Malnutrition in northern Gaza rose from 0.8% of children under 5 years before the conflict began to over 16% at present
Photo for representation: iStock Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip and blocking of humanitarian aid since October 2023 has pushed the Palestinian region into famine, the World Health Organization noted on March 18, 2024.
North Gaza has already been put in Phase 5 (famine) by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership and the rest of the Strip is also suffering unprecedented food insecurity, the United Nations health agency noted. Around 210,000 people in the region are estimated to be affected, according to IPC.
The IPC defines famine as “the absolute inaccessibility of food to an entire population or sub-group of a population, potentially causing death in the short term”.
“The southern governorates of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, and the Governorate of Rafah, are classified in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). However, in a worst-case scenario, these governorates face a risk of Famine through July 2024,” IPC warned.
This spells doom for Gaza’s children: At least 16 children have died of malnutrition in the region, according to official records. The actual number is surely higher.
“Before the recent months’ hostilities, 0.8 per cent of children under 5 years of age were acutely malnourished. Today’s report shows that as of February in the northern governorates, that figure is between 12.4 and 16.5 per cent,” WHO wrote in a statement March 18.
People are barely getting a meal a day and adults are skipping food altogether to feed their children, the health agency’s teams found during their visits to Gaza.
But this wasn't always the case, as WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has highlighted. “Before October 2023, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population. Malnutrition was a rare occurrence,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The hunger situation in Gaza is devastating: famine is imminent and it could have grave immediate and long-term health consequences.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 18, 2024
There was no reason for this catastrophe to happen.
Before October 2023, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population. Malnutrition was… https://t.co/b0zsV6sz3S pic.twitter.com/deTyatUBN2
The nutritional crisis has been compounded by diseases and destruction of healthcare facilities by the Israeli military campaign. Lack of proper food and water makes the children more vulnerable to contracting diseases and slows down recovery. It also leads to more severe infections leading to deaths, WHO noted.
Attacks happening in and around hospitals make it difficult for the population to access medical aid and for relief teams to reach the sick, the organisation highlighted.
While tens of thousands of children are killed in attacks and more injured and stuck in rubble, many children and infants are dying a slow death due to nutritional deficits combined with diseases.
UN agencies that visited the damaged hospitals and neighbourhoods in the war-torn city reported grim findings. “I have been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anaemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies … don’t even have the energy to cry,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News network last week.
The WHO teams also had a similar experience: “When our missions reach hospitals, we meet exhausted and hungry health workers who ask us for food and water. We see patients trying to recover from life-saving surgeries and losses of limbs, or sick with cancer or diabetes, mothers who have just given birth, or newborn babies, all suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it.”
The residents of north Gaza have also been completely cut off from potable water supply, various news organisations reported. People were seen digging through rubble of bombed buildings and damaged roads to reach a water source or underground pipe, according to a story in the BBC website.
As 300,000 people in northern Gaza are cut off from assistance amid an imminent famine, there were reports of people filling their stomachs with animal fodder, the news organisation reported.
The crisis can be combatted if the global community and parties involved in the conflict come together to stop the hostilities and resume movement of aid into affected areas, IPC recommended. The programme outlined the following solutions:
Rafah, where Israel has threatened to launch a ground attack, is the only existing place in the affected region where healthcare facilities are still being ramped up.
“WHO, as a partner of the Nutrition Cluster, is currently supporting a nutrition stabilization center in Rafah to treat children with severe acute malnutrition with medical complications, who are at the highest risk of imminent death if not urgently treated,” the UN health organisation told the press.
Two additional centres are also being set up with the agency’s support, one in the north of Gaza at Kamal Adwan hospital and another at the International Medical Corps field hospital in Rafah.
Health workers are being trained to recognise and treat malnutrition with complications and this work has to be amplified, WHO noted.
“More nutrition and stabilization centres need to be added in all key hospitals in Gaza. Communities themselves will need the support to scale up the management of malnutrition locally,” it added in the media statement.
UN agencies have urged Israel to open more gateways for water, food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. “As the occupying force, it is their responsibility under international law to allow for the passage of supplies including food. Recent efforts to deliver by air and sea are welcome, but only the expansion of land-crossings will enable large-scale deliveries to prevent famine,” WHO said.
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