More than 3,500 children under the age of five “face imminent death by famine,” said the Gaza government media office (GMO), adding that some 70,000 children are hospitalized in the enclave due to severe malnutrition in the middle of more than two months of total Israeli blocking.
“As part of this systematic blockade, more than 3,500 children under the age of five are faced with imminent death by famine, while around 290,000 children are on the verge of death,” the GMO press release on Telegram on Sunday.
“At a time when 1.1 million children do not have the minimum nutritional needs of survival, this crime is perpetrated by the” Israeli “occupation using famine as a weapon, in the midst of shameful international silence”, he added.
At least 57 Palestinians made hungry to death, causing world indignation, but that failed to convince Israel to allow aid to the enclave of 2.3 million people.
A shortage of food and supplies pushed the territory towards famine, according to the aid agencies. The supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are exhausted and quickly exhaust themselves as documented cases of malnutrition.
The price of the little food is still available on the market is mostly unaffordable in Gaza, where the United Nations indicates that more than 80% of the population depends on aid.
Aid groups and rights activists accused Israel of having used famine as a weapon of war.
Israel, for its part, insists that the blockade is necessary to put pressure on Hamas to release the captives it still has. Of the 59 captives still in Gaza, 24 are supposed to be alive.
The War of Israel against Gaza killed at least 52,495 Palestinians and injured 118,366, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The GMO has updated the number of deaths at more than 61,700, saying that thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.