
“My children have become skeletal, skin and bone,” Khalidi said. “Even the slightest effort makes them dizzy. They sit down again, asking for food, and I have nothing to give. I can’t lie and say I’ll bring them something when I know I won’t be able to.”
So she had decided that in the grim calculus of risks for her family, the hope of getting a little food finally outweighed the risk of losing the adult who held their lives together.
Her husband’s phone had been stolen earlier in the war, so they would have no way to communicate over the long hours that she would spend trekking to the GHF site, then racing to try to get food, and walking back. The family would just have to wait and hope.
“I have no one else to send,” she said. “It’s painful to watch them suffer, and their health gets worse every day they go without food.”
The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born
5-month-old Zainab Abu Halib was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip. Doctors and aid workers in Gaza blame Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid and medical supplies. Food security experts warn of famine in the territory of more than 2 million people. The U.N. says it has been unable to distribute much of the food because of crowds of the hungry and gangs of gangs. The average of 69 trucks a day is far below the 500 to 600 a day the U.S. says is needed for Gaza to distribute food to the most hungry. The death toll for adults in Gaza stands at 127, with the adult deaths counted in just the last few weeks, the Health Ministry says. It says 127 people have died of malnutrition related causes overall in Gaza since the start of the war in March. The number of children suffering from malnutrition has surged in recent weeks, a doctor says. The girl had needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk, he says.
A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.
On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.
The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.
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The girl had weighed more than 3 kilograms — 6.6 pounds — when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds.
A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”
She was wrapped in a white sheet for burial and placed on the sandy ground for prayers. The bundle was barely wider than the imam’s stance. He raised his open hands and invoked Allah once more.
She needed special formula
Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest toll released by the territory’s Health Ministry on Saturday. It said 127 people had died of malnutrition-related causes overall, with the adult deaths counted in just the last few weeks.
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“She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza,” Zainab’s father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told the Associated Press as he prepared for her funeral prayers in the hospital’s courtyard in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatric department, said the girl had needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk.
He said she hadn’t suffered from any diseases, but the lack of the formula led to chronic diarrhea and vomiting. She wasn’t able to swallow as her weakened immune system led to a bacterial infection and sepsis, and quickly lost more weight.
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‘Many will follow’
The child’s family, like many of Gaza’s Palestinians, is displaced and lives in a tent. Her mother, who also has suffered from malnutrition, said she breastfed the girl for only six weeks before trying to feed her formula.
“With my daughter’s death, many will follow,” she said. “Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine months and then gave birth to, have become just numbers.” Her loose robe hid her own weight loss.
The arrival of children suffering from malnutrition has surged in recent weeks, Al-Farah said. His department, with a capacity of eight beds, has been treating about 60 cases of acute malnutrition. They have placed additional mattresses on the ground.
Another malnutrition clinic, affiliated with the hospital, receives an average of 40 cases weekly, he said.
“Unless the crossings are opened and food and baby formula are allowed in for this vulnerable segment of Palestinian society, we will witness unprecedented numbers of deaths,” he warned.
Doctors and aid workers in Gaza blame Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid and medical supplies. Food security experts warn of famine in the territory of more than 2 million people.
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‘Shortage of everything’
After ending the latest ceasefire in March, Israel cut off the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies completely to Gaza for 2½ months, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages.
Under international pressure, Israel slightly eased the blockade in May. Since then, it has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the United Nations and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food, formula and high-calorie special food for children, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said last week.
The average of 69 trucks a day, however, is far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed for Gaza. The U.N. says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because hungry crowds and gangs take most of it from its arriving trucks.
Separately, Israel has backed the U.S.-registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which in May opened four centers distributing boxes of food supplies. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food, mostly near those new aid sites, the U.N. human rights office says.
Much of Gaza’s population now relies on aid.
“There was a shortage of everything,” the mother of Zainab said as she grieved. “How can a girl like her recover?”
Magdy and Dagga write for the Associated Press and reported from Khan Yunis and Cairo, respectively.
Child Who Starved To Death In Gaza Weighed Less Than When She Was born
Zainab Abu Halib was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past three weeks. A doctor said the girl needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk. She was wrapped in a white sheet for burial and placed on the sandy ground for prayers. The bundle was barely wider than the imam’s stance and he raised his open hands and invoked Allah once more. The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms when she was born, her mother said.
A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her five-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.
On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.
The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.
The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms.
A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”
She was wrapped in a white sheet for burial and placed on the sandy ground for prayers. The bundle was barely wider than the imam’s stance. He raised his open hands and invoked Allah once more.
She needed special formula
Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past three weeks, according to the latest toll released by the territory’s Health Ministry on Saturday. Another 42 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the same period, it said.
“She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza,” Zainab’s father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told The Associated Press as he prepared for her funeral prayers in the hospital’s courtyard in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Dr Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatric department, said the girl had needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk.
He said she hadn’t suffered from any diseases, but the lack of the formula led to chronic diarrhea and vomiting. She wasn’t able to swallow as her weakened immune system led to a bacterial infection and sepsis, and quickly lost more weight.