Hunger grips war-torn Gaza: Around 2 million are now food insecure, ‘skeletal children fill hospital wards'

Mint

6 days ago

"Starvation is a horrific reality for children and families in Gaza," UNICEF posted on X social media recently. More than two million people in Gaza are facing severe food shortages, with more than 100 NGOs warning of "mass starvation".
Meanwhile, more than 800 people have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in mass shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centers, Reuters reported.
Besides, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in airstrikes, shelling and shooting since launching their assault on Gaza in response to attacks on Israel by the Hamas group that killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in October 2023.
For the first time since the war began, Palestinian officials say dozens are now also dying of hunger.
Gaza's health ministry said on Tuesday that 9,00,000 children are going hungry, and 70,000 already show signs of malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the ward at the Patient's Friends Benevolent Society hospital was crowded with other skeletal children, some doubled up on the 12 beds, the Guardian reported. There are only two functioning paediatric teams left in Gaza City, and up to 200 children turn up daily seeking treatment.
The chief of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from man-made 'mass starvation' due to the aid blockade on the enclave.
Gaza has been witnessing its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March and then lifted that blockade in May with new measures it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
Despite a partial lift of the Israeli blockade on humanitarian truck entries in May, the food supplies that are getting into Gaza are insufficient, leaving 2.1 million people food insecure, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said more than a thousand people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking food since late May, when a new Israel- and US-backed aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating.
'Parents tell us their children cry themselves to sleep from hunger,' Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quoted by CNN as saying. 'Food distribution sites have become places of violence," he added.
Adding to the woes of people in war-torn Gaza, the price of flour in Gaza has also risen sharply in recent months. As per the Guardian, flour is selling for more than 30 times the market rate at the start of the year.