Author: Patrick Kingsley, Bilal Shbair and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad
Published on: 27/07/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
At least 56 Palestinians died this month of starvation in Gaza, nearly half of the total such deaths since the war began 22 months ago, according to data released on Saturday by the Gaza Health Ministry. Doctors and nurses, struggling to find food themselves, lack the resources to stem the surge. Managers often cannot provide meals for patients or medical staff. The babies are too weak to be flooded with nutrients, which could kill them. In some cases, the fluids that doctors can safely give to them are not enough to prevent them from dying. Dr. Ambereen Sleemi, an American surgeon who has been volunteering at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, described the shock of seeing a skeletal infant who looked only days old. Starvation is causing more mothers to suffer miscarriages or give birth prematurely, to malnourished babies with weakened immune systems and medical abnormalities. “The immediate cause of death in some of these cases is simple: The baby doesn’t get enough to eat, and neither does the mother,” a pediatric consultant says. Israel has since allowed food in, but introduced a new method of distribution that is flawed and dangerous. Israeli military officials acknowledge they have no proof that Hamas has systematically stolen food supplied by the United Nations during most of the war. Israel said on Saturday that it destroyed up to 100 truckloads of food in recent months because aid groups could not distribute the food before it passed its use-by date. As a result, Ms. Barghouth regularly skips meals and says she has lost 29 pounds since the start of the war. At Salam’s birth, her doctor said she weighed roughly 6.6 pounds. Three months later, she weighs only 8.8 — at least three pounds underweight, the doctor said. Doctors at hospitals in northern, central and southern Gaza described similar hardships in interviews on Friday and Saturday. “There are no nutritional supplements, no vitamins, no premature infant formula, no amino acid intravenous solutions — nothing,” Dr. Abu Salmiya from Al-Shifa Hospital said in a phone interview. “Their bodies need these basics, and without them they will die,” said Dr. Aaron Boxerman. Ambassador to Israel demanded an investigation into the killing of Sayfollah Musallet in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The collapse of Iran’s regional influence represents an inflection point of a kind not seen in the Middle East for more than two decades.
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