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Forbes
18 hours ago
- Health
- Forbes
Children Are Dying As Famine Conditions Deepen In Gaza Strip
The worst case scenario of famine is playing out in the Gaza Strip, where food and nutrition indicators have reached their most dire levels since the conflict began. Two out of the three famine thresholds have now been breached in parts of the territory. Two-year-old Yazan sits on his mother's lap in their tent in the Beach Camp west of Gaza City. His father is physically ill and unable to work, and his mother cannot hold back her tears as she says, 'I search for food every day. I knock on doors, but no one helps us. Our home is empty of food and medicine. Yazan is always screaming from hunger, and I scream: 'People of the world, find us a solution!' But no one listens.' Thousands of children under 5 in Gaza are suffering from the deadliest form of malnutrition Relentless conflict, the collapse of essential services and severe limitations on the delivery and distribution of humanitarian assistance have led to catastrophic food security conditions for hundreds of thousands of people across Gaza, according to data shared in the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Alert. As of July 2025, more than 320,000 children — Gaza's entire under-5 population — are at risk of acute malnutrition, with thousands suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition. Essential nutrition services have collapsed, with infants lacking access to safe water, breastmilk substitutes and therapeutic feeding. In June, 6,500 children were admitted for treatment for malnutrition, the highest number since the conflict began. July is tracking even higher — 5,000 children were admitted in just the first two weeks. With fewer than 15 percent of essential nutrition treatment services currently functional, the risk of malnutrition-related deaths among infants and young children is higher than ever before. 'Emaciated children and babies are dying from malnutrition in Gaza. We need immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access across Gaza to scale up the delivery of lifesaving food, nutrition, water and medicine.' Time is running out to mount a full-scale humanitarian response. 'Emaciated children and babies are dying from malnutrition in Gaza,' said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. 'We need immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access across Gaza to scale up the delivery of lifesaving food, nutrition, water and medicine. Without that, mothers and fathers will continue to face a parent's worst nightmare, powerless to save a starving child from a condition we are able to prevent.' Related: Malnourished Children: How UNICEF Fights Child Hunger On July 28, 2025 in the State of Palestine, a woman holds a child on her lap as they wait to be seen during a nutrition screening at the Project Hope health and nutrition clinic in Altayara, Deir al Balah, central Gaza. On July 10, 15 people (nine children and four women) were killed by an airstrike that hit directly in front of this site as they stood in line waiting to receive desperately needed UNICEF nutrition assistance and supplies. Food in Gaza is extremely scarce and unaffordable Before the war, approximately 500 supply trucks entered Gaza daily. Between May 19 and July 2, after almost 11 weeks of a complete aid blockade, Israel permitted an average of 30 UN trucks per day to offload aid at designated crossings. Despite a partial reopening of crossings, humanitarian aid presently entering Gaza is only a tiny fraction of what a population of over 2 million people needs. Just to cover basic humanitarian food and nutrition assistance needs in Gaza, more than 62,000 tons of lifesaving aid is required every month. Restarting commercial food imports is also critical to provide dietary diversity with fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products and proteins such as meat and fish. 'Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods.' 'Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,' said Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 'We urgently need safe and sustained humanitarian access and immediate support to restore local food production and livelihoods — this is the only way to prevent further loss of life. The right to food is a basic human right.' Related: Desperate Situation for Gaza's 1 Million Children A UNICEF-supported health worker provides mothers in Gaza with information about their children's nutritional progress. During the ceasefire in February, a total of 105,658 children under the age of 5 were screened for malnutrition across the Gaza Strip and UNICEF delivered essential nutrition supplies to 19,686 children aged 6-23 months. Two out of three core famine indicators have been reached The latest IPC update shows that food consumption — the first core famine indicator — has plummeted in Gaza since the previous IPC Update in May 2025. Data shows that more than one in three people (39 percent) are now going days at a time without eating. More than 500,000 people — nearly a quarter of Gaza's population — are enduring famine-like conditions, while the remaining population is facing emergency levels of hunger. Acute malnutrition — the second core famine indicator — inside Gaza has risen at an unprecedented rate. In Gaza City, malnutrition levels among children under 5 have quadrupled in two months, reaching 16.5 percent. This signals a critical deterioration in nutritional status and a sharp rise in the risk of death from hunger and malnutrition. Acute malnutrition and reports of starvation-related deaths — the third core famine indicator — are increasingly common but collecting robust data under current circumstances in Gaza remains very difficult as health systems, already decimated by nearly two years of conflict, are collapsing. Learn more: UNICEF in the State of Palestine Escalation Humanitarian Situation Report No. 40 UNICEF continues to deliver vital nutrition services and supplies but stocks of therapeutic treatment for acute malnutrition are critically low Evidence has shown that children with poor nutrition are more vulnerable to serious disease like acute diarrhea, while acute and prolonged diarrhea seriously exacerbates poor health and malnutrition in children, putting them at high risk of death. Taken together and left untreated, malnutrition and disease create a deadly cycle. In Gaza, 80 percent of all reported deaths by starvation are children. With the support of donors like the European Union (ECHO), the Governments of France, the Netherlands and Japan, and flexible humanitarian funding, UNICEF continues to deliver vital nutrition services and supplies but its stocks for preventing malnutrition have run out and supplies for the therapeutic treatment of acute malnutrition are critically low. Related: Gaza's Malnourished Children Can't Afford to Wait On July 28, 2025 in the State of Palestine, people wait to be seen during a nutrition screening at the UNICEF-supported Project Hope health and nutrition clinic in Altayara, Deir al Balah, central Gaza. Available stocks of lifesaving Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a crucial treatment, are running dangerously low. An urgent call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire and safe, unimpeded humanitarian access UN agencies including UNICEF welcome recent new commitments to improve the operating conditions for humanitarian organizations, including the implementation of humanitarian pauses and designated humanitarian corridors, and hope these measures will allow for a surge in urgently needed food and nutrition assistance to reach hungry people without further delays. UN agencies continue to call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire to stop the killing, allow for the safe release of hostages and further enable lifesaving humanitarian operations. Sustained, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access is urgently needed for the mass influx of assistance via all available crossings and the delivery of food, nutrition supplies, critical water, fuel and medical assistance to reach families in need wherever they are across Gaza. UNICEF requires $463.8 million to meet urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza and the West Bank, but is only 35 percent funded, leaving a critical funding gap as conditions deteriorate. Help now.
Gulf Today
5 days ago
- Health
- Gulf Today
‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses,' says UN agency
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said that 'people in Gaza are walking corpses' as mass starvation engulfed the territory due to Israel's blockade and ongoing military offensive. More than 100 charity and human rights groups said that Israel's blockade is pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation. Commissioner-General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini said a colleague in Gaza told me, "People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.' According to UNRWA latest findings, one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day. Yazan, a malnourished 2-year-old Palestinian boy, sit with his brothers at their damaged home in the Al-Shati refugee camp, Gaza City. AFP Lazzarini said on X, 'When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food & care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold. '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. 'More than 100 people, the vast majority of them children, have reportedly died of hunger. 'This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave. 'UNRWA frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all. They are increasingly fainting from hunger while at work. When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing. 'Families are no longer coping, they are breaking down, unable to survive. Their existence is threatened. Palestinian mother Samah Matar holds her malnourished son Youssef in Gaza City. Reuters 'Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza. We, at UNRWA, have the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food & medical supplies in Jordan and Egypt." The Israeli government's "restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death," the letter said. WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that criticism, telling reporters that acute malnutrition centers in Gaza are full of patients and lack adequate supplies. He said rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10% and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20% are malnourished, often severely. The UN health agency's representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza and that the WHO had reports that at least 21 children under 5 have died so far this year. The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism in the open letter and accused the groups of "echoing Hamas' propaganda." It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 trucks are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the UN.
Hindustan Times
7 days ago
- Health
- Hindustan Times
‘Mass starvation' spreading across Gaza as war continues for 21 months, warn aid groups
'Mass starvation' is spreading across the population in Gaza as the devastating war continues for 21 months straight, over a 100 aid and human rights groups said on Wednesday. Yazan, a malnourished 2-year-old Palestinian boy, stands with his back turned in his family's damaged home in the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, on July 23, 2025.(AFP) As many as 2 million people in Gaza have been scrambling for food and other basic essentials ever since the war began. The rights group also accused Israel of not allowing food inside the Palestinian territories to be distributed. Over the past three days, 21 children in Gaza died due to malnutrition and starvation, said the head of Gaza's largest hospital on Tuesday. The warning by aid organisations comes as the United States indicated that efforts were on to facilitate a ceasefire in the war-torn country and said that its Middle-East envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe for potential ceasefire talks. Witkoff comes with "a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to," said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce. Amid spread of 'mass starvation' in Gaza, Israel is under immense pressure over letting aid inside the country. However, Israel has denied blocking the aid and said that 950 trucks' worth of aid were in Gaza waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute, reported AP. "We have not identified starvation at this current point in time but we understand that action is required to stabilise the humanitarian situation," the Times of Israel quoted an unnamed senior Israeli security official as saying. Israel has also maintained that while it has allowed aid into Gaza, it was Hamas that was making things worse by stealing it and selling it at inflated prices. Palestinians killed at aid centres Lately, several people have been killed in Gaza reportedly while trying to get food or other supplies from aid centres. Health officials in Gaza say that on Tuesday and early Wednesday, 21 people were killed by Israeli strikes. According to the United Nations, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food and aid by Israel since late May, ever since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by the US and Israel, started operations in the region. During this time, the US-led aid system was sidelined. According to a statement signed by 111 aid and human rights organisations, they have called for an immediate ceasefire and Gaza and opening of all its borders to allow aid through UN-led systems. The statement warned that "our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away" "Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions," the statement added. "It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage…The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access." The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2025, in which over 1,200 people, most of them civilians, died. In Israel's retaliation, around 59,219 Palestinians have been killed so far, most of whom are also civilians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. With inputs from AP.
Saba Yemen
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Palestinian Father, his four children martyred in Israeli airstrike on Their Tent in Khan Younis
Gaza – Saba: A Palestinian father and his four children were martyred on Saturday evening in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. According to media sources, the victims were identified as Fadi Abu Al-Khair and his children: Yazan (12), Amjad (10), Muhannad (7), and Mohammad (6). The family was killed when an Israeli drone strike hit their tent in Hayat Camp, west of Khan Younis city. Medical sources in Gaza reported that 78 Palestinians have been martyred in Israeli airstrikes across various areas of the Strip since dawn today. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print
Days of Palestine
04-06-2025
- General
- Days of Palestine
Gaza Aid Turns Deadly: Families Shot While Seeking Food Amid Failed Relief Operation
DaysofPal — In a makeshift hospital tent outside Nasser Hospital, 13-year-old Yazan Musleh lies wounded, a white bandage covering the bullet wound on his frail body. His father, Ihab, sits beside him, visibly shaken by the events of Sunday morning when Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of Palestinians waiting for aid from the controversial, Israeli-American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Ihab had taken his two sons, Yazan and 15-year-old Yazid, from their shelter in al-Mawasi to Rafah's aid distribution center. After walking for over an hour to reach the site near the al-Alam Roundabout, he told his sons to stay on a nearby hill for safety while he scoped the area. 'I saw tanks nearby and was overcome with fear,' Ihab said. 'Moments later, gunfire erupted. I turned and saw Yazan collapse—he had been shot.' Yazid recalls the chaos: 'We were standing where our father told us, and then the tanks just opened fire. My brother was shot in the stomach—I saw his insides. It was terrifying.' Yazan was rushed to Nasser Hospital in a donkey cart. Doctors performed emergency surgery to repair severe damage to his intestines and spleen. His mother, Iman, sits beside him, wondering aloud why people seeking food are met with bullets. 'This isn't the first time,' Ihab added. 'Last time, we barely survived a deadly stampede. This time, my son was shot—and we still didn't get any food. But I'll keep trying. Hunger is killing us.' A Failing Aid Operation Backed by Military Contractors The GHF, launched in early 2025, promotes itself as a neutral aid effort but is operated with the help of U.S. private military contractors. Its credibility took a major hit even before aid was distributed: founder Jake Wood resigned just days before the first drop, citing ethical concerns. Soon after, Boston Consulting Group also pulled out. Global aid organizations have condemned the GHF's militarized and chaotic distribution methods. Others Caught in the Crossfire Nearby in the same hospital tent lies 40-year-old Mohammed al-Homs, also a father of five. He had arrived at the distribution site only to be shot twice—once in the leg and once in the mouth, shattering his front teeth. 'I collapsed on the ground, bleeding, surrounded by the dead and wounded. It felt like the end of the world,' he said. He lay there for nearly an hour before others were able to carry him to safety. 'That was my first and last time trying to get aid.' 'I Never Thought I'd Be Shot Over Food' Another victim, 36-year-old Khaled al-Lahham, had previously received aid on May 27 and returned hoping for more. He cares for ten displaced relatives in al-Mawasi. As he and five friends approached the site in a car, gunfire erupted again. 'A bullet went straight through my thigh. People were screaming and running. Panic erupted as bullets rained from both tanks and drones,' he recounted. Too injured to move, Khaled was rescued by a friend and taken to the hospital. 'I never thought getting food would mean risking my life,' he said. 'If they don't want us to have aid, why lure us there and kill us?' Final Thoughts The GHF operation continues to raise critical questions. What began as a promise of humanitarian relief has turned into a theater of chaos and violence. Human rights observers warn that these incidents not only violate international humanitarian law but also signal a disturbing trend of militarizing aid in active conflict zones. 'This is no longer an aid operation,' said a local paramedic. 'It's a battlefield.' Shortlink for this post:
