17-05-2025
Here in Gaza, babies are skin and bone. I fear mine will be too
Every morning Shaimaa Ftouh's husband sets out to look for food in the ruins of Gaza. 'Most days, he comes back with nothing, with tears in his eyes,' she said. Sometimes Ftouh boils water and adds a little salt 'just to make a warm soup, so the children feel like they ate something' but it is no substitute for a real meal.
'One day, my daughter asked me, 'Mama, why doesn't this food taste like anything?' I couldn't answer,' she said. 'How can a mother cook when she has no ingredients and nothing to cook with?'
In January, The Sunday Times documented the earliest days of Sham, Ftouh's third child, who was delivered via C-section: cut from her mother's womb without anaesthetic, because there was
