Khan Younis – 2 1/2 year old Ro’a Mashi’s body, lying on a table at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, with arms and rib cage skeletons, her eyes sinking into her skull. The doctor wasted months as she had no existing condition and her family struggled to find food and treatment.
Her family was confirmed by the doctor who showed the Associated Press a photo of Roa’s body at the hospital and received her body. A few days after her death, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday He spoke to local media“There was no hunger. There was no hunger. There was a shortage, and certainly no hunger policy.”
Facing the International protestNetanyahu pushed back, saying that the report of starvation was a “lie” promoted by Hamas.
However, this week, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric warned that hunger and malnutrition in Gaza is at its highest level. war It’s begun.
According to the United Nations, 12,000 children under the age of five were found to be acute malnutrition in July. The World Health Organization says this number is likely shortfall.
For the past two weeks, Israel has allowed roughly triple the amount of food to Gaza than it had been in since late May. It said it would put Hamas in pressure to release hostages filmed during the 2023 attack that launched the war, following two and a half months when Israel banned all food, medicine and other supplies. The new influx has brought more food within reach to some of the population, lowering prices for some of the market, but it is much more expensive than the level beforehand and remains uncontrollable for many.
meanwhile Better food access It may help a large part of Gaza’s population. “We won’t help severely malnourished children,” says Alex Dewar, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, who has worked on hunger and humanitarian issues for more than 40 years.
When a person becomes severely malnourished, important micronutrients are depleted and physical function deteriorates. Simply feeding the person can cause harm known as “Refeed syndrome” and can lead to seizures, coma, or death. Instead, micronutrients should be supplemented with supplements and treated milk at the hospital first.
“We’re talking about the thousands of children who need to be in hospital if there’s a chance of survival,” Dewar said. “If this approach to increasing food supply had been in place two months ago, then most of those kids probably wouldn’t have been in this situation.”
The improvements are also threatened by a new Israeli attack that has been planned to say that Netanyahu will capture tent camps in which the city of Gaza and the majority of the territorial population is located. It will prompt a big wave of evacuation and disrupt food delivery, the UN and aid officials warn.
Existing conditions
The Gaza Ministry of Health says 42 children have died from July 1, along with 129 adults from malnutrition-related causes. It is said that 106 children died of malnutrition throughout the war. The ministry, which is part of the Hamasran government, is staffed by its figures on health professionals and their victims. Seen by the United Nations and other experts As the most reliable thing.
Israeli forces pointed out on Tuesday the fact that some of the children who died were in pre-existing conditions and that their deaths were “unrelated to their nutritional status.” An expert review said it concluded Gaza “there are no indications of widespread malnutrition.”
At a press conference on Sunday, Netanyahu spoke on screen, reading “Fake Hungry Children” about photos of children in skeletal structures in existing conditions. He accused Hamas of starving the remaining Israeli hostages and claims that extremist groups have diverted a large amount of aid.
Doctors in Gaza acknowledge that some people who are dying or starving have chronic conditions, including cerebral palsy, rickets, or genetic disorders. However, they say these conditions are easier to manage when food and appropriate treatments are available.
“These cases “revoked rapid deterioration due to the worsening of food shortages,” said Dr Yassar Abu Ghali, head of the pediatrics department at Nasser. “Meltilization was a major factor in their deaths.”
Doctors say that out of the 13 children in the cases seen by the Associated Press since late July, five had no existing condition (including three).
Abu Ghali spoke next to the body of five-year-old Jamal al-Najar, who died Tuesday of malnutrition and was born in Rickett.
Over the past few months, the boy’s weight has decreased from 16 kilograms to 7 (from 35 pounds to 15), said his father Fadi al-Najal.
Asked about Netanyahu’s claims, Gaza was not hunger, he pointed to Jamal’s protruding rib cage. “Of course there’s hunger,” he said. “Does a 5-year-old’s breasts usually look like this?”
Skin and bones
Dr. Ahmed Al Fara, general director of pediatrics at Nasser, said the facility has received 10-20 children who are severely malnourished a day, and the number is increasing.
On Sunday, two-year-old Siam Kuday, a severely malnourished, cried out in pain in a hospital bed. Her arms, legs and ribs were skeletal and her stomach was bulging.
“She lost all her fat and muscle,” Al Fara said. She weighed 4 kilograms (9 pounds), one-third of her normal weight at a two-year-old.
Doctors suspect Shamm is suffering from a rare genetic condition called glycogen storage disease. This can change the way glycogen, a type of sugar, is used and stored, and can affect muscle and bone development. But they can’t test it in Gaza, Al Fara said.
This condition can usually be managed through a high carbohydrate diet.
Her family applied for medical evacuation a year ago and joined a list of thousands of people who say they need emergency care abroad. For months, Israel delayed evacuation to a halt or evacuated on long stretches. However, according to the United Nations, it appears to be stepping up permits that allow more than 60 people to depart in the first week of August.
This week, Siam’s permission to leave Gaza was finally here, and on Wednesday she was heading to an Italian hospital.
The child died in the family tent
Ro’a was one of four dead children who suffered malnutrition in just two weeks, doctors say.
Her mother, Fatma Masi, said she first noticed Roa losing weight last year, but she thought it was because she had teeth. When she took Roa to Nasser Hospital in October, the child was severely malnourished, according to Al Fara, who said that Roa had no preexisting condition.
At the time, in the final months of 2024, Israel had reduced the entry of aid to some of the lowest levels of the war.
The family was also exiled multiple times by Israeli military operations. Mashi said each movement stopped Ro’a’s treatment. The family was reduced to one meal a day (often boiled macaroni), but “whatever she ate, it didn’t change her,” Masi said.
Two weeks ago they moved to a tent camp in Mwasi on the southern coast of Gaza. Ro’a’s decline has accelerated.
“I could say it was a two or three days of issues,” Masi said in her family tent on Friday the day after she passed away.
Masi and her husband Amin both gayed, their cheeks and eyes appeared to be hollow. Their five surviving children, including babies born this year, are thin, but not as weak as Ro’a.
Dewaal said it’s not uncommon in hunger that one family is far worse than the others. “Most of the time you’ll end up with a child of 18 months or two,” he said, but said the older brother was “more robust.”
However, many things can set one child to a spiral of malnutrition, including infections and problems after weaning.
“What a very small thing can push them up.”
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Keith reported from Cairo. Associated journalists Abdel-Karim Hana and Wafaa Shurafa contributed from Deir Al-Balah on the Gaza Strip.
