‘We have crossed the line': Gaza hunger crisis turns into death spiral

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

'Humans are well developed to live with caloric deficits, but only so far,' Medglobal co-founder and paediatrician Dr John Kahler said. He has volunteered twice in Gaza during the war.
'It appears that we have crossed the line where a segment of the population has reached their limits.
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'This is the beginning of a population death spiral.'
The UN's World Food Program says nearly 100,000 women and children urgently need treatment for malnutrition. Medical workers say they have run out of many key treatments and medicines.
Israel, which began letting in only a trickle of supplies over the past two months, has blamed Hamas for disrupting food distribution. The UN counters that Israel, which has restricted aid since the war began, simply has to allow it to enter freely.
Hundreds of malnourished kids brought daily
The Patient's Friends Hospital overflows with parents bringing in scrawny children – 200 to 300 cases a day, Soboh said.
On Wednesday, staff laid toddlers on a desk to measure the circumference of their upper arms – the quickest way to determine malnutrition. In the summer heat, mothers huddled around specialists, asking for supplements. Babies with emaciated limbs screamed in agony. Others lay totally silent.
The worst cases are kept for up to two weeks at the centre's 10-bed ward, which this month has had up to 19 children at a time. It usually treats only children under five, but began taking some as old as 11 or 12 because of worsening starvation among older children.
Hunger gnaws at staff as well. Soboh said two nurses put themselves on IV drips to keep themselves going. 'We are exhausted. We are dead in the shape of the living,' she said.
The five children died in succession last Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
Four of them, aged 4 months to 2 years, suffered gastric arrest: their stomachs shut down. The hospital no longer had the right nutrition supplies for them.
The fifth – 4½-year-old Siwar – had alarmingly low potassium levels, a growing problem. She was so weak she could barely move her body. Medicine for potassium deficiency has largely run out across Gaza, Soboh said. The centre had only a low-concentration potassium drip.
The little girl didn't respond. After three days in intensive care, she died on Saturday.
'If we don't have potassium supplies, we will see more deaths,' she said.
A two-year-old is wasting away
In the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City, two-year-old Yazan Abu Ful's mother, Naima, pulled off his clothes to show his emaciated body. His vertebrae, ribs and shoulder blades jutted out. His buttocks were shrivelled. His face was expressionless.
His father, Mahmoud, who was also skinny, said they took him to the hospital several times. Doctors just say they should feed him. 'I tell the doctors, 'You see for yourself, there is no food,'' he said.
Naima, who is pregnant, prepared a meal: two eggplants they bought for $US9 ($14) cut up and boiled in water. They will stretch out the pot of eggplant-water – not even a real soup – to last them a few days, they said. Several of Yazan's four older siblings also looked thin and drained.
Holding him in his lap, Mahmoud Abu Ful lifted Yazan's limp arms. The boy lies on the floor most of the day, too weak to play with his brothers. 'If we leave him, he might just slip away from between our fingers, and we can't do anything.'
Adults, too, are dying
Starvation takes the vulnerable first, experts say: children and adults with health conditions.
On Thursday, the bodies of an adult man and woman with signs of starvation were brought to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. One suffered from diabetes, the other from a heart condition, but they showed severe deficiencies of nutrients, gastric arrest and anaemia from malnutrition.
Many of the adults who have died had some sort of pre-existing condition, like diabetes or heart or kidney trouble, worsened by malnutrition, Abu Selmia said. 'These diseases don't kill if they have food and medicine,' he said.
Deaths come after months of Israeli siege
Israel cut off the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies completely to Gaza for 2½ months starting in March, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages. During that time, food largely ran out for aid groups and in marketplaces, and experts warned Gaza was headed for an outright famine.
In late May, Israel slightly eased the blockade. Since then, it had allowed in about 4500 trucks for the UN and other aid groups to distribute, including 2500 tonnes of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
That is an average of 69 trucks a day, far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the UN says are needed. The UN has been unable to distribute much of the aid because hungry crowds and gangs take most of it from its trucks. Separately, Israel has also backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which opened four centres distributing boxes of food supplies. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to reach the sites.