GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (BN24) — The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached a devastating turning point, with soaring malnutrition deaths among children and adults amid Israel’s ongoing blockade, according to Palestinian health officials and aid workers. In July alone, at least 48 Palestinians — including 20 children — have died from causes linked to starvation, marking the most lethal month since the siege began.
Doctors at the Patient’s Friends Hospital in Gaza City say children are dying daily from hunger-related complications. Five children recently succumbed within just four days after the hospital ran out of essential malnutrition treatments. These deaths include toddlers and babies with no underlying health conditions — a troubling shift that underscores the worsening emergency.
Dr. Rana Soboh, a nutritionist at the facility supported by U.S.-based aid organization MedGlobal, said children are now arriving so weak they can no longer cry or move. “There are no words in the face of the disaster we are in. Kids are dying before the world,” she said. “There is no uglier and more horrible phase than this.”
Medical staff say more than 200 children are being brought in daily, many suffering from severe wasting. The center’s pediatric ward, designed for 10 patients, has held up to 19 malnourished children at once. Desperation has spread among the hospital’s own caregivers, some of whom have resorted to IV drips just to keep themselves functioning amid food shortages.
One of the latest victims, 4½-year-old Siwar, died after suffering from critically low potassium levels — a common but untreated condition in Gaza’s collapsing medical system. Four other children, aged 4 months to 2 years, died from gastric arrest after the hospital ran out of proper nutrition supplies.
In the Shati Refugee Camp, 2-year-old Yazan Abu Ful is visibly wasting away. His mother, Naima, who is pregnant, has been feeding the family boiled eggplant water stretched over days. Yazan, now too weak to stand or speak, lies listlessly on the floor. “If we leave him, he might just slip away from between our fingers,” his father said.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that starvation has now begun affecting adults, especially those with preexisting health conditions. On Thursday, bodies of a man and woman showing signs of starvation were delivered to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital. Both suffered from severe nutrient deficiencies, anemia, and gastric shutdowns. “These diseases don’t kill if they have food and medicine,” said hospital director Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia.
The current surge in deaths follows Israel’s total blockade on Gaza that began in March, restricting all food, fuel, medicine, and aid. Though Israel slightly eased restrictions in late May, allowing around 4,500 aid trucks to enter in the past two months, humanitarian organizations say the aid is insufficient. The United Nations has stated that 500 to 600 trucks are needed each day to meet Gaza’s basic needs, and much of the aid that does arrive is intercepted by desperate crowds before reaching its intended destinations.
Nearly 100,000 women and children in Gaza urgently require treatment for malnutrition, according to the U.N.’s World Food Program. Dr. John Kahler, a pediatrician and co-founder of MedGlobal, warned that the situation has entered “a population death spiral.”
Israel continues to deny responsibility, with a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office blaming Hamas for “man-made shortages.” The United Nations disputes those claims, asserting that Hamas does not significantly interfere with aid delivery and calling for the unrestricted flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
For now, Gaza’s children and families remain at the mercy of dwindling supplies and a humanitarian system stretched beyond its breaking point.
