Latest news with #World Health Organization
SBS Australia
3 days ago
- Health
- SBS Australia
'Damage across generations': The long-term effects of starvation in Gaza
Israel has announced it will make way for humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza but aid and medical experts say it may not be enough to address mass starvation and the long-term consequences of malnutrition. Israel denies reports of starvation in Gaza, after the World Health Organization and a raft of aid groups warned of the consequences of mass starvation in the besieged territory. Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, then reopened them in May, allowing in far fewer trucks than before the blockade, which the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network described as "a drop in the ocean" of what would be needed to feed Gaza's population. Why Gaza's children are more likely to die of starvation Experts say the ramifications could be felt for generations to come. Associate professor Nina Siversten, a nursing and family health lecturer at Flinders University, told SBS News children in Gaza are at the most severe risk of the effects of starvation. Young children have higher needs for nutrition than adults and fewer fat and muscle reserves to rely on when they go hungry. "They're more likely to die, especially from common infections like diarrhoea and pneumonia because starvation already weakens their really fragile immune system," Siversten said. The long-term consequences of malnutrition are also far more profound for young children than adults. For the first thousand days of a baby's life, its brain is developing rapidly and prolonged malnutrition can have catastrophic consequences on this process, including permanent brain damage. "Malnutrition during this crucial window under two years old children really increases the risk of life-long disability," Siversten said. Metabolic and immune responses to starvation in childhood also lead to higher risks of developing chronic diseases later in life, including mental health issues such as schizophrenia. While intensive medical care can help children recover from severe malnutrition, Silversten noted that the widespread destruction of hospital infrastructure in Gaza means its medical system cannot support children's recoveries from these acute states. Siversten is also concerned about how the damaging effects of this starvation will manifest in future generations of Gazans as it can affect how "genes are switched on and off". "We call this epigenetic inheritance — essentially even if their children have enough to eat, they still might inherit risks of poor health because of what their parents went through." The effects of malnutrition can be passed down through families, as was seen in children whose parents experienced the Dutch famine during World War Two known as the Hunger Winter. "We could follow them on and that generation, we could see that they had higher rates of disease as adults — and their children too showed signs of health problems that linked to that original period of starvation," Silversten said. "We're not just talking about a lost childhood, we're talking about damage that can echo across two or maybe even three generations." The Israeli army declared a 'tactical pause' in military operations in parts of the Gaza Strip to facilitate the safe passage of humanitarian aid convoys. Source: AAP / Mohammed Saber/EPA Aid organisations resume deliveries Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied the reports of widespread starvation in Gaza, calling it a "bald-faced lie" and saying there is no policy of starvation or starvation in the enclave. But under global pressure from world leaders, the Israeli military said humanitarian corridors will be in place from 6am to 11pm local time to allow the United Nations (UN) and aid organisations to deliver food and medicine to the population in Gaza. Tom Fletcher from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) welcomed the announcement by the Israeli military. "In contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window," he wrote on X. UNICEF posted to X that the aid flow is an "opportunity to begin to reverse this catastrophe and save lives". "The entire population of over two million people in Gaza is severely food insecure. One out of every three people has not eaten for days, and 80 per cent of all reported deaths by starvation are children," it wrote. Last week, more than 100 humanitarian aid organisations, including Medicins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, signed a joint statement sounding the alarm about mass starvation in Gaza. Gaza health officials last week said malnutrition was killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war — reporting 15 people, including a six-week-old baby, starved to death in 24 hours. 'We're caring while we start to starve' Journalists and doctors have also been documenting their own hunger in Gaza. Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF's deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, said in one video posted to the organisation's Instagram he has been surviving on one meal per day for several months. Mughaisib described the body's response when it is deprived of food, including burning its own fat and muscle tissue to survive. "We are caring for patients dying of hunger while we ourselves are starting to starve," he said. "We are expected to save lives while our own are slowly being consumed." The Israeli army declared a 'tactical pause' in military operations in parts of the Gaza Strip on 27 July, to facilitate the safe passage of humanitarian aid convoys. Source: EPA / MOHAMMED SABER/EPA While aid deliveries will go some way to alleviating hunger among the estimated 2.1 million Gazans currently experiencing food insecurity, head of humanitarian at Oxfam Australia, Lucia Goldsmith, told SBS News it is "nowhere near enough" to fully address the problem. Goldsmith said around 420,000 pallets of aid have accumulated outside Gaza's borders in the months since Israel imposed its aid blockade. "To give you an idea, that would cover 101 football fields — so that's the amount of aid that's waiting to cross into Gaza. So, a couple hundred trucks is obviously better than nothing but clearly not enough," she said. Goldsmith also expressed concern about Israel's airdrops of aid that started on the weekend, which she said are "inefficient" as well as dangerous. "What also happens is that those who need the most — that's children, pregnant women, elderly people, people with disabilities, struggle to access these supplies," she said. A 'man-made' crisis Following the joint statement signed by aid organisations, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Gaza is suffering "man-made" mass starvation caused by an Israeli aid blockade. Netanyahu has also accused Hamas of stealing aid — however a United States government report completed in June found no evidence of systemic theft of US-funded humanitarian supplies and according to one New York Times report, senior Israeli military officials said they have not discovered proof of this claim. With reporting from the Australian Associated Press and Reuters.
Arab News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Spain to airdrop 12 tonnes of food into Gaza Strip
MADRID: Spain said on Monday it would airdrop 12 tonnes of food into Gaza this week as the threat of famine stalks the Palestinian territory after 21 months of war. The operation is a rare example of a European nation joining Middle Eastern countries in sending aid by air. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of the most virulent critics of Israel's military offensive in Gaza, told a news conference the delivery would take place from Jordan on Friday using Spanish air force planes. 'The famine in Gaza is a shame for all of humanity and stopping it, therefore, is a moral imperative,' he said. The Defense Ministry said the 12 tonnes would be delivered in an operation similar to another carried out in March 2024, when Spain delivered 26 tonnes of food. The World Health Organization has warned malnutrition in the occupied territory has reached 'alarming levels' since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
UN report reveals alarming rise in Africa's food insecurity despite global improvements
Food insecurity is rising in many parts of Africa, with the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet surpassing 1 billion — some two-thirds of the continent's population — in 2024, according to a United Nations report published Monday. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa is more than double the global average of 28%, whereas figures from Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Oceania don't reach that mark, the report said. The annual report, produced by five U.N. agencies, analyzes trends in efforts to achieve the goal of zero hunger around the world by 2030. Those agencies include the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. An estimated 8.2% of the global population may have faced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2022, a positive trend that 'contrasts with the steady rise in hunger in most subregions of Africa' and in western Asia, or parts of the Middle East and South Asia, the report said. The prevalence of undernourishment, a key measure of progress, surpassed 20% in Africa and rose to 12.7% in western Asia, it said. The report is the latest to suggest that eliminating food insecurity universally remains a serious challenge. Africa remains the most vulnerable continent. According to the current projection, 512 million people in the world may be chronically undernourished in 2030, with nearly 60% of them to be found in Africa, the report said. 'We must urgently reverse this trajectory,' said Máximo Torero, chief economist with the FAO. A major mark of distress is the number of Africans unable to afford a healthy diet. While the global figure fell from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.6 billion in 2024, the number increased in Africa from 864 million to just over 1 billion during the same period. That means the vast majority of Africans are unable to eat well on the continent of 1.5 billion people. The U.N. warned in a report in October that conflicts, economic instability and climate shocks — in addition to reduced funding for emergency food and agriculture assistance — were driving alarming levels of acute food insecurity in 22 'hunger hot spots.' That report, by FAO and WFP, mentioned Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, Mali and the Palestinian territories as being of the 'highest concern level.' Chad, Lebanon, Myanmar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen were classified as 'hotspots of very high concern,' where large numbers of people faced or were projected to face critical levels of acute food insecurity. Torero, the FAO chief economist, said the situation in Africa is 'concerning,' driven in part by the failure of agricultural production to keep up with population growth in many areas. At the same time, he said, many parts of Africa face violent conflict and setbacks stemming from climate change. 'These shocks interact and reinforce each other, weakening already fragile agrifood systems,' he said, speaking about the latest U.N. report. 'Conflict zones such as Sudan and the Sahel face particularly acute challenges. Additionally, climate poses a serious threat, particularly to the most vulnerable populations.' ___ More AP Africa news:
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Israeli forces kill 63 Palestinian in Gaza within hours of ‘humanitarian pause'
The Israeli military killed at least 63 people across Gaza just hours after declaring daily 'pauses' in operations to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid, health officials said. The military said on Sunday it would suspend operations daily from 10am until 8pm in parts of central and northern Gaza, including al-Mawasi, Deir el-Balah and Gaza City, and promised to open aid corridors from 6am to 11pm to let in food and medical supplies. However, within hours of the so-called 'humanitarian pause' taking effect, Israeli forces resumed air raids. One reported strike targeted a bakery in an area designated as a 'safe zone', according to Al Jazeera. The humanitarian crisis continued to worsen. Health officials reported six more deaths, including of two children, from starvation in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 133. Among the latest to succumb was five-month-old Zainab Abu Haleeb, who died of malnutrition at the Nasser Hospital. 'Three months inside the hospital and this is what I get in return, that she is dead,' her mother Israa Abu Haleeb told Al Jazeera. The World Food Programme said one in three people in Gaza had gone days without food and about half a million were experiencing famine-like conditions. More than 20 per cent of pregnant and breastfeeding women were malnourished, according to the World Health Organization. Israel maintains that it is working to improve aid access and denies that famine exists in Gaza. But aid organisations say the situation is catastrophic, with a quarter of the population at risk of acute malnutrition. UN officials say the crisis won't ease unless Israel speeds up the movement of aid convoys through its checkpoints. A top UN official said last week Palestinians were beginning to resemble 'walking corpses'. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said humanitarian workers were encountering children who were 'emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying' without immediate intervention. 'Families are no longer coping. They're breaking down, unable to survive,' Mr Lazzarini said. 'Their existence is threatened.' Israel has severely limited the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, allowing only a small number of trucks to enter each day after enforcing an 11-week total blockade earlier this year. UN officials warn the current level of aid is merely a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of need. The Israeli military intercepted an aid ship bound for Gaza that aimed to breach the blockade on the Palestinian territory, detaining 21 international activists and journalists and confiscating all cargo, including baby formula, food, and medicine, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on Sunday. The group said Israeli forces 'violently intercepted' their vessel, Handala, in international waters around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, cutting off cameras and communication shortly before midnight on Saturday. 'All cargo was non-military, civilian and intended for direct distribution to a population facing deliberate starvation and medical collapse under Israel's illegal blockade,'' the group said in a statement. It was the second ship operated by the coalition that Israeli forces prevented in recent months from delivering aid to Gaza. It was reported on Sunday that Jordan and the UAE had begun airdropping aid into the besieged Palestinian territory. But Mr Lazzarini said 'airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation'. 'They are expensive, inefficient and can even kill starving civilians. It is a distraction & smokescreen,' he said in an X post. 'A manmade hunger can only be addressed by political will. Lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements with dignified access to people in need. Israel's war on Gaza has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, injured over 144,000, and left most of the densely populated coastal territory in ruins and the majority of its 2.2 million people homeless and starving. Israel launched the war in October 2023 after nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage during a Hamas attack.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Israeli forces kill 63 Palestinian in Gaza within hours of ‘humanitarian pause'
The Israeli military killed at least 63 people across Gaza just hours after declaring daily 'pauses' in operations to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid, health officials said. The military said on Sunday it would suspend operations daily from 10am until 8pm in parts of central and northern Gaza, including al-Mawasi, Deir el-Balah and Gaza City, and promised to open aid corridors from 6am to 11pm to let in food and medical supplies. However, within hours of the so-called 'humanitarian pause' taking effect, Israeli forces resumed air raids. One reported strike targeted a bakery in an area designated as a 'safe zone', according to Al Jazeera. The humanitarian crisis continued to worsen. Health officials reported six more deaths, including of two children, from starvation in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 133. Among the latest to succumb was five-month-old Zainab Abu Haleeb, who died of malnutrition at the Nasser Hospital. 'Three months inside the hospital and this is what I get in return, that she is dead,' her mother Israa Abu Haleeb told Al Jazeera. The World Food Programme said one in three people in Gaza had gone days without food and about half a million were experiencing famine-like conditions. More than 20 per cent of pregnant and breastfeeding women were malnourished, according to the World Health Organization. Israel maintains that it is working to improve aid access and denies that famine exists in Gaza. But aid organisations say the situation is catastrophic, with a quarter of the population at risk of acute malnutrition. UN officials say the crisis won't ease unless Israel speeds up the movement of aid convoys through its checkpoints. A top UN official said last week Palestinians were beginning to resemble 'walking corpses'. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said humanitarian workers were encountering children who were 'emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying' without immediate intervention. 'Families are no longer coping. They're breaking down, unable to survive,' Mr Lazzarini said. 'Their existence is threatened.' Israel has severely limited the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, allowing only a small number of trucks to enter each day after enforcing an 11-week total blockade earlier this year. UN officials warn the current level of aid is merely a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of need. The Israeli military intercepted an aid ship bound for Gaza that aimed to breach the blockade on the Palestinian territory, detaining 21 international activists and journalists and confiscating all cargo, including baby formula, food, and medicine, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on Sunday. The group said Israeli forces 'violently intercepted' their vessel, Handala, in international waters around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, cutting off cameras and communication shortly before midnight on Saturday. 'All cargo was non-military, civilian and intended for direct distribution to a population facing deliberate starvation and medical collapse under Israel's illegal blockade,'' the group said in a statement. It was the second ship operated by the coalition that Israeli forces prevented in recent months from delivering aid to Gaza. It was reported on Sunday that Jordan and the UAE had begun airdropping aid into the besieged Palestinian territory. But Mr Lazzarini said 'airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation'. 'They are expensive, inefficient and can even kill starving civilians. It is a distraction & smokescreen,' he said in an X post. 'A manmade hunger can only be addressed by political will. Lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements with dignified access to people in need. Israel's war on Gaza has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, injured over 144,000, and left most of the densely populated coastal territory in ruins and the majority of its 2.2 million people homeless and starving. Israel launched the war in October 2023 after nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage during a Hamas attack.
