"Even if the war in Gaza ended tomorrow, for some of the Palestinian territory’s children, it would not help. Hunger and malnutrition have already claimed an estimated 27 young lives, and for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies"
"At this age a child should weigh 8 kilos. They weigh 2 kilos … They don’t have thighs yet. At this stage they are supposed to be crawling and preparing to walk. And now you can see the state they’re in,” she said.
“Are these the arms of an eight-month-old child? … It’s death there, death, death. Death in the literal meaning of the word.”
" "100% der Bevölkerung des Gazastreifens leidet unter akuter Ernährungsunsicherheit... benötigen humanitäre #hilfe", sagte Blinken.
Nach Angaben des Gesundheitsministeriums des Gazastreifens wurden durch israelischen Beschuss und Bodenoffensiven mindestens 33.360 Palästinenser im #gazastreifen getötet und 74.993 verletzt, wobei zwei Drittel der Toten #frauen und #kinder sind."
"A promised surge in aid into Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu promised Joe Biden a week ago has so far failed to materialise, aid workers say, as the US aid chief confirmed that famine is beginning to take hold in parts of the besieged coastal strip.
The increase in the number of truck crossing into Gaza claimed by Israel conflicts with UN records and already appears to be faltering"
Despite or because? It looks as though the Knesset's publicly quoted plans are working then….
“Everyone here has lost more than a quarter of their body weight due to malnutrition. There is no food,” said Mohammed Salha, al-Awda’s acting director.
"Every morning, starving mothers arrive at the doors of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza desperately seeking baby formula. Many mothers of newborns are unable to breastfeed, the head of the hospital said, because they are so underfed.
Inside the hospital, where doctors are undergoing treatment for malnutrition alongside their patients, surgeons say they are carrying out increasing numbers of amputations"
"Two hundred and fifty calories represents two slices of supermarket wholemeal bread sold in the UK. Twelve per cent of recommended nutrition intake. Today in northern Gaza, already in the grip of a “catastrophic” level of hunger as defined by the UN, it represents an entire day’s calorific intake"
Another famine, another use of starvation as a weapon of war. Yet again, it's the children who suffer first.
"Current IPC hunger projections suggest the majority of Tigray is experiencing “emergency” levels of hunger, with predictions that “some households will likely face ‘catastrophe/famine’ by July”.
"Last week #Ireland announced it would intervene in South Africa’s landmark international court of justice case against #Israel by attempting to widen the definition of #genocide to include blocking aid."
“Clearly an entire population is being impacted here not just through the #bombing but through #starvation. We’ve experienced #famine, we know what it’s like in our psyche”
"[…] Ireland’s colonial history has predisposed it to back the underdog."
"Israel is wielding starvation as a weapon of war, imposing a famine on the more than two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, one million of whom are children. Twenty-seven children have already starved to death since Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, on October 9th, 'There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…We are fighting human animals.'”
People in northern Gaza are forced to survive on 245 calories a day
“Israel is making deliberate choices to starve civilians. Imagine what it is like, not only to be trying to survive on 245 calories day in, day out, but also having to watch your children or elderly relatives do the same. All whilst displaced … and under the constant threat of drones and bombs.”
Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International executive director
Search your conscience. How do YOU feel knowing you’re funding GENOCIDE ?
33,000+ #Palestinian FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS have been slaughtered - two-thirds of them CHILDREN - hospitals, homes, aid trucks, aid convoys, water supplies, energy supplies … bombed; medical and food aid denied; …
“The international court of justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israel’s claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.”
“… #famine and #starvation were spreading. “The court observes that #Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine … but that famine is setting in”
The forced movement of much of #Gaza ’s population from the north of the territory to shelters and tent cities in the south—twinned with the policy of restricting relief to all of Gaza—has made famine practically inevitable. Any plausible assessment of the consequences of these policies would have to constitute a calculation that the population would face the type of risks it now confronts.
"The reason to act is not that the International Court of Justice might mandate it. Nor because failing to act raises the possibility the court will make a finding of genocide under clause 2(c) of the Convention (although, it might). The reason to act is the moral responsibility to avert a preventable human catastrophe"
At least 27 children have died of starvation, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF in Gaza, described seeing “paper thin” children in a hospital in northern Gaza and incubators full of underweight babies from malnourished mothers.
"The UN's most senior human rights official, Volker Türk, said in a BBC interview that Israel bore significant blame, and that there was a "plausible" case that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Mr Türk, who is the UN high commissioner for human rights, said that if intent was proven, that would amount to a war crime"
"The UN high commissioner for human rights had a succinct response to stinging criticism from Israel.
"The only thing I can say to them is that there is an emerging international consensus, and it may not have been there before, but it is clearly there now, including with this week's Security Council resolution, on the humanitarian situation," Mr Türk said.
"The human rights situation is so tragic that an immediate ceasefire is required. That's my response to that."
Starvation: Anatomy of ‘a very cruel, slow death’ (www.aljazeera.com)
With man-made famines threatening both Sudan and Gaza, Al Jazeera breaks down how the body succumbs to starvation.