Heartbreaking images of Gaza kids on brink of death can no longer be ignored
A starving child clings to his mum in an image victims in Gaza pray the world can no longer ignore.
Severely weak Yezen Abu Ful, two, is among 70,000 children medics warn are now facing malnutrition. UN chief Antonio Guterres blasted the 'indifference and inaction' of global leaders over the Gaza slaughter, as children dying from hunger hit 122 since the war began. Keir Starmer vowed the UK will 'pull every lever' to get vital aid into the Strip and added: 'This humanitarian catastrophe must end.'
Pitiful cries for help ring out from the depths of despair in Gaza, calling to a world that appears to have stood by and watched the hell of slaughter and starvation unfold. And as yet more horrific images of emaciated children on the brink of death emerge, the call for action to end the suffering of Palestinians in the face of relentless Israeli attacks and blockades grows.
In one haunting image, Muhammed Zakariya Ayyub al-Matouk – a tragic sight of skin and bones – clings to his desperate mum in a tent in Gaza City where there is no access to milk, food, or basic necessities. The one-and-a-half-year-old is just one of an estimated 70,000 children said by medics to be in a state of starvation – and up to 28 are believed to be dying every day.
Gaza's hospitals yesterday reported nine more deaths from hunger in 24 hours, bringing the total to 122 since the war started. In another harrowing picture, Yezen Abu Ful, two, lies helpless at the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, waiting for food many know may never come until it is too late.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world not to ignore the crisis. He said: 'I cannot explain the level of indifference and inaction we see by too many in the international community. The lack of compassion, the lack of truth, the lack of humanity.'
Gaza-based journalist Noor al-Shana told how desperate Palestinians are 'tired of empty expressions of solidarity' – as the death toll in the strip hit 59,587. She said: 'We don't want just words, we want actions. There are thousands of children dying now and no one is doing anything. The world is saying 'Free Palestine'. We don't want words, we want solutions.'
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Israel 's actions in Gaza were causing 'man-made mass starvation'. Parents are going without food themselves for days in a bid to save their stricken children.
Unicef and other agencies warned Gaza will run out of the therapeutic food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children by mid-August unless aid is restored.
The disturbing scenes came as 221 cross-party MPs demanded Keir Starmer recognise Palestine as a state. But the PM resisted and, writing in the Mirror today, insisted such a move must be part of a wider 'pathway to peace'. But amid the misery, there was a tiny glimmer of hope, as triplets born in April continue to grow.
Mum Alaa, 31, and 36-year-old husband Louay feared she would miscarry the tots due to the stress of Israeli airstrikes. The couple, who also have children Alma, seven, and two-year-old Ahmed, had to move three times due to the attacks or military orders – once while she was heavily pregnant. Alaa said: 'We ran in silence. I prayed my babies wouldn't slip away while I escaped death.'
With help from an Islamic Relief project, their little girls Israa, Ayla and Aylol were born underweight but alive. Alaa added: 'They are my miracle. My proof that even in war, life insists on being born.' But the babies and their mother could still face problems if they need any more medical care, equipment and drugs fast running out due to the Israeli blockade.
Pregnant women are now too malnourished to stand, and even doctors are facing starvation. The women are having operations without anaesthetics. Nurses have to squeeze three or four babies into a single incubator. Doctors have reported a huge increase in miscarriages. Medics at hospitals such as Al Awda in northern Gaza are risking their lives to keep services going.
More than 1,500 health workers have been killed while half of all hospitals have had to shut down. Aid workers, too, are suffering from a lack of food. The UN claims at least 100,000 Palestinians are starving.
President Emmanuel Macron said France will recognise Palestine as a state immediately, piling pressure on Mr Starmer. A third of MPs in the Commons signed the letter to the PM demanding he follow suit. Charities have demanded Israel allow the UN to distribute aid, which they said is sitting outside Gaza.
They called for the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is responsible for what little aid is getting through, to be shut down amid deaths at food queues. GHF insists those tragedies never happened at its site and the Israeli military said troops have not fired on civilians.
Ceasefire talks appear to have stalled amid differing demands from Israel and Hamas, which sparked the war with its October 7 attack that killed 1, 200 people. The group also kidnapped 251, some of whom are still in captivity.
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Reuters
30 minutes ago
- Reuters
'If the baby could speak, she would scream': the risky measures to feed small babies in Gaza
GAZA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM, July 31 (Reuters) - In a makeshift tent on a Gazan beach, three-month-old Muntaha's grandmother grinds up chickpeas into the tiniest granules she can to form a paste to feed the infant, knowing it will cause her to cry in pain, in a desperate race to keep the baby from starving. "If the baby could speak, she would scream at us, asking what we are putting into her stomach," her aunt, Abir Hamouda said. Muntaha grimaced and squirmed as her grandmother fed her the paste with a syringe. Muntaha's family is one of many in Gaza facing dire choices to try to feed babies, especially those below the age of six months who cannot process solid food. Infant formula is scarce after a plummet in aid access to Gaza. Many women cannot breastfeed due to malnourishment, while other babies are separated from their mothers due to displacement, injury or, in Muntaha's case, death. Her family says the baby's mother was hit by a bullet while pregnant, gave birth prematurely while unconscious in intensive care, and died a few weeks later. The director of the Shifa Hospital described such a case in a Facebook post on April 27, four days after Muntaha was born. "I am terrified about the fate of the baby," said her grandmother, Nemah Hamouda. "We named her after her she can survive and live long, but we are so afraid, we hear children and adults die every day of hunger." Muntaha now weighs about 3.5 kilograms, her family said, barely more than half of what a full-term baby her age would normally weigh. She suffers stomach problems like vomiting and diarrhoea after feeding. Health officials, aid workers and Gazan families told Reuters many families are feeding infants herbs and tea boiled in water, or grinding up bread or sesame. Humanitarian agencies also reported cases of parents boiling leaves in water, eating animal feed and grinding sand into flour. Feeding children solids too early can disrupt their nutrition, cause stomach problems, and risk choking, paediatric health experts say. "It's a desperate move to compensate for the lack of food," said UNICEF spokesperson Salim Oweis. "When mothers can't breastfeed or provide proper infant formula they resort to grinding chickpeas, bread, rice, anything that they can get their hands on to feed their children... it is risking their health because these supplies are not made for infants to feed on." Gaza's spiralling humanitarian crisis prompted the main world hunger monitoring body on Tuesday to say a worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding and immediate action is needed to avoid widespread death. Images of emaciated Palestinian children have shocked the world. Gazan health authorities have reported more and more people dying from hunger-related causes. The total so far stands at 154, among them 89 children, most of whom died in the last few weeks. With the international furore over Gaza's ordeal growing, Israel announced steps over the weekend to ease aid access. But the U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday it was still not getting the permissions it needed to deliver enough aid. Israel and the U.S. accuse militant group Hamas of stealing aid - which the militants deny - and the U.N. of failing to prevent it. The U.N. says it has not seen evidence of Hamas diverting much aid. Hamas accuses Israel of causing starvation and using aid as a weapon, which the Israeli government denies. Humanitarian agencies say there is almost no infant formula left in Gaza. The cans available in the market cost over $100 – impossible to afford for families like Muntaha's, whose father has been jobless since the war closed his falafel business and displaced the family from their home. In the paediatric ward of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, the infant formula supply is mostly depleted. One mother showed how she poured thick tahini sesame paste into a bottle and mixed it with water. "I am using this instead of milk, to compensate her for milk, but she won't drink it," said Azhar Imad, 31, the mother of four-month-old Joury. "I also make her fenugreek, anise, caraway, any kind of herbs (mixed with water)," she said, panicked as she described how instead of nourishing her child, these attempts were making her sick. Medical staff at the hospital spoke of helplessness, watching on as children's health deteriorated with no way to safely feed them. "Now, children are being fed either water or ground hard legumes, and this is harmful for children in Gaza," said doctor Khalil Daqran. "If the hunger continues ... within three or four days, if the child doesn't get access to milk immediately, then they will die," he said.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
I'm one of many Palestinian doctors in Israel. We're being persecuted – but we won't abandon our oath
Medicine is a humanistic profession, grounded in ethical values of justice, beneficence and the commitment to do no harm. It is a vocation of healing, of saving lives and of easing physical and emotional suffering. Being a doctor requires inner strength – the ability to see another's pain, to feel it and to respond with empathy and compassion, alongside the knowledge and professionalism the role demands. I believe a physician also bears a critical responsibility in advocating for their patients' right to health and in upholding the principle of justice. In that sense, every doctor is, to me, a leader. I explored these ideas in a new Guardian documentary, The Oath. I tell my story as a Palestinian doctor living in Israel and working within its healthcare system. Made over the past year, the film portrays the struggles and challenges I have faced in that time. However, since I was first filmed in March 2024, the situation in Gaza, and the position we are in as doctors, has only worsened – day by day, hour by hour. As a Palestinian doctor living and working in Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health. Already as a medical student, I decided that I could not sit on the sidelines in the face of all that. I joined Physicians for Human Rights – Israel in order to fight for the health of the populations under Israeli control, together with many partners. When we began filming the documentary, five months had already passed since Israel's assault on Gaza began. At that point, thousands had been killed and widespread destruction had taken place. Still, I could not have dreamed that for the next year and a half we would continue to witness daily bombings, mass death – including thousands of children – millions displaced, starvation and the unprecedented decimation of Gaza's health system. Hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, universities and entire neighbourhoods have been wiped off the map. The scale of devastation is unlike anything I have seen elsewhere. This is not merely a humanitarian crisis, it is what many international legal scholars and human rights organisations have begun to describe as a genocide in progress. My personal story is inseparable from this struggle. Marwan, the brother of my sister-in-law, a paramedic, was killed in the line of duty on 7 October 2023. These past two weeks were even more tragic for his family: their tents in a camp in Gaza were bombed, killing 10 relatives, among them Abdullah, an eight-year-old boy full of life and dreams of becoming a doctor, murdered in his sleep. Little Marwan, seven years old, lay unconscious in a hospital for a week due to a severe head injury, but was denied proper treatment due to the severe shortage of medical staff and resources. Since that tragic day, more than 1,500 Palestinian medical personnel have been killed. Many have been detained, subjected to ongoing persecution and humiliation. Some have died by torture and neglect in Israeli detention facilities. All this takes place under deafening silence from the Israeli healthcare establishment and many of my fellow physicians, who too often choose silence over basic ethics and morality. Only very few voices were heard among some in the Israeli healthcare system against targeting their colleagues in Gazan hospitals. Amid all this, I try to speak with restraint, to choose my words carefully, out of fear and understanding that my voice might be seen as dangerous. Since 7 October, Palestinian staff in the Israeli healthcare system have faced persecution, slander and paralysis. Anti-Palestinian sentiment is surging, even among patients and colleagues. Slogans such as 'there are no innocents in Gaza' or 'burn Gaza to the ground' are neither rejected nor punished by the system. Any expression of sympathy for victims – women, children, innocent civilians – is seen as support for terror, and puts the speaker at risk of dismissal or disciplinary action. A fellow physician, a partner in our struggle, was recently fired for delivering a brief speech in which he criticised the crimes committed in Gaza. The silencing and persecution are only intensifying. Medicine, once assumed to be a neutral profession, has become politically and morally fraught. To treat an injured child in Gaza is no longer merely a medical duty – it is a profound moral declaration. The oath to provide equal care to all shatters against the brutal reality in which doctors and children are killed, patients are arrested, voices are suppressed and dreams – like Abdullah's – collapse. And still, I continue to fight. Because as long as we remain silent, our oath is hollowed out, and the right to health becomes a fantasy too far to reach. Yet, as long as I have a voice, I will use it: for my patients, for justice, for the oath we all swore. Lina Qasem Hassan is a Palestinian doctor working in the Israeli healthcare system and is chairwoman of Physicians for Human Rights - Israel. Photograph of Lina Qasem Hassan by Fadi Amun Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Dozens of Palestinians killed seeking aid, Gaza civil defence ministry says
Israeli gunfire killed at least 30 Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in northern Gaza on Wednesday, according to the Hamas-run civil defence agency.A Gaza civil defence spokesperson told the AFP news agency that Israeli fire wounded around 300 more people. Israel said details of the incident "are still being examined".The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said they fired "warning shots" after Gazans gathered around aid trucks 3km southwest of the Zikim crossing, but they were "not aware of any casualties" from IDF Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said his facility had received 35 bodies following the incident, according to AFP. Later, the hospital said at least 48 Palestinians were killed, according to the Associated Gaza hospital sources told the BBC that six Palestinians were killed near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution centre in the Rafah area of Gaza on Wednesday GHF told the BBC no killings took place at or near its sites on Israel Defense Force (IDF) told the BBC a "gathering of suspects" it said posed a threat to its troops were told to move away, and subsequently the army fired "warning shots" at a distance of "hundreds of metres away" from the distribution military also said "an initial review suggests that the number of casualties reported does not align with the information held by the IDF".According to the UN human rights office, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to access food aid since late May. More than 150 people have died of malnutrition since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, including 89 children, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry comes as a group of UN-backed global food security experts warned that the "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out" in Gaza, despite Israel this week announcing a series of "tactical pauses" in military operations to allow aid into the territory. Israel says it is not imposing restrictions on aid entering Gaza, claims rejected by some European nations and the week, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the "trickle of aid" into Gaza "must become an ocean". "Food, water, medicine and fuel must flow in waves and without obstruction. This nightmare must end," he Thursday, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Israel to discuss the humanitarian situation in visit comes as Canada followed France and the UK in announcing plans to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September - the third G7 nation to do so. More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, including 18,592 children and 9,782 women. Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.
