Over 100 aid, rights groups warn ‘mass starvation’ is spreading in Gaza
One in every five children in Gaza suffers from malnutrition: UNRWA
APP
GAZA: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day.
“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,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, said.
He added that parents are too hungry to care for their children, “those who reach UNRWA clinics don’t have the energy, food, or means to follow medical advice.”
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,” he stated.
Lazzarini called on humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
“We, at UNRWA, have the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies in Jordan and Egypt,” he said.
Aid groups warned of surging numbers of malnourished children in war-ravaged Gaza as a trio of European powers prepared to hold an “emergency call” Friday on the deepening humanitarian crisis.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the United Nations said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition.
With fears of mass starvation growing, Britain, France and Germany were set to hold an emergency call to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and discuss steps towards Palestinian statehood.
More than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza.
Israel has rejected accusations it is responsible for the deepening crisis, which the World Health Organization has called “man-made”.
Israel placed the Gaza Strip under an aid blockade in March, which it only partially eased two months later.
The trickle of aid since then has been controlled by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, replacing the longstanding UN-led distribution system.
Aid groups have refused to work with it, accusing it of aiding Israeli military goals.
The GHF system, in which Gazans have to travel long distances and join huge queues to reach one of four sites, has often proved deadly, with the UN saying that more than 750 Palestinian aid-seekers have been killed by Israeli forces near GHF centres since late May.
