Gaza suffering 'major catastrophe' as deaths from starvation spike

Australia Broadcast Center

5 days ago

Musab al Dibes is 14 years old, but looks like a small child instead of a teenager.
His weight has dropped from 40 kilograms to 10.
WARNING: This story contains images and text some people may find distressing.
A major head wounded sustained in an Israeli bombing in May requires further treatment outside Gaza.
Instead, he is slowly dying in a hospital bed in Gaza City, with his mother next to him.
"His health deteriorated as result of malnutrition because the Gaza strip is suffering from major starvation and a shortage of everything — even medicine, even nutrition supplements," his mother, Shahenaj al Dibes said.
"Anything sick people need, if they are in Shifa or any hospital in the Gaza Strip, there is nothing for them.
Musab is one of many children — and some adults — lying in the ward of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, emaciated from lack of food.
Like thousands of other Gazan children, Musab was wounded in an Israeli airstrike.
"It was 11 o'clock at night, the house next to the tent where we were living was bombed," his mother said.
"We did not know what happened. We woke up and found ourselves with wounded in the house. The one who was hurt the worst was Musab.
"I am asking from those who are listening to us, and anyone with a live conscience… to hasten treatment [for my son] abroad … so he can say the word 'mummy' again."
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said 111 people have died from malnutrition since Israel began its siege, bombardment and invasion of Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks, including 10 on just Wednesday alone.
The war between Israel and Hamas has been raging for nearly two years since Hamas killed some 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages from southern Israel in the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
Israel has since killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, decimated Hamas as a military force, reduced most of the territory to ruins and forced nearly the entire population to flee their homes multiple times.
Dr. Motaz Harara, one of the physicians at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, said the rate of people dying of starvation was rapidly rising.
"The more there is delay with the food and medicine going in to the Gaza Strip, the more the situation is deteriorating and the number of the wounded and the starving people is on the rise."
Dr Harara said the high number of casualties from intensive Israeli bombing, including of emergency workers, was making it difficult to treat malnutrition cases when they arrived.
"In addition to the wounded, we have many cases of malnutrition and hunger that we cannot give the necessary amount of medical treatment because of the high number of patients that need urgent treatment," he said.
"This causes those who suffer from malnutrition and starvation for a long time not to receive the necessary medical treatment, meaning the patient can go back home and return the next day dead."
Aid groups said hundreds of trucks full of food sit just outside Gaza's border, barred by Israeli forces from entering.
"[People are starving] because of the government of Israel's restrictions, it's total siege, it's closing of seven crossings into Gaza, seven!," Bushra Khalidi, the occupied Palestinian territories policy lead for the international charity Oxfam, told the ABC.
"If we were to open every single crossing right now within an hour, we could get hundreds of trucks in."
"Meanwhile, of course, Israeli forces are forcibly displacing two million people into a small, confined area of Gaza now, representing only 12 per cent of the entire Gaza Strip. And now what we're seeing is abhorrent. I mean, I don't even know what adjective to use to describe the rates of malnutrition, of starvation, of children with skin on bones."
The Israeli government said it has allowed aid into Gaza, but that humanitarian organisations were not picking it up.
"There are more than 700 aid trucks waiting for the UN to pick up inside of Gaza," Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
"This bottleneck is the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip."
But aid agencies said Israeli military operations and restrictions are preventing them distributing that aid too.
"Tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them. The Government of Israel's restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death," more than 100 aid groups said in a joint statement released this week.
Palestinians are also struggling to access food from the four of Israeli-approved, privately-run aid distribution sites, operated by a new entity called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), all but one of which are in southern Gaza.
The United Nations estimated that, by mid July, more than 875 Palestinians had been killed — allegedly by Israeli fire — when trying to get the limited food available from the GHF sites.
The UN and partner agencies refuse to cooperate with the GHF, saying its operations breach international law and the basic humanitarian principles of aid delivery.
Israel has resisted criticism of its approach, saying its aid restrictions are intended to isolate the militant group Hamas and prevent it from earning any income.
"They are selling it to merchants and selling it to Gaza's people for exorbitant prices and they're using the money to pay for their terrorist fighters. And this seems to be the last leg which Hamas is standing on, which is why it is so important to cut Hamas out of the distribution process."
But for mothers like Shahenaj al Dibes, all they want is food for their children.
"I beg of you, open the crossings to Gaza as soon as possible, because the situation is catastrophic," she said.
ABC with wires