The ongoing 21-month-long war in Gaza has seen more than 58,000 killed and 100,000 wounded as Israeli attacks continue amid rising numbers of child deaths from malnutrition. In recent weeks, UN agencies have recorded nearly 900 deaths of desperate and hungry Gazans as they try to collect food – with most linked to private aid hubs run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Juliette Touma, the director of communications for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, has visited Gaza several times during and before the war and has been reflecting on the children she has met there and in other conflict zones.
“Adam has been on my mind lately, more so than usual.
I met Adam years ago in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, back then under siege and heavy bombardment. In the very poor hospital ward, there lay Adam, 10 years old, weighing just over 10 kilogrammes. He could not speak, he could not cry. All he could do was make a hoarse sound of breathing. A few days later, Adam died from malnutrition.
Deadly malnutrition
A couple of years before that, my colleague Hanaa calls from Syria late at night. She was in tears and could barely say a word. Hanaa eventually told me that Ali, a 16-year-old boy had died. In yet another town under siege, caught up in a war not of his making, he had also died from malnutrition.
The following morning, my supervisor, an epidemiologist, said “for a boy of 16 to die of malnutrition, that says a lot. He’s practically a man. It means there’s no food at all in that part of Syria.”
Back in Yemen in one of the few functioning children’s hospitals in the capital Sana’a, I was walking through the children’s ward during the peak of a cholera outbreak. Boys 15 and 16 years old, struggling to stay alive.
They were so weak and emaciated, they could barely turn around in their beds.
These images and stories haunted me over the years as they have for several among us who worked in severe hunger or famine-like situations.
Fatal hunger grows in Gaza
In 2022, when I had the great pleasure of going in and out of Gaza, I would visit children in UNRWA schools. Immaculately dressed, healthy looking, smiling, eager to learn, jumping up and down in the school playground to the sound of music.
Back then, Gaza was already under a blockade for more than 15 years. Food was, however, available on the markets through imports via Israel and locally farmed produce. UNRWA was also giving food aid to over one million people.
Images of Adam and Ali were quickly pushed to the back of my memory until a few weeks ago when they suddenly reappeared.
Babies can survive, but will they?
Our Gaza teams started sending alarming photos of emaciated babies. The rates of malnutrition are rapidly increasing, spreading across the Gaza Strip. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 children died of malnutrition since the siege began on 2 March.
UNRWA has meanwhile screened over 242,000 children in the agency’s clinics and medical points across the war-torn Strip, covering over half the children under age five in Gaza. One in 10 children screened is malnourished.
Ahlam is seven months old. Her family was displaced every month since the war began, in search of non-existing safety. Shocked and her body weakened, Ahlam is severely malnourished. Like many babies in Gaza, her immune system has been damaged by trauma, constant forced displacement, lack of clean water, poor hygiene and very little food.
Ahlam can survive, but will she?
Bombs and scarce supplies
There are very little therapeutic supplies to treat children with malnutrition as basics are scarce in Gaza. The Israeli authorities have imposed a tight siege blocking the entry of food, medicines, medical and nutritional supplies and hygiene material, including soap.
While the siege is sometimes eased, UNRWA (the largest humanitarian organisation in Gaza) has not been allowed to bring in humanitarian assistance since 2 March.
Last week, Salam, another malnourished baby, died. She was a few months old. When she finally reached the UNRWA clinic, it was too late.
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Meanwhile, eight children queuing for therapeutic support against malnutrition were killed when the Israeli forces hit the clinic they were in. One of my colleagues who drove past the clinic a few minutes later told me she saw mothers looking out into the abyss, weeping in silence, just like Adam did.
How many more babies must die before the world takes action?
Why should babies die of malnutrition in the 21st century, especially when it’s totally preventable?
At UNRWA, we have over 6,000 trucks of food, hygiene supplies and medicines outside Gaza waiting for the green light to go in.
The aid will mainly help little girls like Ahlam. UNRWA also has more than 1,000 health workers who can provide boys and girls with specialised nutritional services.
Amid the daily livestream of horrors we get from Gaza on our screens, one cannot help but ask how many more Ahlam’s and Salam’s have to die before taking action?
How much longer until a ceasefire is reached so that bombs stop falling on emaciated and dying children?”