Razan clung to life for 39 days. She died of hunger aged just 4
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News.com.au
18 hours ago
- News.com.au
Aid groups warn of starving children as European powers discuss Gaza
Aid groups warned of surging numbers of malnourished children in war-ravaged Gaza as a trio of European powers prepared to hold an "emergency call" Friday on the deepening humanitarian crisis. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the United Nations said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition. With fears of mass starvation growing, Britain, France and Germany were set to hold an emergency call to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and discuss steps towards Palestinian statehood. "I will hold an emergency call with E3 partners tomorrow, where we will discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need while pulling together all the steps necessary to build a lasting peace," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. The call comes after hopes of a new ceasefire in Gaza faded on Thursday when Israel and the United States quit indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar. US envoy Steve Witkoff accused the Palestinian militant group of not "acting in good faith". President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that France would formally recognise a Palestinian state in September, drawing a furious rebuke from Israel. - 'Mass starvation' - More than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that "mass starvation" was spreading in Gaza. Israel has rejected accusations it is responsible for the deepening crisis, which the World Health Organization has called "man-made". Israel placed the Gaza Strip under an aid blockade in March, which it only partially eased two months later. The trickle of aid since then has been controlled by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, replacing the longstanding UN-led distribution system. Aid groups have refused to work with it, accusing it of aiding Israeli military goals. The GHF system, in which Gazans have to travel long distances and join huge queues to reach one of four sites, has often proved deadly, with the UN saying that more than 750 Palestinian aid-seekers have been killed by Israeli forces near GHF centres since late May. An AFP photographer saw bloodied patients, wounded while attempting to get humanitarian aid, being treated on the floor of Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis on Thursday. Israel has refused to return to the UN-led system, saying that it allowed Hamas to hijack aid for its own benefit. Accusing Israel of the "weaponisation of food", MSF said that: "Across screenings of children aged six months to five years old and pregnant and breastfeeding women, at MSF facilities last week, 25 per cent were malnourished." It said malnutrition cases had quadrupled since May 18 at its Gaza City clinic and that the facility was enrolling 25 new patients every day. Aid groups and medics have also warned that a lack of food is preventing the sick and wounded from recovering. - 'High risk of dying' - On Thursday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that one in five children in Gaza City were malnourished. Agency chief Philippe Lazzarini said: "Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don't get the treatment they urgently need." He also warned that "UNRWA frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all". Lazzarini said that the agency had "the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies" ready to send into Gaza if Israel allowed "unrestricted and uninterrupted" access to the territory. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,587 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Hamas's October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Sydney Morning Herald
18 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
I saw starving children every day in Gaza. It makes you question humanity
When you hold a starving baby in your hands, you feel how fragile life is. I saw starving children every day in Gaza, either in the medical facilities or in the streets with their mothers, begging for food. The toddlers look like babies, and older children are the size of toddlers. If they have enough energy to move, they're not playing because they're so traumatised by the bombing, and they're just looking for water or scraps of food. The mothers keep going because they have to survive – they can't let their children die; they're distraught by the state their children are in. But they're all wasting away, and they don't have to. There are hundreds of trucks at the border with all the food that is needed, all the infant formula, all the medical supplies. They've been there for months with everything that's needed for the people of Gaza, especially for the infants, to survive. It makes you question humanity and really wonder: What has gone wrong with the world, that we're still in this situation where there is so much hatred against people who are defenceless? The longer-term medical effects of being deprived of food include stunting and wasting. The children will not reach their potential in life if they're severely malnourished as infants. They won't develop properly, physically and physiologically, and it can affect mental development, being deprived of all the nutrients that they need. These children don't have the start in life that they should, and this will affect the whole population. We haven't received any medical supplies since March 2, apart from nine trucks that were allowed in by the Israeli authorities. But then they made the trucks come on roads that were very unsafe, in the middle of the night, and eventually they were attacked. And this makes it impossible to continue bringing in medical supplies. I've worked in conflict zones for 20 years. And although the people of Gaza are some of the bravest and most determined that I've ever met, they are also a defenceless population: children, infants, women, the disabled, the elderly, all the vulnerable and young adults who are missing their limbs. They're having to run and hide, and they're being bombed and starved. It could be stopped by the world but nothing's being done about it. The people of Gaza have been through hell, not just for the past two years but for decades. So they can tell when you're giving false hope; if a child is not going to survive, then we must be honest. I remember standing by while a five-year-old girl had her dressings changed on third-degree burns, without enough pain medication. She was screaming in agony, and all her parents could do was stand by and watch. And even then we had to tell the parents that we did not know if the girl would survive – especially without adequate nutrition to heal and recover. At Nasser Hospital I would see emaciated babies in the neonatal ICU and a paediatric ICU. But while I was there, the Israeli forces attacked the hospital twice – they'd send rockets through the windows of the hospital to target certain individuals who they wanted dead. One of them was said to be an extremely brave journalist who was a patient in the hospital at the time.

The Age
18 hours ago
- The Age
I saw starving children every day in Gaza. It makes you question humanity
When you hold a starving baby in your hands, you feel how fragile life is. I saw starving children every day in Gaza, either in the medical facilities or in the streets with their mothers, begging for food. The toddlers look like babies, and older children are the size of toddlers. If they have enough energy to move, they're not playing because they're so traumatised by the bombing, and they're just looking for water or scraps of food. The mothers keep going because they have to survive – they can't let their children die; they're distraught by the state their children are in. But they're all wasting away, and they don't have to. There are hundreds of trucks at the border with all the food that is needed, all the infant formula, all the medical supplies. They've been there for months with everything that's needed for the people of Gaza, especially for the infants, to survive. It makes you question humanity and really wonder: What has gone wrong with the world, that we're still in this situation where there is so much hatred against people who are defenceless? The longer-term medical effects of being deprived of food include stunting and wasting. The children will not reach their potential in life if they're severely malnourished as infants. They won't develop properly, physically and physiologically, and it can affect mental development, being deprived of all the nutrients that they need. These children don't have the start in life that they should, and this will affect the whole population. We haven't received any medical supplies since March 2, apart from nine trucks that were allowed in by the Israeli authorities. But then they made the trucks come on roads that were very unsafe, in the middle of the night, and eventually they were attacked. And this makes it impossible to continue bringing in medical supplies. I've worked in conflict zones for 20 years. And although the people of Gaza are some of the bravest and most determined that I've ever met, they are also a defenceless population: children, infants, women, the disabled, the elderly, all the vulnerable and young adults who are missing their limbs. They're having to run and hide, and they're being bombed and starved. It could be stopped by the world but nothing's being done about it. The people of Gaza have been through hell, not just for the past two years but for decades. So they can tell when you're giving false hope; if a child is not going to survive, then we must be honest. I remember standing by while a five-year-old girl had her dressings changed on third-degree burns, without enough pain medication. She was screaming in agony, and all her parents could do was stand by and watch. And even then we had to tell the parents that we did not know if the girl would survive – especially without adequate nutrition to heal and recover. At Nasser Hospital I would see emaciated babies in the neonatal ICU and a paediatric ICU. But while I was there, the Israeli forces attacked the hospital twice – they'd send rockets through the windows of the hospital to target certain individuals who they wanted dead. One of them was said to be an extremely brave journalist who was a patient in the hospital at the time.