GAZA, (PIC)
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Friday that three Palestinian children died of malnourishment and dehydration at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
According to spokesman for the ministry Ashraf al-Qudra, the death toll from malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza has climbed to 23 martyrs, mostly children.
Last Wednesday, the health ministry announced the death of a 15-year-old child at Al-Shifa Hospital and a 72-year-old man at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza as a result of hunger and dehydration.
Qudra affirmed that the announced death toll from hunger and dehydration reflects only the people who were pronounced dead by hospitals, while there are dozens who are believed to have died of hunger silently and without being able to reach hospitals in Gaza.
UN officials have been warning for months that Israel’s siege and offensive were pushing the Palestinians in Gaza into famine.
Hunger is most acute in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by the Israeli occupation forces for months and has suffered long cutoffs of food supplies.
Children are also beginning to die in the south, where access to aid is not enough.
At the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, 16 premature babies have died of malnutrition-related causes over the past five weeks, one of the senior doctors told The Associated Press.
The Israeli occupation army largely shut off entry of food, water, medicine and other vital supplies after launching its war on Gaza following the Palestinian resistance’s October 7 cross-border operation in response, in particular, to Israel’s unprecedented violations and measures at the Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem.
