Anwar Abdul Nabi perches on the edge of a bed at the Kamal
Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Her eyes are sunken with grief.
The young mother tenderly holds the fingers of her daughter,
Mila. Just minutes ago, the 7-year-old girl died of starvation.
“My daughter was taken into to God’s mercy, because of the
lack of calcium, potassium and oxygen,” Nabi told CNN on Monday, as she cried
into the arms of an elderly relative. “Suddenly, everything dropped, because
she was not eating anything with iron, or eggs. She used to eat eggs every day
before the war. Now nothing. She passed away.”
As Israel’s severe restrictions on aid entering the Gaza
Strip drain essential supplies, displaced Palestinians told CNN they are
struggling to feed their children. Starving mothers are unable to produce
enough milk to breastfeed their babies, doctors say. Parents arrive at
overwhelmed health facilities begging for infant formula. In northern Gaza,
people rush to grab aid from infrequent humanitarian drops. Health workers say
they cannot offer life-saving treatment to malnourished Gazans because Israel’s
bombardment and siege has crushed the medical system.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said Tuesday that since the
beginning of the war, 364 health workers had been killed; 269 medical staff
arrested; 155 health facilities “destroyed,” and 155 ambulances “targeted.” CNN
cannot independently confirm the numbers due to the lack of international media
access to Gaza.
Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the
militant group Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250
others in southern Israel on October 7.
Since then, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least
30,717 Palestinians and wounded another 72,156 people, according to the
Ministry of Health in the enclave, while its siege has drastically diminished
vital supplies and left the enclave’s population of some 2.2 million people
exposed to high levels of acute food insecurity or worse, according to the
Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Phase Classification (IPC), which
assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition.
At least 18 Palestinians have starved to death in northern
Gaza, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, said on
Wednesday. The youngest baby who died of starvation in the enclave was
one-day-old, according to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan
hospital. The true number could be even higher, as limited access to northern
Gaza has hindered the ability of aid agencies to fully assess the situation
there. UN experts accused Israel of “intentionally starving” Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza,
but its inspection regime on aid trucks has meant that only a tiny fraction of
the amount of food and other supplies that used to enter Gaza daily before the
war is getting in now.
Children, mothers at risk
One-year-old Watin, in northern Gaza, has grown tired and
weak from dehydration. Instead of drinking baby formula, she is surviving on
one to two dates a day.
“She is only taking one meal,” said her father, Ikhlas
Shehadeh, who struggles to scavenge enough food to feed his baby girl. “She
spent a long time without any milk. This child is suffering from the inability
to move,” he told CNN on Tuesday. “We do not know what to do.”
The babies of thousands of women “who are due to give birth
in the next month in the Gaza Strip are at risk of dying,” the UNICEF State of
Palestine Humanitarian Situation report said on Tuesday. At least 5,500
pregnant women “do not have access to prenatal or postnatal check-ups because
of bombings and need to flee for safety,” the report said.
“Anxiety is also leading to premature births,” the report
added, citing the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF.) The report also said
over 90% of children “aged 6-23 months and pregnant, breastfeeding women face
severe food poverty with access to two or fewer food groups per day.”
Food shortages are reportedly the worst in northern Gaza,
where Israel concentrated its military offensive in the early days of the war.
Child malnutrition in the region is about three times higher than in southern
Gaza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Screenings at health
facilities there have previously found at least one in six children under the
age of two are acutely malnourished, said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO
representative for the territory. He warned those figures are “likely to be
greater today.” Pregnant and breastfeeding women also face “grave threats to
their health” caused by malnutrition, the Global Nutrition Cluster, an alliance
of NGOs, reported in February.
Dr. Muhammad Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, in
northern Gaza, told CNN medical workers are treating cases of dehydration,
gastroenteritis, and hepatitis among women and children.
“There are babies who died in their mothers’ wombs, and
surgeries were performed to remove the dead fetuses,” he said on Monday.
“Mothers are not eating because of the conditions we are living in, and this
affects the infants … There are causes of many children suffering from
dehydration and malnutrition, leading to death.”
Israel’s bombardment has forcibly displaced at least 1.7
million Palestinians, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. Many of those who fled the fighting are crammed into
overwhelmed shelters without basic sanitation, leading to the spread of
infections. Malnourished children, especially those with severe malnutrition,
are at greater risk of dying from illnesses like diarrhea and pneumonia,
according to the World Health Organization.
Another doctor in northern Gaza, Ahmad Salem, said patients
in intensive care and neonatal units were dying from malnutrition and a lack of
oxygen, which are difficult to administer amid fuel shortages. “We suffer from
starvation of mothers,” the medical worker in the Kamal Adwan Hospital told
CNN. “We cannot find an alternative to mother’s milk, which leads to the death
of those children.”
‘We have become like dogs’
Footage obtained by CNN shows scores of desperate civilians
clambering over each other to grab ration packs from aid drops in northern
Gaza.
On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt sent 42 tons
of medical supplies and food via airplanes in the region, the Emirati Ministry
of Defense said. The US military said it had, alongside the Royal Jordanian Air
Force, parachuted more than 36,800 meals into northern Gaza that day.
But human rights groups criticized the drops as inefficient
and a degrading way of getting aid to Gazans, urging Israeli authorities to
lift controls on land crossings into the enclave. Melanie Ward, the CEO of the
UK-based NGO, Medical Aid for Palestinians, urged Israel to “immediately open
all crossings into Gaza for aid workers to assist those in need.”
“Only safe and unfettered access for aid and aid workers,
the lifting of the siege, and an immediate ceasefire can end starvation in
Gaza,” she said in a statement on Saturday.
Even when aid does make it into the strip, collecting it can
be dangerous.
Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for aid on
Monday in northern Gaza, eyewitnesses told CNN, in an incident that took place
shortly before midnight at the Kuwait Roundabout on Rasheed Street in Gaza
City. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.
Last Thursday, at least 118 people were killed while trying
to access food aid in Gaza City in one of the worst single tragedies of the war
so far. Palestinian health officials said Israeli troops had used live fire as
hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians were gathering around food trucks,
with Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, referring
to the incident as an “outrageous massacre.” The Israeli military said it first
opened fire with warning shots for crowd control, before firing on “looters”
who came toward them. Most of the dead were killed by ramming as aid truck
drivers tried to escape the gunfire and chaos, eyewitnesses and the IDF both
said. CNN is unable to independently confirm the figures.
Faraj Abu Naji, whose sister gave birth to twin girls a week
ago, managed to obtain just three cartons of milk for his newborn nieces in an
aid drop in northern Gaza. He told CNN that he injured his foot while trying to
buy flour along Al-Rashid Street.
“We thank God that there is humanitarian aid being dropped
from Jordanian and Emirati planes,” he said on Tuesday. “I try as much as
possible to obtain milk from the planes that drop aid so that we can provide
milk for my nieces for as long as possible.
“Planes are dropping aid on northern Gaza, and we have
become like dogs, running after a bone.”
