The humanitarian catastrophe suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza, as humanitarian organizations have been denouncing for days, has its worst version in the north of the enclave, where between 300,000 and 500,000 people live. In this area, the hardest hit in the territory by fighting and Israeli bombs, are the Al Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, where a delegation from the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed over the weekend that at least Ten children have died due to “lack of food,” warned its general director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The health authorities of Gaza, governed by Hamas, raise the number of child deaths due to dehydration and malnutrition to 15, an illness that threatens the entire territory, but especially the north of the strip.
Aid supplies, already severely restricted since the start of the war almost five months ago, have been arriving in dribs and drabs over the past month. There are entire areas of the territory that are completely deprived of food, testimonies on the ground report to the Reuters agency, and the few hospitals that function in Gaza, which were already overwhelmed by the wounded due to bombings that have not stopped in almost five months of war, are now being filled with children dying of hunger.
The Kamal Adwan, the only pediatric hospital still operating in the north of the strip, is “overwhelmed” by the number of patients, observed WHO staff, who gained access to its facilities for the second time since October, after seeing their efforts hampered by Israel.
“If nothing changes, famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the deputy director of the World Food Program (WFP), Carl Skau, warned last week, when no aid had entered the area for weeks. Shortly afterward, Israel sent a convoy that resulted in a massacre of 112 Palestinians due to gunfire by Israeli troops and, according to Israel, a stampede.
Ghebreyesus recalled that the lack of electricity represents a “serious threat to patient care, especially in critical areas such as the intensive care unit and the neonatal unit.” Poor access to fuel for generators has been one of the most heard demands from medical personnel and humanitarian organizations working in Gaza since Israel imposed a blockade on the strip following the Hamas attack on October 7.
That is why the WHO delegation delivered 9,500 liters of fuel to each hospital, as well as essential medical supplies. However, it is still insufficient: “it is a fraction of the urgent needs to save lives,” says Ghebreyesus.
At Al Awda hospital, whose director last week raised a cry for help warning that he only had supplies to operate for two more days, “the situation is particularly atrocious, as one of the buildings is destroyed,” the WHO director noted. .
For all these reasons, Ghebreyesus called on Israel to “ensure that humanitarian aid can be delivered safely and regularly,” although the “best medicine is peace, a ceasefire,” he emphasized.
The United States conducted its first airdrop of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Saturday, including more than 38,000 meals. However, humanitarian agencies point out that these launches – which the United Kingdom, France, Egypt and Jordan have also resorted to – are an inefficient way of getting supplies to people.
Malnutrition spreads throughout the territory blocked by Israel. In a bed at the Al Awda clinic in Rafah, a city in the south of the strip where more than one and a half million displaced people are housed, lay Ahmed Cannan, a child between one and three years old with sunken eyes and an emaciated face. He has lost half his weight since the start of the war and now weighs only 6 kg. “His situation is getting worse every day. May God protect us from what is coming,” his aunt, Israa Kalakh, lamented to Reuters. Nurse Diaa al Shaer warned that emaciated children like Ahmed were arriving at the clinic in unprecedented numbers. “We will face a large number of patients suffering from malnutrition,” she remarked.
Israel says it is willing to allow more aid into Gaza through the two checkpoints at the southern end of the territory it has allowed to open, and blames the UN and other aid agencies for not distributing it more widely. Aid agencies say this has become impossible due to a breakdown in law and order, and that it is up to Israel, whose troops have stormed and patrolled Gaza towns, to provide access and security for food distribution. .
“Aid restrictions in the north are costing lives. Malnutrition screenings carried out by UNICEF and WFP in the north in January revealed that almost one in 6 children under 2 years of age suffer from acute malnutrition,” warned regional director Adele Khodr. of UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa. “The feeling of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors as they realize that vital help, just a few kilometers away, remains out of reach, must be unbearable,” she lamented. These figures “are from January, so the situation is likely to be even worse today,” said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank.
