Baby boy starves to death in Gaza as hunger spreads, medics say

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Six-week-old Yousef's lifeless body lay limp on a hospital table in Gaza City, his skin stretched over protruding ribs and a bandage where a drip had been inserted into his tiny arm. Doctors said the cause of death was starvation.

He was among 15 people to starve to death in the last 24 hours in Gaza, according to doctors who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the enclave for months is now finally crashing down.

Yousef's family couldn't find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi.

"You can't get milk anywhere, and if you do find any it's $100 for a tub," he said, looking at his dead nephew.

Three of the other Palestinians who died of hunger over the last day were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in airstrikes, shelling and shooting since launching their assault on Gaza in response to attacks on Israel by the Hamas group that killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in October 2023.

For the first time since the war began, Palestinian officials say dozens are now also dying of hunger.

Gaza has seen its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March and then lifted that blockade in May with new measures it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.

At least 101 people are known to have died of hunger during the conflict, according to Palestinian officials, including 80 children, most of them in just the last few weeks.

Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, denies that it is responsible for shortages of food. Israel's military said that it "views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance", and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community.

It has blamed the United Nations for failing to protect aid it says is stolen by Hamas and other militants. The fighters deny stealing it.

More than 800 people have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in mass shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near distribution centres of a new, U.S.-backed aid organisation. The United Nations has rejected this system as inherently unsafe, and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles needed to ensure that distribution succeeds.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million residents of the Palestinian enclave a "horror show".

"We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles," Guterres told the U.N. Security Council. "That system is being denied the conditions to function."

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which supported hundreds of thousands of Gazans in the first year of the war, said its aid stocks were now depleted and some of its own staff were starving.

"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," its director Jan Egeland told Reuters. "Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyse our work," he said.

The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that images of civilians killed during the distribution of aid were "unbearable" and urged Israel to deliver on pledges to improve the situation.

FOOD AND MEDICINE SHORTAGES

On Tuesday, men and boys lugged sacks of flour past destroyed buildings and tarpaulins in Gaza City, grabbing what food they could from aid warehouses.

"We haven't eaten for five days," said Mohammed Jundia.

Israeli military statistics showed on Tuesday that an average of 146 trucks of aid per day had entered Gaza over the course of the war. The United States has said a minimum of 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza's population.

"Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can't provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages," said Khalil al-Deqran, a spokesperson for the health ministry.

Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anaemia, he said.

Baby formula in particular is in critically short supply, according to aid groups, doctors and residents. 

The health ministry said at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, including 16 people living in tents in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any incident or artillery in the area at that time.

(Reporting by Nidal Al MughrabiAdditional reporting by Geert De ClercqWriting by John DavisonEditing by Himani Sarkar, Sharon Singleton, Peter Graff)