Latest news with #SiwarAshour
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
There Is Nothing 'Humanitarian' About Israel's New Gaza Aid Plan
Gaza has endured 11 weeks of a blockade so total it lacks any precedent in modern history. The world has not seen urban hunger this desperate and extreme since the siege of Leningrad ended in 1944. Eleven weeks. Bones started showing through skin. Children were whittled down to a few kilograms, to limp handfuls. Worms found the last sacks of flour before the people did. The dogs that grew fat during the first phase of the war by feeding on the uncounted dead turned haggard again. Six-month-old Siwar Ashour looked with watery eyes out from the gray pit of a man-made hell—the only world she has ever known—too young to know why her belly is distended like that, too young to understand why she has the skin of an old woman. And for 11 weeks, the elites of the Western world looked back into Siwar's eyes (if they could even be bothered doing that) and said: Yes, she too should not be allowed to live. At the moment of absolute crisis, when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's starvation maps were shaded completely red—the worst moment yet in 19 months of war—it appears as if Israel and the United States have finally yielded. The new plan to allow food into Gaza might look like relief, might look like a change of heart—a reluctant gesture that Siwar Ashour doesn't deserve to be punished for the accident of her birth or for the crimes made by men a full year before she was conceived. But in truth, this new 'humanitarian' regime is not benevolent, fair, or equal, nor the heartbroken sympathy of the world for a people on the very brink of annihilation. It is a new phase in that annihilation, an instrument of Israeli policy to further dominate the Palestinians of Gaza, to more tightly restrict their calories and their movement. On Tuesday, this new phase began with the Israel Defense Forces blindly shooting at several thousand starved people who refused to wait patiently for the bread that is their right, killing three. It was no accident. The new aid system is run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. Its governance is a cloaked nexus of shell holdings, Swiss entities, escaped crooks, and U.S. military veterans—without a single Palestinian (or Arab) voice allowed to provide even nonbinding advice. Its plan is to operate four 'Secure Distribution Sites': armoured citadels defended by a private security company (another shadowy shell outfit called Safe Reach Solutions). The foundation proudly admits that each of these hubs can feed 300,000 people. But this is only half of Gaza's prewar population. Even if GHF's board promises to expand its capacity, one million Palestinians would still be starving, still without safe drinking water, still lacking even the simplest means of hygiene like toilet paper and tampons. Israel has engineered this new system so the greater mass of Gazans will be more concentrated, simpler to spy on, and easier to control. Security cameras and biometric testing are planned to screen the needy. Importantly for the greater designs of the Israeli government, large areas of the Gaza Strip can be depopulated, ripe for the 'conquest' the war cabinet approved earlier this month. And with only a handful of aid hubs to monitor, it saves the IDF the hassle of bombing each node of the old network individually, as it did when it flattened a U.N. distribution centre in Jabalia on May 9. It was, of course, empty. All the warehouses are empty. While GHF might proclaim its 'strict adherence to humanitarian principles … ensuring assistance reaches those most in need, without diversion or delay,' it is still beholden to its patron. During a hearing of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that aid would in fact be 'conditional'—only those Palestinians who promise not to return to their homes in areas declared off-limits by the IDF can be eligible. The destitute must run the gauntlet south, over the Netzarim and Morag corridors, kettled and corralled into tiny areas around the 'Secure Distribution Sites' to become utterly dependent on handouts. It also means concentrating men specifically, who are more likely to walk the long distances and then carry a heavy box all the way back. Their new homes will be hunger first 'Secure Distribution Site' proved to be anything but 'secure.' On May 27, the mass of Palestinians who came south—toward Rafah, a city that no longer exists—found a 20-acre plot of earth with sand walls, squat watchtowers, and a staff incapable of controlling a desperate population, even with the help of a labyrinth of wire fences and steel gates. The fences were busted down, the GHF's staff retreated, and the IDF picked up the slack. One Palestinian was killed and several dozen others injured in a spree of gunfire. Of course, some of the meager supplies—beans, pasta, lentils—are produced in Israel, with Hebrew branding. War is a racket, Smedley Butler once said. Someone along the chain is making a killing from killing. Who is that someone? Even before its disastrous debut, the GHF seemed to empty itself of personnel, either out of shame or embarrassment. Jacob Wood, formerly of the aid group Team Rubicon, resigned his post as executive director, saying it was 'not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to … humanitarian principles.' Nate Mook, the former CEO of World Central Kitchen, denied being a part of the GHF, even though his name appeared on early memos leaked to the press. Ex-South Carolina governor and longtime chief of the U.N.'s World Food Programme David Beasley was the foundation's best chance at appearing legitimate or impartial. His name too appeared in the briefing documents. He has wisely kept quiet. It has long been the Israeli government's desire that Gaza's economy should be utterly dependent on the largesse of their occupiers. Even before the war, 80 percent of the population needed some kind of humanitarian assistance to get by. Since 2007, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable, Israel has kept the Strip 'functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.' And since October 7, the Israeli army has deliberately wrecked four-fifths of Gaza's agricultural land, which in the best of times could only feed a third of its people. Now there will not be a country. It is extremely rare for Netanyahu to say openly what is being done to Gaza and its population. For 19 months, Israel's prime minister stayed on message—get the hostages, finish off Hamas—while deferring the bloody work of honesty to his deputies. Yet at the same Knesset committee, Netanyahu proudly admitted his true intent. 'We are demolishing more and more homes,' he said. The Palestinians 'have nowhere to return. The obvious result will be the desire of Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip.' In this sense, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and Israel's newest government agency—the Voluntary Emigration Bureau—go hand-in-hand. They are the two tracks of a single strategy, the pincers advancing toward a clear goal: to get as many Palestinians as possible to leave their homeland and never come back. Because the GHF's aid regime is a naked instrument of Israeli policy, the U.N.'s relief agencies and other charities have unanimously rejected taking part in it. Their reasons are sound. Publicly they condemn any plan, as U.N. Secretary General António Guterres put it, that would risk 'further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour.' Privately they fear becoming complicit in a vast crime. Indeed, the worst crime of our age. 'The model of total control over aid delivery and distribution exercised by a party to the conflict,' a U.N. discussion memo says, 'would become a standard that other Member States may seek to replicate.' Israel is setting a standard, a precedent. The methods of annihilation trialed here can be trialed elsewhere—will be trialed elsewhere. Anyone refusing to oblige or consent now is doing a favor to the future. Take the long view. Look from above. What do we see? Not just a nation being dismantled, piece by gory piece. Not just the Israeli government's shameless perpetration of nearly every one of the gravest crimes humanity has written. We see exactly the techniques a sadist might use to make their captive helpless and pliable. The unrelenting airstrikes. The unceasing demolition of homes and farmland. The unnerving assassinations of journalists and aid workers. Above all, the use of hunger as a weapon of coercion. There is a word for what Israel is doing: torture—the torture of an entire society in the hope it might flee its torment or perish in the trying. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation cannot rescue the Palestinians. It is one more tool in a suite of destruction.
BBC News
25-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
BBC returns to Gaza baby left hungry by Israeli blockade
There is no excitement as the camera passes. The children barely glance. What can surprise a child who lives among the dead, the dying, the waiting to die? Hunger has worn them wait in queues for scant rations or for none at all. They have grown used to my colleague and his camera, filming for the BBC. He witnesses their hunger, their dying, and to the gentle wrapping of their bodies - or fragments of their bodies - in white shrouds upon which their names, if known, are 19 months of war, and now under a renewed Israeli offensive, this local cameraman - who I do not name, for his safety - has listened to the anguished cries of the survivors in hospital physical distance is respectful, but they are on his mind, day and night. He is one of them, trapped in the same claustrophobic morning he is setting out to find Siwar Ashour, a five-month-old girl whose emaciated frame and exhausted cry at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis affected him so much, when he was filming there earlier this month, that he wrote to tell me something had broken inside weighed just over 2kg (4lb 6oz). A baby girl of five months should be about 6kg or over. Siwar has since been discharged and is now at home, my colleague has heard. That is what brings him to the street of pulverised houses and makeshift shelters of canvas and corrugated conducts his search in difficult circumstances. A few days ago I messaged to ask how he was doing. "I am not okay," he replied. "Just a short while ago, the Israeli army announced the evacuation of most areas of Khan Younis… We don't know what to do - there is no safe place to go."Al-Mawasi is extremely overcrowded with displaced people. We are lost and have no idea what the right decision is at this moment."He finds a one-bedroom shack, the entrance formed of a floral patterned, grey and black curtain. Inside there are three mattresses, part of a chest of drawers, and a mirror which reflects sunlight across the floor in front of Siwar, her mother Najwa and her grandmother, Reem. Siwar is quiet, held secure by the protective presence of the two women. The baby cannot absorb regular milk formula because of a severe allergic reaction. Under the conditions of war and an Israeli blockade on aid arrivals, there is a severe shortage of the formula she 23, explains that her condition stabilised when she was in Nasser hospital, so doctors discharged her with a can of baby formula several days at home, she says the baby's weight has started to slip again. "The doctors told me that Siwar improved and is better than before, but I think that she is still skinny and hasn't improved much. They found her only one can of milk, and it [has] started running out."Flies dance in front of Siwar's face. "The situation is very dire," says Najwa, "the insects come at her, I have to cover her with a scarf so nothing touches her".Siwar has lived with the sound of war since last November when she was born. The artillery, the rockets, falling bombs - distant and near. The gunfire, the blades of Israeli drones whirring overhead. Najwa explains: "She understands these things. The sound of the tanks, warplanes, and rockets are so loud and they are close to us. When Siwar hears these sounds, she gets startled and cries. If she is sleeping, she wakes up startled and crying."Doctors in Gaza say many young mothers report being unable to breastfeed their babies due to lack of nutrition. The pressing problem is food and clean was malnourished herself when Siwar was born. She and her mother Reem still find it difficult to get anything to eat themselves. It is the struggle of every waking hour. "In our case, we can't provide milk or diapers because of the prices and the border closure."On 22 May Israeli military body Cogat said there was no food shortage in Gaza. It said "significant quantities of baby food and flour for bakeries" had been brought into the enclave in recent days. The agency has repeatedly insisted that Hamas steals aid, while the Israeli government says the war will continue until Hamas is destroyed and the Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 20 hostages seized by Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attacks are believed to be alive and up to 30 others agencies, the United Nations and many foreign governments, including Britain, reject Cogat's comment that there is no food shortage. US President Donald Trump has also spoken of people "starving" in Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza as "a teaspoon". He said Palestinians were "enduring what may be the cruellest phase of this cruel conflict" with restricted supplies of fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification to the UN 80% of Gaza is now either designated as an Israeli militarised zone or a place where people have been ordered to denials, the expressions of concern, the condemnations and the moments which seemed like turning points have come and gone throughout this war. The sole constant is the suffering of Gaza's 2.1 million people, like Najwa and her daughter Siwar."One does not think about the future or the past," Najwa is only the present moment and how to survive additional reporting by Malak Hassouneh, Alice Doyard and Nik Millard.
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
I showed my friends in Israel this photo of a starving baby in Gaza and asked them if they knew
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now reaching new and ever-more shocking depths, with an estimated two million Palestinians facing imminent and catastrophic food insecurity because of a two-month Israeli blockade of relief entering the strip. The recent distressing images of emaciated children, including one particularly upsetting photograph of six-month-old Siwar Ashour, have appalled the world. The UN says hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are at immediate risk of famine. Millions of words have been written describing the unfolding horror. But one question that is rarely answered is how ordinary Israelis feel about this. How much do they know about the imminent Israeli-induced famine on their doorstep? As an Irish person living in Tel Aviv, I have written here before that the war you see in the media is not the war we see ; that Israeli media – in particular the three mainstream news channels – simply do not show the most harrowing images that the rest of the world has been seeing for nearly 18 months of war. As an Irish-born journalist and an Israeli citizen, I have become increasingly exasperated and exhausted watching the main evening news in Israel. [ I am Irish and live in Israel. The war we see on TV is not the one you see Opens in new window ] Understandably, a nation at war will generate and endeavour to sustain its self-serving narrative of what has happened since October 7th, 2023. Facts may be facts – but explanations, interpretations, perspectives and testimonies can radically differ, especially at a time of war. Although it is increasingly grotesque to describe recent Israeli military actions in Gaza as the acts of a nation 'at war'. In recent months, the gap between how the mainstream media inside and outside Israel report on what is happening in Gaza has widened. READ MORE But what once could be described as understandable differences of polarised political opinion has now evolved into a chasm of counterfactual storytelling, infected at times with pernicious language. The use of phrases such as 'baby killers' or 'murderers of children', which is now commonly used in the mainstream Irish media, raises eyebrows in Israel. For many here this language is a not-so-subtle allusion to the classic and centuries-long anti-Semitic trope of blood libel. Israelis themselves, however, are increasingly trapped inside a misinformation bubble that risks, if not the very existence of the state, certainly its status as a country previously regarded as having a free and open democratic press. With the notable exception of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, the media in both Hebrew and English are failing ordinary Israelis. [ The Irish Times view on the war in Gaza: the world is still standing by Opens in new window ] I recently returned from a brief trip to Ireland, my first since the October 7th Hamas terror attack on Israel. The one question I was repeatedly asked was: what do Israelis see – or not see as is the case – about the war on Gaza? With this in mind, I took what I knew to be the risky step of showing an image of six-month-old Siwar Ashour to close friends in Tel Aviv, and asked them two simple questions. First, had they seen the images of Siwar, or any similar images of starving children in Gaza before? Secondly, how do they feel that this has been done in their name? Five-month-old Siwar Ashour, one of hundreds of children diagnosed with malnutrition in Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 1st, 2025. Photo by Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images I do not often bring up the horror of Gaza with my Israeli friends and certainly not my Israeli in-laws. Who wants to invite a brother-in-law over to Shabbat dinner or birthday celebrations if they persist in talking about plausible genocide or ethnic cleansing? But with hindsight, in shying away from these difficult conversations, I perhaps missed the opportunity to learn and reveal something unknown about this war. The friends I asked are, like me, all parents of young children. No one I asked said they had seen the specific image of baby Siwar. And while they all acknowledge the horror of the war in Gaza and accept the gravity of the food shortages, not one of them could recall seeing any images of emaciated children on Israeli television news. Here, I have changed their names. Tal (48) says he does not support the war. 'There is the Israeli government, Netanyahu, and there is the Israeli people. This government should be arrested,' he told me. He said he feels helpless, and understands the 'disgust' abroad at some images he has seen on CNN. Yoav (42) says Israelis are 'exhausted; we are still running to bomb shelters'. But he doesn't reject accusations of an Israel-manufactured famine. He puts it bluntly: 'Famine, it's starvation, they are being starved.' He then adds: 'This government's argument is we shouldn't be feeding those who are trying to kill you ... and people buy that'. [ Bernie Sanders: Senator has 'no apologies' for his position on Israel's attack on Gaza Opens in new window ] Maya (47) is also keen to separate herself and her family, friends and acquaintances from the Netanyahu government. 'I did not vote for this government. I despise this government. It has done so much damage to the Israeli people. I would do anything I could do to replace, remove or bring it down.' She did, however, add that the priorities of those around her may be different. 'The average Israeli wants the war to end, the hostages to be released and soldiers to return home.' But then she says, with some hesitation, that '[the average Israeli] doesn't care much about the Palestinians after October 7th'. My friends' attitudes are perhaps typical of Tel Aviv, not all of Israel. A recent poll on Channel 13 news revealed that while 53 per cent of the Israeli public believe the war has been sustained because of the political self-interest of the government – with 35 per cent of the opinion that the war was dragging on for operational needs – just 46 per cent of overall respondents were against the continuation of the war. Still, there are some hopeful signs in Israel. Just last month 'advertisements' appeared on bus stop shelters across Tel Aviv, with the faces of dozens of children killed in Gaza. The caption read: 'Refuse to go to War. 18,000 children dead'. The sponsor of these subversive images that challenge the silence of the mainstream news channels is an Israeli-Palestinian organisation called Standing Together . I have little doubt that history will not be kind to how Israeli news channels met their responsibilities to show the truth of what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is doing and has done in Gaza in the name of all Israelis. I also do not doubt that Israeli children will be asking their parents in the years ahead some variation of the question I asked: what did they know or not know about the Israeli-induced starvation in Gaza. Paul Kearns is an Irish-born freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Food security experts warn Gaza at ‘critical risk of famine' amid Israeli blockade
Gaza is at 'critical risk of famine', food security experts have warned, 10 weeks after Israel imposed a blockade on the devastated Palestinian territory, cutting off all supplies including food, medicine, shelter and fuel. In its most recent report, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said on Monday there had been a 'major deterioration' in the food security situation in Gaza since its last assessment in October 2024 and that Palestinians living there faced 'a critical risk of famine'. 'Goods indispensable for people's survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks. The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people – one in five – facing starvation,' said the IPC, a consortium of independent specialists tasked by the UN and international NGOs with assessing the risk of famine in crises worldwide. Israel imposed its strict blockade in early March, after the end of the first phase of a supposed three-phase ceasefire. Just over two weeks later, a new wave of attacks by the Israeli military definitively ended the truce. Aid workers in Gaza told the Guardian that prices for essentials had risen further in recent days, warehouses were empty and humanitarian teams treating malnourished children were being forced to divide rations designed for one between two patients to give both a chance of survival. Related: A picture that shocked the world: the story behind baby Siwar Ashour 'The stocks we brought in during the [two-month-long] ceasefire are running very low. We have treated more than 11,000 children since the beginning of the year … In coming weeks, we fear we will see more children dying,' said Jonathan Crickx, a spokesperson for Unicef speaking from southern Gaza. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization separately warned that Gaza faced 'imminent risk of famine', saying agriculture was 'on the brink of total collapse' and called for the 'immediate' lifting of the blockade. Law and order has also suffered in recent weeks as desperate Palestinians and organised gangs exploit growing chaos. Israeli officials say the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the 59 hostages it has been holding since October 2023, when it launched a surprise raid into southern Israel. On Monday, the Islamist militant organisation released the last living US-Israeli citizen held in Gaza, a 21-year-old soldier. More than 1,200 were killed, mostly civilians, and 251 abducted during the Hamas attack in 2023. More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the ensuing offensive and swaths of the territory reduced to rubble. Israel accuses Hamas of systematically diverting aid to finance its military and other operations, and of using civilians as human shields. Hamas denies both charges. In Gaza, bakeries run by the World Food Programme shut down weeks ago, all out of flour or fuel. Kitchens that handed out nearly 1m meals every day in Gaza have closed or have limited supplies left. The warehouses of the UN are empty, aid officials said. Prices have risen steadily as basic foodstuffs have become scarcer. A kilo of potatoes and tomatoes in some areas costs more than $10 (£7.60). Dr Ahmed al-Farah, the director of the children's and maternity building at the Nasser medical complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, said last week that between five and 10 new malnutrition cases were being recorded there each day. Related: 'Desperate, traumatised people': Gaza faces wave of looting, theft and violence 'We're seeing severe cases. Malnutrition appears in children in a horrifying and extremely visible way,' Farah said. 'We have nothing to offer them. They need proteins, but there are none. We try to provide a little milk, perhaps powdered milk, but we can't offer anything more.' Israel has proposed a new system of aid distribution in Gaza involving individual hubs run by private contractors and protected by Israeli troops. The UN has so far refused to participate in the scheme, which humanitarian officials describe as inadequate, impractical and potentially unlawful. The IPC, which has developed a five-level famine warning system, found that from 1 April to 10 May, 244,000 people in Gaza were in the most critical food security situation – level five, or 'catastrophe/famine'. The consortium, set up in 2004, brings together more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies. It has rarely declared famine: in Somalia in 2011, and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of Sudan's western Darfur region. The technical definition of a famine is demanding, with at least two of three things observed: 20% of households with an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children six months to five years old suffering from acute malnutrition; and at least two people or four children under five per every 10,000 dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. The new IPC assessment found that the first threshold was met in Gaza, saying 477,000 people – or 22% of the population – were classified as facing 'catastrophic' hunger, the highest level, for the period from 11 May to the end of September. The other thresholds were not met, however. Related: Gaza blockade: a Palestinian widow, her children and a cupboard that is almost bare Humanitarian officials in Gaza say they fear that by the time a famine is officially declared it will be too late and many will already have died. The IPC also warned of 'imminent' famine in northern Gaza in March 2024, but the following month Israel allowed an influx of aid under US pressure after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers.
The Guardian
11-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
There is suffering everywhere you look, says mother of emaciated baby girl trapped in Gaza
Siwar Ashour was born into war and hunger and has known nothing else. She is now in real danger of dying without ever having known a moment of peace or contentment. The six-month-old Palestinian girl, whose painfully emaciated body symbolised the deliberate starvation of Gaza when she appeared on the BBC this week, was only 2.5kg when she was born on 20 November last year. From birth, Siwar had a problem with her oesophagus that has made it hard for her to drink breast milk and left her dependent on specialised formula, which is in critically short supply. Her parents' home in al-Nuseirat, halfway up the coast on the Gaza Strip, was bombed earlier in the war, which began in October 2023 when Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel, leading to an Israeli assault that has so far killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza. They lived in tents for a while but it was almost impossible to get food or water in the camp and it also came under Israeli fire. They tried going back to al-Nuseirat to stay at Siwar's grandparents' home, but that was bombed, too. All that was left of the building was a single room, which they shared with 11 other people. That was where Siwar was born. 'I was exhausted all the time. There was no privacy, and I couldn't get any rest,' Najwa Aram, Siwar's 23-year-old mother said. 'There was no food or proper nutrition, and when I gave birth to her, she was not like other babies.' 'When she was born, she was beautiful despite the weakness visible on her features,' she said. 'But now she is unnaturally thin. Babies her age are supposed to weigh six kilograms6kg or more – not just 2 to 4kg.' Najwa found out last month she was pregnant with her second child, but lives in terror of losing Siwar before her brother or sister is born. She has moved to Khan Younis to stay with her mother, but has spent most of the past few months in hospital with her frail daughter. Her husband, Saleh, is blind, and had to stay behind in al-Nuseirat. The relentless bombing has forced the family to move several times, like almost all families in Gaza, and has torn them apart. 'Even though Siwar's father is blind, he used to play with her a lot. He visited us in the hospital only once, as he cannot move without someone accompanying him,' Najwa said. 'He fears for her even more than I do – he is deeply attached to her.' The family has no source of income so relies on charity kitchens for food and some humanitarian aid, but that too is in desperately short supply as Israel's total blockade of Gaza approaches the 70-day mark. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN relief agency, Unrwa, said this week: 'the manmade and politically motivated starvation in Gaza is an expression of absolute cruelty'. Najwa and her mother have a single sack of flour left, as well as a few tins. 'Once this runs out, we won't be able to buy anything due to the high prices,' Najwa said. Even more critically, supplies of the special milk formula that Siwar needs are harder and harder to find. 'I am also suffering from malnutrition. Still, I try to breastfeed Siwar, but she refuses and continues to cry, completely rejecting me,' Najwa said. 'That's why I've had to rely more on formula milk. When I used to breastfeed her, one can of formula would last a month. Now it runs out in less than a week.' Najwa and her daughter spent much of March in hospital in Deir al-Balah, where there was a milk formula that seemed to work, bringing Siwar's weight up to 4kg. 'I noticed that Siwar started to smile and play, which made me happy and gave me hope that her health might improve.' But that fragile moment of hope crumbled when they were discharged, and Siwar started losing weight again. She was referred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where mother and daughter remain, for now. 'The doctors are doing everything they can to take care of her, but she also doesn't tolerate the formula they prepare for her,' Najwa said. 'The hospital situation is bad. There are six patients in each room. Everywhere you look, there is suffering. There's a child in worse condition than Siwar.' 'Seeing my daughter in this state every day gives me insomnia,' she said. 'I'm constantly anxious and overthinking. Sometimes I can't bear seeing her like this, and I start crying. I'm so afraid of losing her. Can't the world open the crossings to allow in milk, food, and medicine. All I want is for my daughter Siwar to live like the rest of the children in the world.' Dr Ahmed al-Farah, the director of the children's and maternity building at the Nasser medical complex, said between five and 10 new malnutrition cases are being recorded there every day. 'We're seeing severe cases. Malnutrition appears in children in a horrifying and extremely visible way,' Farah said. 'We have nothing to offer them. They need proteins, but there are none. We try to provide a little milk, perhaps powdered milk, but we can't offer anything more. 'On top of that, the severe overcrowding in hospitals leads to increased disease transmission among children,' he added. There is only enough fuel left at the Nasser complex to keep the generators going for another 48 hours. They have already had to shut off electricity on the administrative floors to make it last a little bit longer, but the power supply will soon have to be cut to the overcrowded patients' wards. 'We are helpless in the face of their needs – we cannot provide food, supplements, medication, or vitamins appropriate for their conditions,' the doctor said. 'I studied malnutrition in medical school textbooks. I used to think that study would remain theoretical, something we'd never see in real life. But now, those textbook descriptions have come to life before our eyes in Gaza,' Farah said. 'I call on the world to see us as human beings – we were created just like everyone else.'
