Six children have died of dehydration and malnutrition in hospitals in northern Gaza, the besieged Palestinian territory’s health ministry said, as the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave worsens.
Two children died at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the ministry said on Wednesday. Earlier, it reported that four children had died at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, while seven others remained in critical condition.
“We call on international agencies to intervene immediately to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in northern Gaza,” Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement, amid Israeli attacks on Gaza continue.
“The international community faces a moral and humanitarian test to end the genocide in Gaza. »
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Ahmed al-Kahlout said the hospital was out of service due to a lack of fuel to run its generators. On Tuesday, Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia was also taken out of service for the same reason.
In a video posted to Instagram and verified by Tel Aviv Tribune’s Sanad verification unit, journalist Ebrahem Musalam shows an infant on a bed inside the pediatric ward of Kamal Adwan Hospital, as power enters and leaves.
Musalam said children in the department suffer from malnutrition and a lack of infant formula, and necessary appliances have stopped working due to constant power cuts due to fuel shortages.
The Palestinian group Hamas said on Wednesday that the closure of the Kamal Adwan hospital would exacerbate the health and humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, which is already on the brink of famine as Israel continues to block or disrupt humanitarian missions. help there.
“Murder and starvation”
On Wednesday, Israel announced that a convoy of 31 trucks carrying food had entered northern Gaza. The Israeli military office that oversees Palestinian civil affairs, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), also said that nearly 20 more trucks entered the north on Monday and Tuesday.
They are the first major aid deliveries in a month to the devastated and isolated region, where the United Nations has warned of worsening famine.
Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza for weeks, with Israeli protesters taking part in demonstrations calling for no aid to be allowed into the territory, even as hunger and disease spread.
U.N. officials say Israel’s months-long war, which has killed nearly 30,000 people in Gaza, has also pushed a quarter of the 2.3 million residents to the brink of famine.
Project Hope, a humanitarian group that runs a clinic in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said that 21 percent of pregnant women and 11 percent of children under five it has treated during the last three weeks suffering from malnutrition. .
“People reported eating only white bread because fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-dense foods are almost impossible to find or too expensive,” Project Hope said.
Qatar and France reaffirm in a joint statement the depth and breadth of their strategic partnership
🔗Find out more: https://t.co/7sF2yFaDpl#MOFAQatar pic.twitter.com/cLsoIKdFdy
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) February 28, 2024
In a joint statement on Wednesday, Qatar and France stressed their opposition to an Israeli military offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza, and stressed their “rejection of the massacres and famine suffered by the Palestinian people in the Strip.” Gaza.”
They called for the opening of all crossing points into Gaza, including in the north, “to allow humanitarian actors to resume their activities, including the delivery of food, and jointly committed to an effort of 200 million dollars to support the Palestinian population.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, also said Israel must allow aid trucks into Gaza in order to address the grave humanitarian crisis.
“Hundreds of humanitarian trucks are lining up to cross Gaza at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom (Karem Abu Salem) crossings towards a starving civilian population,” Egeland said in a social media post, with video showing dozens humanitarian trucks lined up.
“There was not a single day when we were able to get the 500 trucks needed through. The system is broken and Israel could fix it for the sake of innocent people. »
Hundreds of humanitarian trucks are lining up to enter Gaza at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, towards a starving civilian population. There was not a single day when we were able to get the 500 trucks needed through. The system is broken and Israel could fix it for the sake of the innocent pic.twitter.com/dMb9gTbchJ
– Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) February 28, 2024
The medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said medical staff were struggling to treat hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Gaza who are living in dire conditions and have nowhere to go.
“The health system has been attacked, it is collapsing. The whole system is collapsing. We work in tents and try to do what we can. We treat the injured. With travel, people’s wounds became infected. And I’m not even talking about mental injuries. People are desperate. They don’t know what to do anymore,” said Meinie Nicolai of MSF.
