Gaza faces the threat of famine. How children starve.

File photo Displaced Palestinian children gather to receive food at a government school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 19, 2024, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.(AFP)
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Updated 24 June 2024
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Gaza faces the threat of famine. How children starve.

  • One in three children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished or suffering from wasting

Nearly 166 million people worldwide are estimated to need urgent action against hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership which measures food insecurity.
That includes nearly everyone in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military launched an offensive in October following an attack on Israel by Hamas militants. More than one million of Gaza’s inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition – classified by the IPC as ‘Catastrophe or Famine.’
Seven-month-old Majd Salem is one of them.
Born on Nov. 1, three weeks after Israel launched the offensive, the child was being treated for a chest infection in the neonatal ICU at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on May 9. The nurse caring for him said he was suffering from severe malnutrition.
Majd was born at a healthy weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds), said his mother, Nisreen Al-Khateeb.
By May, when he was six months old, his weight had barely changed to 3.8 kg, she said – around 3 kg less than would be expected for a baby his age.
Majd, whose eyes keenly followed visiting reporters in the ward, had to be given antibiotics for the infection and fortified milk to boost his weight, his mother said. Reuters was unable to trace them after May 21, when the hospital was evacuated following an Israeli raid.
One in three children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished or suffering from wasting, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, citing data from its partners on the ground. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said their records showed 33 people had died of malnutrition in Gaza including 29 children, but added that the number could be higher.
COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Israel’s foreign ministry in late May issued a detailed statement questioning the IPC’s methods of analysis, which it said omitted measures Israel had taken to improve access to food in Gaza. The IPC declined to comment.
The plight of Gaza’s children is part of a bigger trend. Globally last year more than 36 million children under 5 were acutely malnourished, nearly 10 million of them severely, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, a collaborative analysis of food insecurity by 16 international organizations.
The food shortage in Gaza, while particularly widespread, comes amid a broader spike in extreme hunger as conflicts around the world intensify.
Two other countries – South Sudan and Mali – each have thousands of people living in zones listed on the IPC website as facing famine. Another 35 – including Sudan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have many people in the IPC’s next-most acute category of food deprivation.
The IPC, a grouping of United Nations agencies, national governments and non-governmental organizations, is expected to update its assessment of the picture in war-torn Sudan in coming weeks. A preliminary projection reported by Reuters earlier this month said as many as 756,000 people in Sudan could face catastrophic food shortages by September.
Gaza’s hunger crisis is also a product of war. The Israeli military invaded the Strip in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border assault by Hamas on Israel. More than 37,000 Palestinians and nearly 1,500 Israelis have been killed since then, Gazan and Israeli tallies show.
The Israeli assault has destroyed swathes of Gazan farmland. In the early days of the war, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza. It later allowed some humanitarian supplies to enter but is still facing international calls to let in more.
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, in seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, last month accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, among other alleged crimes. Netanyahu, calling that move “a moral outrage of historic proportions,” said Israel is fighting in full compliance with international law and taking unprecedented measures to ensure aid reaches those in need.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas strongly denies. Israel has also said any distribution problems within Gaza are the fault of the international agencies.
Even when children survive, nutrition experts say food deprivation in the early years can do lasting damage.
A child’s brain develops at its fastest rate in the first two years of life. So even if they don’t starve to death or die from illness due to their weakened immune system, children may face delays in growth and development, said Aashima Garg, adviser on nutrition at UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa.
“While they may be alive, they may not thrive that well in childhood and beyond,” she said.
Three families in Gaza told Reuters about their day-to-day diets, and four global health experts explained how such deprivation affects the growing body. Damage done in weeks manifests over years, they said.
“It can have a long-term impact on their immune system, their ability to absorb good nutrition, and on their cognitive and physical development,” said Hannah Stephenson, global head of nutrition and health at Save The Children, a non-profit.
FIRST DAYS
Gaza has the most households globally in the most extreme stage of food poverty, according to the IPC, which classifies levels of hunger in five categories, the worst of which is famine.
Households in North Gaza, where Majd lives, are already suffering a full-blown famine, Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said on May 5.
It can take months for the international measurement system to declare a famine. But the first damage to a child’s body is counted in days.
Nine out of 10 children aged 6 months to 2 years in Gaza live in severe child food poverty, a UNICEF survey in late May found. This means they are eating from two or fewer food groups a day, which UNICEF’s Garg said means grains or some form of milk.
This has been the case since December 2023, with only a slight improvement in April 2024, she said. As many as 85 percent of children of all ages did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days before the survey was conducted.
The main cause of acute malnutrition in North Gaza is a lack of diversity in the diets of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, according to a report in February 2024 from the Global Nutrition Cluster, a group of humanitarian agencies led by UNICEF.
This deficient intake, both prior to and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, harms both mothers and infants.
Abed Abu Mustafa, 49, a father of six, was still living in Gaza City in early April. He said people there already had eaten “almost every green plant we could find” and he hadn’t had meat or chicken for at least five months.
In Rafah in the south, Mariam, 33, a mother of five, has been living in a school along with two dozen of her relatives. She described a typical meal for her family before the conflict and what they are currently eating, shown below.
Before the war, Majd’s mother said an average family meal consisted of rice with chicken or meat, along with vegetables such as okra, cauliflower or peas. During the war, flour scarcity forced the family to make bread from animal feed. Recently, bread and canned goods like tuna and beans started to reappear, but these are not widely available.
Unable to find food to feed herself and forced to flee Israeli bombardment early in the war, Khateeb said she had found great difficulty in breastfeeding Majd.
She said she could find neither good quality baby formula nor clean water to mix it, so she fed him various types of powdered feed mixed with rainwater or brackish water from Gaza’s polluted wells, causing diarrhea.
“There is no chance to get proper food to have breastmilk, there is no meat, no proteins, no calcium, none of the elements that produce good milk for the child,” she said.
Garg, the UNICEF adviser, said the nutrition of breastfeeding mothers in Gaza was severely compromised, and with it their ability to produce milk.
“They are not eating fruits and vegetables. They are not eating meat. They are not having much milk,” she said. This lack of nutrients translates into poor quality breast milk. Diluted formula is not safe and risks diarrhea, which itself can be deadly.
Moderately malnourished mothers can still breastfeed, with their bodies effectively sacrificing their own nutritional needs to save the child. But severely malnourished women struggle.
Ahmed Al-Kahlout, the nurse who heads the unit, said Majd’s infection was due to malnutrition.
“There is no immunity, so any disease that the child catches in the shelters … afflicts the child with these severe lung infections,” he said.
Susceptibility to infections typically increases after two weeks with insufficient food.
The body’s consumption of its fat reserves eats away muscle tissue, which is why aid workers in the field use basic tape measures to assess the gravity of children’s conditions.
The tapes measuring Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) have been used for decades. If the upper arm’s circumference is 11.5 cm (4 1/2 inches) or smaller for a child between 6 months and 5 years old, the child is assessed as having severe acute malnutrition, according to standards drawn up by the United Nations.
MUAC screening data across Gaza since mid-January found more than 7,000 children aged 6 months to about 5 years were already acutely malnourished as of May 26, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said.
This is how that looks.
Gaza has the most people at risk of starvation, but according to the IPC classifications, many millions are one step behind the enclave in food poverty.
The IPC categorizes the severity and scale of food insecurity and malnutrition. Readings of 3, 4 or 5 on the five-category scale require urgent action.
Households in Phase 3 are in “Crisis,” the IPC says. They have high or more than usual acute malnutrition, or can meet their minimum food needs but only by selling assets or through crisis measures.
Phase 4 is an “Emergency.” Households have either “very high” acute malnutrition and death rates or are only able to make up for the lack of food by taking emergency measures and selling assets.
Phase 5 is “Catastrophe” or “Famine.” Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs and starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. An entire area is only classified as in Famine if high food insecurity comes with certain levels of acute malnutrition and mortality.
For the IPC, areas in Famine meet at least two of the following three criteria: * the area has at least 20 percent of households facing an extreme lack of food, * About one in three children there suffer from acute malnutrition, * Two adults or four children out of every 10,000 die each day due to outright starvation, or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

The IPC report issued in March projected that the entire population of the Gaza Strip would fall into Phases 3 to 5 between March and July. UN officials told Reuters they expect the next IPC analysis on Gaza to be released on June 25.
South Sudan and Mali are the other two other countries with households projected to fall into the same Phase 5 category as Gaza, based on the IPC’s latest published analyzes.
Overall, the three countries with the largest numbers of people at Phase 3 and above are Nigeria (25 million), Democratic Republic of Congo (23.4 million) and Sudan (17.7 million), according to the IPC website.
The IPC said its latest analysis of Sudan, conducted in December, was too outdated to include in the tables Reuters used for this chart.
As a consequence of severe malnutrition, various complications arise.
This is the impact of starvation after just three weeks. Like many children in Gaza, Majd’s lack of adequate food dates back months.


Emir of Qatar discusses ties in phone call with India PM Modi

Updated 3 min 15 sec ago
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Emir of Qatar discusses ties in phone call with India PM Modi

  • The leaders shared perspectives on regional and international developments of mutual concern

LONDON: The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani discussed ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a phone call on Tuesday.

The leaders discussed ways to strengthen the relationship between Doha and New Delhi. They also shared perspectives on regional and international developments of mutual concern, according to the Qatar News Agency.

Sheikh Tamim visited India last February to enhance bilateral collaboration between the two countries in areas such as trade, investment, energy, and finance.


Attack on MSF hospital in South Sudan was deliberate, UN rights commission says

Updated 12 min 22 sec ago
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Attack on MSF hospital in South Sudan was deliberate, UN rights commission says

  • “This was not a tragic accident. It was a calculated, unlawful attack on a protected medical facility,” Sooka
  • “The aerial bombing of the MSF hospital in Old Fangak is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”

NAIROBI: A bombing attack on a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital and pharmacy in South Sudan over the weekend was deliberate and may amount to a war crime, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said on Tuesday.
MSF said on Saturday that at least seven people had been killed and 20 wounded in South Sudan’s Fangak county when a bomb was dropped on the pharmacy, burning it to the ground and damaging the hospital, followed by another drone attack on Old Fangak, a town in the Greater Upper Nile region.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the heels of air strikes and heavy clashes in the region in recent months between national forces and an ethnic militia allegedly allied with First Vice President Riek Machar.
“This was not a tragic accident. It was a calculated, unlawful attack on a protected medical facility,” Yasmin Sooka, chair of the commission, said in a statement.
“The aerial bombing of the MSF hospital in Old Fangak is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime ...
“Targeting medical facilities and services violates the Geneva Conventions and represents a direct assault on foundations of humanitarian action that are intended to protect civilians in conflict zones.”
Information Minister Michael Makuei did not respond to requests for comment.
South Sudan has officially been at peace since a deal in 2018 ended a five-year civil war between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and fighters loyal to Machar.
But the house arrest of Machar in March on accusations of trying to start a rebellion has sparked international concern that conflict could reignite.


UN urges probe into 'disturbing' video of abducted Libyan MP

Updated 32 sec ago
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UN urges probe into 'disturbing' video of abducted Libyan MP

  • UNSMIL said it was “alarmed” by Ibrahim el-Dirsi’s “enforced disappearance”
  • It described circulating images of his detention as “disturbing“

TRIPOLI: The UN mission in Libya on Tuesday called for an independent investigation into images of an abducted member of the country’s eastern-based parliament that showed signs of torture.
In a statement, UNSMIL said it was “alarmed” by Ibrahim el-Dirsi’s “enforced disappearance” and described circulating images of his detention as “disturbing.”
Dirsi, a member of the Libyan house of representatives, was kidnapped in May 2024 in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city which he represents.
The North African country has been mired in unrest since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
It remains split between the UN-recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, and a rival eastern administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
On Monday, Libya’s Al-Ahrar TV aired photos and a video showing Dirsi, apparently in a prison cell, wearing only shorts and chained with a padlock around his neck.
UNSMIL said it had asked UN digital forensic experts to verify the footage’s authenticity.
Tripoli’s GNU described the conditions in the images as “degrading, shocking and inhumane.”
It criticized the “so-called General Command,” referring to Haftar’s forces, after the video appeared to show Dirsi pleading for forgiveness.
The pro-Haftar Al-Masar TV channel quoted lawmakers as saying the images were “fabricated” and “produced using artificial intelligence.”
The eastern-based interior ministry blamed “unidentified criminals affiliated with a gang,” saying the case was under “thorough investigation.”
UNSMIL also condemned “widespread and systemic abuses in detention facilities by law enforcement and security actors in Benghazi, Tripoli, Sabha, and other locations across Libya.”
It said “arbitrary detentions, abductions, torture, enforced disappearances and deaths in custody are serious human rights violations and may constitute international crimes that can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.”
“Libyan authorities must ensure these practices immediately cease and that perpetrators are brought to justice,” the statement added.
In 2019, Siham Sergewa, another representative in Benghazi, was abducted from her home shortly after criticizing Haftar on television. She remains missing.


Druze near Damascus resist demand to turn in arms as tensions boil

Updated 52 min 46 sec ago
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Druze near Damascus resist demand to turn in arms as tensions boil

  • Such violence threatens the new government’s control of Syria
  • Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas

JARAMANA, Syria: Druze residents near Syrian Arab Republic’s capital are resisting a demand by the Islamist-led government to hand in their light weapons, saying authorities have yet to address fears of new attacks by Sunni Muslim militants after days of sectarian violence.
Clashes last week pitted Sunni fighters against armed Druze residents of the town of Jaramana southeast of Damascus, later spreading to another district near the capital and then south to the predominantly Druze province of Sweida.
Such violence threatens the new government’s control of Syria, where armed gangs are attacking religious minorities and Israel is stepping up its military intervention under the banner of protecting the Druze community.
Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas as enlisted members of Syria’s security forces, but this week asked that all weapons held by residents of these areas be turned in to the state.
“We told them, as soon as there is a state capable of regulating its forces, we’ll have no problem handing in our weapons,” said Makram Obeid, a member of the Jaramana committee that is negotiating with the Syrian government.
Obeid said his committee had told government officials it would be better for them to focus on disarming the gangs now harassing minorities.
“It’s our right to be scared, because we saw what happened in other areas,” he told Reuters, an apparent reference to killings in March of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority to which former President Bashar Assad belongs.
It was the deadliest episode of sectarian violence in years in Syria, where a 14-year war ended last December when rebels toppled Assad, who fled to Russia.
“People want to feel safe. It’s enough to have (more than) 11 years of killing, strikes, and worries,” Obeid said. “And we’re coming to another phase that we thought, with the collapse of the regime, would leave us in a much better place. But until now, we don’t feel reassured.”
Fahad Haydar, a resident of Jaramana, echoed those fears.
“These weapons that are turned against us — that’s what we’re afraid of. If those weapons get handed in, then we’ll hand in ours,” he told Reuters.

SEEKING GUARANTEES
Mowaffaq Abu Shash, a Druze cleric in Jaramana, said the Druze had already compromised enough.
“We take one step, they ask for a second. We take the second step, they ask for a third,” he said. “We ask for a guarantee that what happened on the coast will not happen to us.”
One influential Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hajjri, has called for international intervention to protect his community from Syria’s leaders, whom he has branded “terrorists.”
The Druze, an Arab minority sect who practice a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel has vowed to protect Syria’s Druze militarily if they face threats.
Last week’s violence was ignited by a voice recording purportedly cursing the Prophet Muhammad, which Sunni militants suspect was made by a Druze. More than a dozen people were killed in Jaramana before the violence spread west and south.
It also drew in Israel, which carried out a drone strike on what it said were fighters preparing to attack Druze in the town of Sahnaya, west of Jaramana. A Syrian security source told Reuters one member of the security forces was killed in the strike.
As the clashes reached Sweida province, Israel bombed near the presidential palace in Damascus — the clearest sign yet of its hostility toward Syria’s new leaders.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa once headed a branch of Al-Qaeda before renouncing ties to the group in 2016.


Israeli strikes hit Yemeni capital Sanaa

Updated 18 sec ago
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Israeli strikes hit Yemeni capital Sanaa

  • “We urge you to immediately evacuate the area of the airport,” Adraee wrote
  • Israel’s military targeted Hodeida on Monday with airstrikes

JERUSALEM: The Houthi group in Yemen said Tuesday that Israeli strikes had hit the capital, Sanaa, shortly after Israel’s military issued a warning for people to evacuate the area of Yemen’s international airport.
There was no immediate information on any casualties.
The Houthis’ satellite news channel said the strikes had hit Sanaa International Airport. They came a day after Israel launched airstrikes Monday night in retaliation for a missile strike the previous day on Israel’s international airport.
“We urge you to immediately evacuate the area of the airport and to warn anyone nearby to distance themselves immediately,” spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on social media, attaching a map of Sanaa International Airport. “Failure to evacuate the area endangers your lives.”


On Monday night, Israel targeted the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen’s Red Sea province of Hodeida, killing at least one person and wounding 35. The Houthis’ media office said at least six strikes hit the crucial Hodeida port. Others hit a cement factory in the district of Bajil, 55 kilometers (34 miles) northeast of Hodeida, the Houthis said.
The Houthis on Sunday launched a missile that struck an access road near Israel’s main airport near Tel Aviv, briefly halting flights and commuter traffic. Four people were lightly injured.
It was the first time a missile struck the grounds of Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion, since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza. It prompted a flurry of flight cancelations.
The Houthis have targeted Israel throughout the war in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, raising their profile as the last member of Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” capable of launching regular attacks on Israel.
The US military under President Donald Trump has launched an intensified campaign of airstrikes targeting the Houthis since March 15.
While most missiles launched by the Houthis have been intercepted, some have penetrated Israel’s missile defense systems, causing damage.
Israel has repeatedly struck against the Houthis in Yemen.
It struck Hodeida and its oil infrastructure in July after a Houthi drone attack killed one person and wounded 10 in Tel Aviv. In September, Israel struck Hodeida again, killing at least four people after a missile targeted Ben Gurion airport as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was returning to the country. In December, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in Hodeida.