GAZA, (PIC)
In light of the increasing death toll because of famine that resulted from the stifling Israeli siege on the northern Gaza Strip, concerns have been growing over the death of hundreds of thousands.
Abdel Halim Saeed, a resident of northern Gaza, lost 15 kg of weight in 142 days of the Israeli ongoing aggression and stifling siege on the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to the PIC, Saeed said, “For three days, I had only saline solution,” wondering, “Who would have imagined that a person or child would die of hunger in the twenty-first century?”
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor confirmed the death and injury of 30 Palestinians who were targeted by Israeli occupation forces while seeking access to aid trucks in Gaza City.
Palestinian human rights organizations have warned that about half a million Palestinians will be left to die of hunger and thirst in the northern Gaza Strip, stressing that a quarter of the Strip’s population in the north suffer from severe food insecurity.
According to the latest joint report by the World Food Program and UNICEF, there is a steep rise in malnutrition among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip, which poses grave threat to their health.
For his part, Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, confirmed that doctors reported signs of weakness and severe emaciation resulting from malnutrition and hunger in all medical cases.
In a statement, the UN organizations quoted citizens in Gaza as confirming that residents are suffering from real famine, as they were forced to eat animal feed due to the scarcity of food supplies and high prices of what is left of them. The price of a bag of flour (weighing 25 kilograms) has jumped to about $700.
Residents in the neighborhoods of Gaza City are suffering from a severe thirst crisis due to the cutoff of healthy drinking water and the scarcity of water sources, in which the deficit has reached about 90%, as some residents, such as the elderly Samira Issa, 68 years old, and her husband have been left no choice but to mix water with starch to satisfy their hunger.
As for Walid Awad, 29 years old, he says: “For two months, not a single liter of water has been pumped into the tanks of our homes.”
According to Gaza Municipality, the Israeli occupation forces cut off water sources from the Gaza Strip, prevented the entry of fuel needed to operate the wells, and destroyed about 40 water wells, 9 tanks of various sizes, and about 42,000 linear meters of water networks of various diameters.
For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, in a statement on Sunday evening, that the health situation in the northern Gaza Strip is “extremely and indescribably catastrophic. Hospitals in the Gaza and northern governorates are now without fuel,” it explained.
The Ministry of Health warned that dialysis and intensive care patients in the Gaza and North governorates are at risk of death as a result of the lack of fuel for generators and ambulances and the scarcity of medicines.
According to data published by the Ministry of Health, there are about 350,000 chronic patients in Gaza, 60,000 pregnant women, and about 700,000 children, who are vulnerable to serious complications as a result of malnutrition, dehydration, and the lack of medical facilities.
The Israeli genocidal war on Gaza has also caused massive destruction and an unprecedented catastrophic humanitarian crisis, amid scarce supplies of food, water and medicine, and the displacement of about two million Palestinians, that is, more than 85% of the Strip’s population, according to the United Nations.
