Hospitals receiving 120 malnutrition patients daily in Gaza, Health Ministry official says

Mada

2 days ago

Around 120 patients suffering from malnutrition are reaching Gaza's hospitals daily, ​​Zaher al-Wahidy, director of the Health Ministry's Health Information Unit in Gaza, told Mada Masr this week.
Many of the cases flooding into hospitals are children under five years of age, he said.
At least 101 people, 80 of them children, have died from hunger and malnutrition-related complications as a result of Israel's starvation policies, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Eighteen of the deaths were recorded in a 24-hour period at the beginning of the week, as the impacts of mass-starvation conditions accelerate amid a severe scarcity of food in markets.
Photojournalist Bashir Abu Shaar had to put his camera up for sale to afford a bag of flour for his family. It was his only source of income, but he said he 'could no longer bear to watch his children starve.'
Flour and other food supplies have nearly vanished from Gaza's markets. The shortage has caused prices to soar to 'unbelievable' levels, said Khalil Daher, who was seeking flour in Gaza City's markets earlier this week.
He told Mada Masr that traders are selling flour at rates surpassing even those seen during the 'first famine,' the weeks of hunger people lived through during Israel's siege on the strip in 2023, in the early months of its genocidal war.
Prices for a kilogram of flour have reached nearly 150 shekels (around US$45), with some reports of a 1 kilogram sack being sold for over $100.
Dhaher stood helpless among hundreds of other residents of Gaza City being starved after the trader he used to buy flour from ran out of supplies. He searched the markets for another source but came up empty-handed, unable to ease the days-long hunger his children have endured.
For others, even seeking flour isn't an option. Eman Salha and her three children ran out of flour some time ago, and haven't had bread for two weeks. She told Mada Masr that their household has been plunged into destitution, since they have lost their only source of income to the war. To feed her children, Salha now relies on lentils and pasta cooked over a wood fire.
For Barakat Eid, who hasn't eaten in three days, hunger has left his body so frail he can no longer walk to search for food for himself and his children. He, too, said he can't afford flour to 'quiet his children's empty stomachs.'
Scarcity and unbridled inflation have left a majority of Gaza's residents dependent on food aid, the World Food Programme said on Sunday.
But with Israeli settlers and soldiers sabotaging aid convoys before they can reach their destinations in the strip, and its military blocking humanitarian organizations' access, obtaining food aid is a highly dangerous process.
Small quantities of aid are distributed daily at sites managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, located within Israeli-occupied militarized combat zones in Rafah, Khan Younis and central Gaza. Thousands of people wait at different sites each day, with only a few able to obtain food parcels as Israeli troops and aircraft open frequent fire on the crowds. Over 1,000 people have been killed while trying to get food since the GHF began operating at the end of May. Others have been crushed to death by the degree of crowding.
Accessing the small quantities of United Nations food aid entering Gaza from the north likewise became fatal for more than 80 Palestinians this week, as Israeli forces opened fire on the crowds of thousands who had come to obtain supplies from a convoy of WFP trucks.
The quantities of aid are insufficient after four months of the siege. Mohamed al-Arabid, a Gaza City resident, managed to secure ten kilograms of flour last week from a truck that reached northern Gaza. The supply only lasted his large family a few days, he said.
'That's the reality for decent people,' he told Mada Masr. 'Even though I got it from the grip of death, it's unbearable to think you have flour while others have none. You wish you had a whole truck to distribute to people.'
One flour vendor who was selling his stock at high prices told Mada Masr he had obtained the supplies from the deadly GHF centers. He risks his life to get the flour and could 'be killed at any moment' in the process, he said, justifying the rates. 'Or else I'd keep it for my family.'
Price hikes and hoarding led tens of thousands of Gaza's residents to take to the markets on Sunday to protest trading practices — particularly for basic staples like flour, the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam reported.
Ibrahim Ahmed, one of the protesters, told Mada Masr that he joined the demonstration at the Nasr market in northern Gaza City to denounce traders' exploitation. He said profiteering off people's need has peaked in recent days and blamed the dire situation on the closure of border crossings and the tightening of the blockade.
On Saturday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it has food supplies in storage that could sustain the entire population of Gaza for more than three months. But the aid remains stuck in warehouses — including in Egypt's Arish City — pending clearance for entry. The agency repeated its call to open the crossings and lift the blockade on the strip.
Gaza's population has now entered the most severe conditions of food insecurity, or Phase 5 famine as per the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the Health Ministry's information unit director said on Monday.
He noted that around 5,500 patients were recorded suffering with malnutrition in May, rising to 6,300 in June, warning that the risks are especially high for mothers, breastfeeding women and the elderly.