Dozens of kids and adults in Gaza have starved to death in July as hunger surges
In greater numbers than ever, children hollowed up by hunger are overwhelming the Patient's Friends Hospital, the main emergency center for malnourished kids in northern Gaza.
The deaths last weekend also marked a change: the first seen by the center in children who had no preexisting conditions. Symptoms are getting worse, with children too weak to cry or move, said Dr. Rana Soboh, a nutritionist. In past months, most improved, despite supply shortages, but now patients stay longer and don't get better, she said.
'There are no words in the face of the disaster we are in. Kids are dying before the world ... There is no uglier and more horrible phase than this,' said Soboh, who works with the U.S.-based aid organization Medglobal, which supports the hospital.
This month, the hunger that has been building among Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians passed a tipping point into accelerating death, aid workers and health staff say. Not only children — usually the most vulnerable — are falling victim under Israel's blockade since March, but also adults.
In the past three weeks, at least 48 people died of causes related to malnutrition, including 28 adults and 20 children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday. That's up from 10 children who died in the five previous months of 2025, according to the ministry.
The U.N reports similar numbers. The World Health Organization said Wednesday it has documented 21 children under 5 who died of causes related to malnutrition in 2025. The U.N. humanitarian office, OCHA, said Thursday at least 13 children's deaths were reported in July, with the number growing daily.
'Humans are well developed to live with caloric deficits, but only so far,' said Dr. John Kahler, Medglobal's co-founder and a pediatrician who volunteered twice in Gaza during the war. 'It appears that we have crossed the line where a segment of the population has reached their limits'
'This is the beginning of a population death spiral," he said.
The U.N.'s World Food Program says nearly 100,000 women and children urgently need treatment for malnutrition. Medical workers say they have run out of many key treatments and medicines.
Israel, which began letting in only a trickle of supplies the past two months, has blamed Hamas for disrupting food distribution. The U.N. counters that Israel, which has restricted aid since the war began, simply has to allow it to enter freely.
Hundreds of malnourished kids brought daily
The Patient's Friends Hospital overflows with parents bringing in scrawny children – 200 to 300 cases a day, said Soboh.
On Wednesday, staff laid toddlers on a desk to measure the circumference of their upper arms — the quickest way to determine malnutrition. In the summer heat, mothers huddled around specialists, asking for supplements. Babies with emaciated limbs screamed in agony. Others lay totally silent.
The worst cases are kept for up to two weeks at the center's 10-bed ward, which this month has had up to 19 children at a time. It usually treats only children under 5, but began taking some as old as 11 or 12 because of worsening starvation among older children.
Hunger gnaws at staff as well. Soboh said two nurses put themselves on IV drips to keep themselves going. 'We are exhausted. We are dead in the shape of the living,' she said.
The five children died in succession last Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
Four of them, aged 4 months to 2 years, had suffered gastric arrest: Their stomachs shut down. The hospital no longer had the right nutrition supplies for them.
The fifth — 4 1/2-year-old Siwar — had alarmingly low potassium levels, a growing problem. She was so weak she could barely move her body. Medicine for potassium deficiency has largely run out across Gaza, Soboh said. The center had only a low-concentration potassium drip.
The little girl didn't respond. After three days in the ICU, she died Saturday.
'If we don't have potassium (supplies), we will see more deaths,' she said.
A 2-year-old is wasting away
In the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza city, 2-year-old Yazan Abu Ful's mother, Naima, pulled off his clothes to show his emaciated body. His vertebrae, ribs and shoulder-blades jutted out. His buttocks were shriveled. His face was expressionless.
His father Mahmoud, who was also skinny, said they took him to the hospital several times. Doctors just say they should feed him. 'I tell the doctors, 'You see for yourself, there is no food,'' he said,
Naima, who is pregnant, prepared a meal: Two eggplants they bought for $9 cut up and boiled in water. They will stretch out the pot of eggplant-water – not even a real soup – to last them a few days, they said. Several of Yazan's four older siblings also looked thin and drained.
Holding him in his lap, Mahmoud Abu Ful lifted Yazan's limp arms. The boy lies on the floor most of the day, too weak to play with his brothers. 'If we leave him, he might just slip away from between our fingers, and we can't do anything.'
Adults, too, are dying
Starvation takes the vulnerable first, experts say: children and adults with health conditions.
On Thursday, the bodies of an adult man and woman with signs of starvation were brought to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. One suffered from diabetes, the other from a heart condition, but they showed severe deficiencies of nutrients, gastric arrest and anemia from malnutrition.
Many of the adults who have died had some sort of preexisting condition, like diabetes or heart or kidney trouble, worsened by malnutrition, Abu Selmia said. 'These diseases don't kill if they have food and medicine,' he said.
Deaths come after months of Israeli siege
Israel cut off entry of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies completely to Gaza for 2 ½ months starting in March, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages. During that time, food largely ran out for aid groups and in marketplaces, and experts warned Gaza was headed for an outright famine.
In late May, Israel slightly eased the blockade. Since then, it has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the U.N. and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
That is an average of 69 trucks a day, far below the 500-600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed. The U.N. has been unable to distribute much of the aid because hungry crowds and gangs take most of it from its trucks. Separately, Israel has also backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which opened four centers distributing boxes of food supplies. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to reach the sites.
On Tuesday, David Mencer, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, denied there is a 'famine created by Israel' in Gaza and blamed Hamas for creating 'man-made shortages' by looting aid trucks.
___
El Deeb reported from Beirut, Keath from Cairo.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
2 hours ago
- Washington Post
At least 25 people killed by Israeli gunshots and strikes in Gaza, some while seeking aid
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — At least 25 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunshots overnight, according to health officials and the ambulance service on Saturday, as ceasefire talks appear to have stalled and Palestinians in Gaza face famine. The majority of victims were killed by gunfire as they waited for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing with Israel, said staff at Shifa hospital, where the bodies were brought.
Hamilton Spectator
8 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
As the ADA turns 35, groups fighting for disability rights could see their federal dollars slashed
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Nancy Jensen believes she'd still be living in an abusive group home if it wasn't shut down in 2004 with the help of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, which for decades has received federal money to look out for Americans with disabilities. But the flow of funding under the Trump administration is now in question, disability rights groups nationwide say, dampening their mood as Saturday marks the 35th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. Federal dollars pay for much of their work, including helping people who seek government-funded services and lawsuits now pushing Iowa and Texas toward better community services. Documents outlining President Donald Trump's budget proposals show they would zero out funds earmarked for three grants to disability rights centers and slash funding for a fourth. Congress' first discussion of them, by the Senate Appropriations Committee, is set for Thursday, but the centers fear losing more than 60% of their federal dollars. The threat of cuts comes as the groups expect more demand for help after Republicans' tax and budget law complicated Medicaid health coverage with a new work-reporting requirement. There's also the sting of the timing: this year is the 50th anniversary of another federal law that created the network of state groups to protect people with disabilities, and Trump's proposals represent the largest potential cuts in that half-century, advocates said. The groups are authorized to make unannounced visits to group homes and interview residents alone. 'You're going to have lots of people with disabilities lost,' said Jensen, now president of Colorado's advisory council for federal funding of efforts to protect people with mental illnesses. She worries people with disabilities will have 'no backstop' for fighting housing discrimination or seeking services at school or accommodations at work. The potential budget savings are a shaving of copper from each federal tax penny. The groups receive not quite $180 million a year — versus $1.8 trillion in discretionary spending. Trump's administration touts flexibility for sta tes The president's Office of Management and Budget didn't respond to an email seeking a response to the disability rights groups' criticism. But in budget documents, the administration argued its proposals would give states needed flexibility. The U.S. Department of Education said earmarking funds for disability rights centers created an unnecessary administrative burden for states. Trump's top budget adviser, Russell Vought, told senators in a letter that a review of 2025 spending showed too much went to 'niche' groups outside government. 'We also considered, for each program, whether the governmental service provided could be provided better by State or local governments (if provided at all),' Vought wrote. Disability rights advocates doubt that state protection and advocacy groups — known as P&As — would see any dollar not specifically earmarked for them. They sue states, so the advocates don't want states deciding whether their work gets funded. The 1975 federal law setting up P&As declared them independent of the states, and newer laws reinforced that. 'We do need an independent system that can hold them and other wrongdoers accountable,' said Rocky Nichols, the Kansas center's executive director. Helping people with disabilities navigate Medicaid Nichols' center has helped Matthew Hull for years with getting the state to cover services, and Hull hopes to find a job. He uses a wheelchair; a Medicaid-provided nurse helps him run errands. 'I need to be able to do that so I can keep my strength up,' he said, adding that activity preserves his health. Medicaid applicants often had a difficult time working through its rules even before the tax and budget law's recent changes, said Sean Jackson, Disability Rights Texas' executive director. With fewer dollars, he said, 'As cases are coming into us, we're going to have to take less cases.' The Texas group receives money from a legal aid foundation and other sources, but federal funds still are 68% of its dollars. The Kansas center and Disability Rights Iowa rely entirely on federal funds. 'For the majority it would probably be 85% or higher,' said Marlene Sallo, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, which represents P&As. The Trump administration's proposals suggest it wants to shut down P&As, said Steven Schwartz, who founded the Center for Public Representation, a Massachusetts-based organization that works with them on lawsuits. Investigating allegations of abuse and pushing states Federal funding meant a call in 2009 to Disability Rights Iowa launched an immediate investigation of a program employing men with developmental disabilities in a turkey processing plant. Authorities said they lived in a dangerous, bug-infested bunkhouse and were financially exploited. Without the dollars, executive director Catherine Johnson said, 'That's maybe not something we could have done.' The Kansas center's private interview in 2004 with one of Jensen's fellow residents eventually led to long federal prison sentences for the couple operating the Kaufman House, a home for people with mental illnesses about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Wichita. And it wasn't until Disability Rights Iowa filed a federal lawsuit in 2023 that the state agreed to draft a plan to provide community services for children with severe mental and behavioral needs. For 15 years, Schwartz's group and Disability Rights Texas have pursued a federal lawsuit alleging Texas warehouses several thousand people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in nursing homes without adequate services. Texas put at least three men in homes after they'd worked in the Iowa turkey plant. Last month, a federal judge ordered work to start on a plan to end the 'severe and ongoing' problems. Schwartz said Disability Rights Texas did interviews and gathered documents crucial to the case. 'There are no better eyes or ears,' he said. ___ Hunter reported from Atlanta.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise
Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise After four months of a near-total Israeli siege, Gaza's few remaining hospitals now have wards for the growing number of malnourished children whose tiny bodies are just the width of their bones. Doctors are famished to the point that they have dizzy spells as they make their rounds, medics say, and the journalists documenting their caseloads are often too weak to even walk to the clinics. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. For months, aid agencies had warned of the coming crisis, as Israel halted the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip before attempting to replace U.N. relief efforts with distribution points inside military zones. It was a move Israeli officials said was aimed at pressuring Hamas, whose fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and continue to hold about 50 hostages who were abducted that day, about 20 of whom are still believed to be alive. But testimonies from doctors, relief workers and Gazans this week make it clear that a worst-case scenario is finally unfolding: Nearly 1 in 3 people are going multiple days without eating, according to the United Nations, and hospitals are reporting rising deaths from malnutrition and starvation. In a video filmed Tuesday inside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, families fretted over babies with distended bellies and tiny fists that they clenched as they cried. In one of the newly established malnutrition rooms, the mothers and children were so quiet that the loudest sound came from a pair of fans that beat weakly in the cloying heat. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 10 people had died of starvation in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of those killed by hunger to 111 since the start of the war. Among them was 6-week-old Yousef al-Safadi, so small in photographs from the silver table of the hospital morgue that the white sleepsuit peeled back to show how his jutting ribs dwarfed his slight body. The International Rescue Committee, a global relief and development organization, said Wednesday that its teams had reported an increase in the number of children being rushed to hospitals because of malnutrition in recent days. 'Their small bodies are shutting down. They can't breathe; their immune systems are collapsing,' said Scott Lea, the organization's acting country director for the Palestinian territories. Tess Ingram, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, said rising rates of child malnutrition were preventable, but that the health care system needed to treat it was 'running on fumes or hit by strikes.' 'These numbers are rising fast because children are being denied enough food, water and health care. It's as simple as that,' she said. Throughout the war, which has killed more than 59,000 people in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the amount of food and other aid entering the enclave. At times, it allowed more trucks to enter, including during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. But on March 2, Israel reimposed its blockade, lifting it only partially in May after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 'pictures of mass starvation' could cost his country the support of the United States and other allies. In a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, an Israeli military official said there was a 'lack of food security inside Gaza,' but blamed a failure to distribute aid on the U.N. 'There is no limit. The crossings are open - just bring the trucks and take the aid,' he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, in line with the rules of the briefing. 'We're seeing the pictures also, and I want to tell you that we are taking it very seriously,' he said. 'We are analyzing the number of calories per capita inside Gaza.' The U.N. says Israeli authorities are the 'sole decision-makers' on who, and how much, aid enters Gaza, as well as the type of supplies that are allowed in. 'Once inside Gaza, movement requires navigating an obstacle course of coordination with Israeli forces, through active hostilities, traveling on damaged roads, and often being forced to wait at holding points or pass through areas controlled by criminal gangs,' U.N. relief chief Tom Fletcher told the U.N. Security Council in New York last week. When vehicles do make it through, he said, starving people often try to grab flour from the backs of the trucks. Gaza's ability to make its own food has been almost entirely destroyed as Israeli military operations have wiped out farmlands and factories. As the summer heat bears down, hungry and thirsty civilians have run out of reserves to fall back on. Palestinians in the enclave are reliant instead on humanitarian aid that most people under Israel's new system cannot easily access. According to local health authorities, more than 1,000 people have been shot dead as they raced through territory controlled by the Israeli military toward distribution points run by U.S. security contractors, where supplies are first-come, first-served. When victims of Israeli strikes, shelling or gunfire reach the hospitals, photographs show, their bodies are often visibly emaciated. In Gaza City's Sabra district, Ayat al-Soradi, 25, said she was so malnourished during her pregnancy this year that she gave birth to her twins, Ahmed and Mazen, two months early. They each weighed about two pounds, and for almost a month, she had watched over them in their incubators as the nurses fed them with powdered milk. But even the hospital staff were running out of food. The flour, milk, eggs and meat that were available during an earlier ceasefire had disappeared from the market. A bag of flour and lentils could fetch almost $200. In WhatsApp groups, Palestinian families bartered for baby formula like the one doctors recommended for Ahmed and Mazen. The family could barely afford it once the twins were discharged. Ahmed died 13 days later. 'He was 2 months old,' Soradi said. And feeding Mazen alone was still a struggle. His baby formula was almost prohibitively expensive, when the family could find it at all, Soradi said. She mixed it with rice water to make it last longer, but the child barely grew. Ten days ago, he was readmitted to the hospital at a weight of 6.6 pounds as he ran a fever and struggled to breathe. Relief workers say parents throughout Gaza regularly forgo meals, and sometimes days' worth of food, to feed their children. When there is still nothing in the cupboards, they find a way to explain why no one eats. In Deir al-Balah, Taghred Jumaa, a 55-year-old women's rights activist who described herself as relatively better off than most Palestinians in Gaza because she still had a salary, said that rationing the family's food meant her hair was falling out. Parts of her body felt numb, she said. In the northern district of Sheikh Radwan, relatives of 2-month-old Sham Emkat said Wednesday that she had been pronounced dead at 11:30 p.m. the night before in al-Rantisi Hospital. They were still waiting for her death certificate, said Ekram Emkat, the child's aunt. 'I'm sorry, Sham's mother is in a very bad condition,' she said, adding that the girl weighed less than four pounds when she died. Sham was so small that the family could count her bones. In an open letter published Wednesday, 115 organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said Israel's blockade and ongoing military operations were pushing Gaza's more than 2 million people, including relief workers, toward starvation. Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said that colleagues had begun receiving 'SOS messages from staff who are hungry themselves, who are exhausted themselves.' In conversations with Washington Post reporters this week, doctors, health officials and aid workers have all apologized for their lack of focus, citing hunger. Many were surviving on lentil soup only, said Ahmed al-Faraa, director of the Nasser Hospital's pediatrics wing. During an interview Wednesday, Eyad Amawi, director of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, apologized and said he needed to pause because of a headache and dizziness. His family of six had obtained two kilograms (about 4.4 pounds) of flour the day before, he said, which he estimated would last a day and a half. 'The main problem is that you are all of the time busy, thinking about where and how we can obtain any amount of food,' he said. Amawi said he had lost 15 pounds since the war began; others have lost more. Doctors and nurses were struggling to work long shifts on empty stomachs. Some 'have not been able to stand,' he said. In a statement this week, a group of journalists from the Agence France-Presse news agency warned that the Israeli blockade and subsequent hunger crisis had made conditions for their Palestinian colleagues in Gaza 'untenable.' The AFP's principal photographer, identified as Bashar, had posted to his Facebook page, saying that he no longer had the strength to work. Other colleagues were starting to say the same. 'Over the last few days, we have learned from their brief messages that their lives are hanging by a thread and that the courage they have shown for months to bring news to the world will not be enough to pull them through,' the statement read. 'Since AFP was founded in August 1944, some of our journalists were killed in conflict, others were wounded or made prisoner, but there is no record of us ever having had to watch our colleagues starving to death.' - - - Loveluck reported from London, Mahfouz and Shamalakh from Cairo, Berger from Jaffa, Israel, and Cheeseman from Beirut. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report. Related Content Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors? Hulk Hogan was a well-known Trump supporter. Their ties go back 40 years. Mendelson reaches deal with Commanders on RFK site amid growing pressure
