GAZA, (PIC)
A UN report has stated that around 15,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition, after screening around 240,000 of these young Palestinians in the Strip since the beginning of this year.
The report, published on the UN News website on Saturday, explained that the examinations included children aged between 6 months and 5 years in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been the target of Israel’s ongoing war since October 7, 2023.
The UN report pointed out that among these children in Gaza, numbering around 14,750 according to World Health Organization data, there are 3,288 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
In this context, the World Health Organization is providing support to a center dedicated to treating malnutrition at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, noting that this center is one of four operational facilities treating malnutrition in the enclave and supported by the organization.
The UN News quoted the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, as saying “until this moment, we have counted almost five thousand children” suffering from malnutrition.
He warned that the influx of Gaza children suffering from acute malnutrition, with its complications, means that this is “a station, God forbid, before death.”
Abu Safiya, drawing attention to the future impact of malnutrition on children, said, “Most of the cases come with advanced and delayed symptoms, and therefore the matter needs to be taken seriously and all the required medicines, foods, and therapeutic milk for these cases need to be introduced.”
He stressed the need to introduce all kinds of food, “as in northern Gaza there is flour and some canned goods, but there are no vegetables, fruits, oils or meats, and of course all this will have a future impact on the bodies of the children. This problem will continue to exist unless the food problem is solved.”
Acute malnutrition appears to be normal amid the starvation policy adopted by the Israeli occupation army within the framework of the genocide it is committing against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, for more than 10 months, by tightening the siege on them, closing the crossings, and preventing the entry of life-saving aid, including baby milk and basic foodstuffs and medicines.
This is exacerbated further in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been isolated from the south and center of the Strip, where dozens of deaths have been recorded as a result of malnutrition, especially among children.
In a related context, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in a recent report released last Friday that the number of Gaza children diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition in the north of the Strip in July was four times higher than in May. Meanwhile, the number doubled more than twice in the south.
The UN office showed that only 1% of children in the north of Gaza and 6% in the south were able to obtain the recommended dietary diversity.
