A two-month-old Palestinian boy has died of starvation in northern Gaza, days after the United Nations warned of an “explosive increase” in child deaths from Israel's war on the besieged enclave, according to media reports.
Shehab News Agency reported that Mahmoud Fattou died on Friday at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Footage seen by Al Jazeera shows the emaciated toddler gasping for breath in a hospital bed.
One of the paramedics who rushed the boy to hospital said Mahmoud died of acute malnutrition.
“We saw a woman holding a baby screaming for help. Her pale baby appeared to be taking its last breath,” a paramedic said in the video.
“We rushed him to the hospital, where he was found to be suffering from acute malnutrition. Medical staff rushed him to the ICU. Gaza has no infant formula. The baby has been without milk for days because there is no milk at all.”
Mahmoud's death comes as the Israeli government, which launched an offensive on Gaza following an attack by Hamas fighters in October, continues to ignore global appeals to allow more aid to the besieged enclave. It happened inside.
The United Nations has announced that approximately 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip are now on the brink of starvation.
Israel, which cut off all food, water and fuel supplies to Gaza at the start of the war, opened one doorway for humanitarian aid, but authorities say strict checks on the Israeli side and far-right Israeli forces at the Kerem Shalom crossing Protesters have announced a protest. Preventing food trucks from entering.
Even when the trucks arrive in Gaza, aid workers are unable to receive or distribute supplies due to inadequate security after Israel targeted and killed the Gaza police officer who was protecting the truck envoy.
The situation is particularly desperate in northern Gaza, where aid has been almost completely cut off since late October.
Doctors there report a sharp increase in malnutrition among children, especially newborns.
Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described the health situation as “beyond catastrophic.”
“The newborns show signs of weakness and paleness because their mothers are malnourished,” Abu Safiyah said. “Unfortunately, many children have died in the past few weeks…If we don't get the right help soon, we will lose more and more lives to malnutrition.”
Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya, director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, says cases of malnutrition are rapidly increasing among children, especially newborns ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/7sCwvI7aMM
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 25, 2024
Despite the dire situation, UN agencies say they are unable to get food to the area.
The World Food Program attempted to resume deliveries to northern Gaza last week, but announced a halt two days later, citing Israeli gunfire and a “breakdown of civil order.” The team said it had witnessed “unprecedented levels of desperation” as starving Palestinians raided trucks in search of food in the north.
The agency said it was working to resume deliveries as soon as possible, calling for increased security for its staff, a “significant increase in food supplies” and the opening of a transit point for direct aid from Israel to northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that malnutrition is soaring among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip, with its assessment suggesting that 15 percent of children under the age of two in northern Gaza, or It said one in six people has been shown to be acutely malnourished. .
Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's deputy executive director for humanitarian work, said in a statement last week: “The Gaza Strip is poised to see an explosion in preventable child deaths, an already intolerable situation in Gaza. “The level of child mortality is going to get even worse.”
“We have been warning for weeks that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a nutrition crisis. If the conflict does not end now, child nutrition will continue to decline, leading to preventable deaths and health problems, “It can have a lifelong impact on children and can have intergenerational effects,” he said.
Before the war, only 0.8% of children under five in Gaza were considered acutely malnourished, according to the United Nations.
“It is unprecedented in the world for the nutritional status of the population to decline this much in just three months.”
