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On a street shattered with rubble in war-torn Gaza, a mother held her five-month-old daughter for the last time. Covered in a thin white cloth, Zainab Abu Halib was not even heavier than anything. She had already died before reaching the pediatric ward of one of the final active hospitals in the Gaza strip.
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Her mother Esraa bent down and kissed her daughter’s cool and shrunken forehead for the last time. Zainab weighed just under 2kg at her death, less than when she was born. Her body bore the starvation, skin stretched over bone, limbs so thin a morgue worker’s thumb was wider than her ankles.
Her father Ahmed said, “She needed special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza.” His voice breaking as he stood beside her small, cloth-wrapped body during funeral prayers held in the hospital courtyard.
Zainab’s story is not unique. She is one of at least 85 children confirmed to have died from malnutrition-related causes during the war in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The total number of deaths tied to starvation including adults has risen to 127 with many cases reported only in the past few weeks.
Dr Ahmed al-Farah who is the head of pediatrics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis called Zainab’s condition “severe, severe starvation.” She had been allergic to cow’s milk and needed a specialised formula. Without it chronic diarrhea and vomiting weakened her tiny body. As her immune system collapsed and infection set in. Within weeks, she was gone.
Her family who were displaced and living in a makeshift tent struggled to find even basic food, let alone the specific formula Zainab needed. Esraa, who is undernourished herself, could only breastfeed her daughter for six weeks. After that there was nothing else left.
“With my daughter’s death, many will follow. Our children, whom we carried for nine months, have become just numbers,” Esraa said.
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Doctors at Nasser Hospital are sounding alarms as cases of acute malnutrition surge. With only eight pediatric beds the department is treating around 60 children in which many laid on extra mattresses on the floor. Another clinic tied to the hospital reports 40 new malnutrition cases weekly.
“Unless the crossings are opened and food and baby formula are allowed in for this vulnerable segment of Palestinian society, we will witness unprecedented numbers of deaths,” Dr al-Farah warned.
Humanitarian aid has been slow. Since March after the collapse of the most recent ceasefire, Israel halted the entry of food, fuel, and medicine for over two months to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages. Aid resumed in May but remains insufficient.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry claims to have allowed around 4,500 aid trucks since then including 2,500 tons of baby food and special formulas. Still, this averages fewer than 70 trucks a day far below the 500 to 600 daily shipments the UN says are needed.
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The situation has been further more complicated by chaos on the ground. Hungry crowds and desperate gangs often intercept trucks before the food can be distributed. In some cases over 1,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed while attempting to reach aid.
A mother’s robe hung loose on her child’s frame, her own hunger barely hidden. “There was a shortage of everything. How can a girl like her recover?” she asked.
Last Saturday, Israel announced a new humanitarian pause to allow more aid deliveries, but denied accusations of intentional starvation. A government statement blamed Hamas for manipulating “images of children suffering from terminal diseases.”
(With Associated Press inputs)
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