3/6/2024–|Last updated: 6/3/202407:42 PM (Mecca time)
Palestinian Amira Al-Taweel searches in pharmacies in the Gaza Strip for milk to feed her child, Youssef, who needs treatment and food, but all her attempts to secure him have failed.
Youssef lies with his thin body on the bed in Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, his leg tied to an intravenous injection.
Al-Taweel says, “Youssef needs treatment and good food. Milk is not available at all.” The mother added, “I currently feed him some wheat, but no milk. This is what makes him suffer from bloating. They asked me to test him for wheat allergy.”
The people of Gaza are suffering as a result of the ongoing Israeli war for the 241st day, leaving tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, massive destruction and worsening famine in the besieged Strip, a war that has cast its shadow on various segments of society, especially children, after more than 30 were martyred due to malnutrition.
Noha Al-Khalidi shares Al-Taweel’s tragedy, and tells the story of her child, Saif, and his suffering, “All night long he was in pain and suffering from colic and bloating. The operation that was scheduled for him was postponed, and this could cause him to burst in the intestines.”
Al-Khalidi added, “We depend on the aid that comes to give the children, and this greatly affects their health because they are accustomed to milk that suits their bodies,” before she said, while trying to hold back her tears, “There is no type of milk available in the markets.”
This is accompanied by doctors, including the pediatrician at Al-Aqsa Hospital, Hazem Mustafa, confirming that the Israeli occupation’s closure of the crossings has exacerbated the situation, calling for the entry of sufficient quantities of milk so that mothers can give their children the appropriate food to be healthy.
The Rafah crossing is considered the main port of entry for aid into the Gaza Strip from Egypt before the Israeli forces penetrated into Rafah on the 7th of last May and took control of the border crossing, preventing any aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and none of the wounded and sick were able to leave for treatment. .
The aspects of this “tragic” reality are escalating amid confirmations from the World Health Organization last Saturday that more than four out of five children spent an entire day without eating at least once in three days.
World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in a statement that “children are starving,” while several warnings are escalating from relief organizations about high rates of malnutrition among Gazan children under five due to the scarcity of humanitarian aid reaching the Strip.
An examination conducted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) of more than 93,400 children under the age of five in Gaza to confirm malnutrition, the results of which concluded that 7,280 of them suffer from acute malnutrition, as the northern Gaza Strip suffers from malnutrition, as those who remained there did not receive The population received little aid in the first months of the war.