After almost three months of a total aid blockade in Gaza and intensified attacks from Israel, children are suffering the most severe consequences, a local doctor says, from death and injuries to starvation.
A senior Palestinian pediatric doctor described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “unbelievable,” witnessing children dying from hunger and preventable injuries, scenes he said he had studied in textbooks, but never imagined seeing in real life.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Dr. Ahmmed Al-Farra, head of pediatrics and maternity in Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex, said hospitals are collapsing across the region.
No public hospitals are operating in the north of the strip and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, once the largest hospital in southern Gaza, has repeatedly been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
Al-Farra said that many patients have died on the operating table due to a lack of essential equipment and medication. “If a patient in North Gaza has chest pain or is injured, he will lose his life,” said Al-Farra. “All the hospitals there are gone: Shifa, Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian Hospital. Destroyed or inoperable.”
He paints a devastating picture of life in Gaza, over 19 months into the war. “We’re seeing children with marasmus — skin and bone,” he said. “Some are just 40% of their expected weight. Severe malnutrition, no protein, no vitamins.”
Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by protein-energy deficiency, caused by insufficient calorie intake leading to severe fat and muscle loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. While it can occur in anyone with severe malnutrition, it usually occurs in children.
Siwar Ashour, a child in Gaza, was born small, but was a relatively healthy baby six months ago, according to Al-Farra.
But today, she is acutely malnourished and fighting for her life in the Nasser Hospital, the doctor said. The facility has been repeatedly bombed by Israel, including attacks on Monday. Israel Defense Forces officials say they are targeting terrorists hiding there.
Siwar is bound in plastic, according to Al-Farra. The doctor says her weight loss is so severe that she can no longer regulate her own body temperature. And at 6 months old, she weighs just over 7 pounds. That is less than half the weight of an average American baby girl, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“If she does not take the suitable formula of milk, unfortunately, she will not survive,” Al-Farra said.
Nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger, according to a report released by 17 UN agencies and NGOs. Israeli officials have disputed the agency’s figures and say their warnings have been wrong in the past.
Detailing the only option that his colleagues have in hospitals to fight the severe malnutrition in children, Al-Farra said that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, has managed to provide small amounts of emergency baby formula, known as F-75 and F-100, to treat acute malnutrition in babies.
The doctor, however, said children’s conditions often deteriorate again after being discharged from the hospital. “We give the children a bit of formula — F-75, F-100 — from MSF, just in the hospital,” he explained. “They get a little better, and then we have to send them home, because we need the bed for the next child. But outside, there’s no food, no milk, no protein. They come back a week later, worse than before.”
Al-Farra also highlighted the widespread hunger afflicting Palestinians of all ages and all walks of life in Gaza, now 11 weeks into Israel’s ban on humanitarian aid entering the strip. Even as a doctor with a relatively stable income, he said he has gone without fresh meat, chicken and fish for over three months. “I haven’t had any chicken or meat protein in the past three months. … If this is my reality, imagine what it’s like for the people in the streets,” he said.
Following repeated international warnings on the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel allowed five trucks of aid to enter the territory on Monday, according to COGAT, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. A top Israeli official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the aid trucks contained flour, baby food, medical supplies and staples for central kitchens in Gaza.
Israel says they imposed the humanitarian aid blockade on March 2 to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas ended on March 1. The ceasefire fully collapsed on March 18 when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza.
Israel on Sunday agreed to allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza, saying it didn’t want a “starvation crisis.”
Israel allowed 100 aid trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday, UN OCHA Deputy Spokesperson Jens Laerke said. But no aid has been distributed in Gaza yet, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said during his daily briefing from UN Headquarters in New York Tuesday.
The amount of aid was described as “a drop in the ocean” by the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, UNOCHA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the decision to allow in aid came after pressure from U.S. lawmakers.
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist fighters entered Israel and killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. There are still 58 hostages held captive by Hamas, 20 of whom are presumed to be alive. Hamas is believed to be holding the bodies of four Americans.
The war has taken a large toll on Palestinians, with over 53,000 killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. While statistics do not distinguish between military and non-military casualties, women and children make up tens of thousands of this number, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Highlighting the dire situation of the survivors of the war in Gaza, especially children, Al-Farra pleaded for immediate aid coming into the strip. “We’re not asking for miracles. We’re asking for food, for medicine,” he said. “They are not numbers on paper — they are human beings created by God. They have the right to survive.”
ABC News’ Lama Hasan, Samy Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Jordana Miller contributed to this report
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