WHO: Children Starving to Death in Gaza

By Staff, Agencies

A growing number of children in Gaza are dying of starvation and dehydration, according to the World Health Organization and Palestinian officials, amid desperate conditions due to “Israel’s” throttling of aid and destruction of the besieged enclave.

A WHO team found “severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed,” during a recent visit to the Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in northern Gaza, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X Monday.

Tedros appealed to “Israel” to ensure the safe and regular delivery of humanitarian aid and for a halt to the fighting.

On Saturday, the US made its first humanitarian airdrop into the strip — 66 bundles containing meals but no water or medical supplies, a US official said. Aid groups have criticized the air drops as an ineffective and degrading way to get aid to Palestinians in Gaza, with the International Crisis Group’s UN director saying they are at best a “temporary Band-Aid measure.”

A Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson said Sunday the number of children who have died of dehydration and malnutrition in northern Gaza has risen to 15.

Doctors at the Kamal Adwan Hospital also “fear for the lives of six children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea in intensive care as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen and the weakness of medical capabilities,” Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, the Ministry spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement.

The death toll has been rising since last week when incubators and oxygen supplies at Kamal Adwan Hospital ceased to operate at night because of fuel shortages, the ministry said.

A WHO team visiting the hospital at the weekend corroborated the dire conditions, saying the lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children at the hospital.

“Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only pediatrics hospital in the north of Gaza, and is overwhelmed with patients… The lack of electricity poses a serious threat to patient care, especially in critical areas like the intensive care unit and the neonatal unit,” WHO chief Tedros said on X.

The United Nations children’s agency has called for urgent action, requesting “multiple reliable entry points” to allow them to bring aid.

“Humanitarian aid agencies like UNICEF must be enabled to reverse the humanitarian crisis, prevent a famine, and save children’s lives,” UNICEF’s Adele Khodr said in a statement Sunday.

UNICEF said it was also aware of at least 10 children dying due to dehydration and malnutrition in recent days at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“There are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all,” Khodr added.

UNICEF’s Khodr described the situation in Gaza as “man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable,” and warned the death toll among children could rapidly increase unless immediate action is taken.

“The widespread lack of nutritious food, safe water and medical services, a direct consequence of the impediments to access and multiple dangers facing UN humanitarian operations, is impacting children and mothers, hindering their ability to breastfeed their babies, especially in the northern Gaza Strip,” she said.

“People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.”