Gaza: Children starve to death, aid groups protest as staff go hungry

Six-week-old Yousef's lifeless body lay limp on a hospital table in Gaza City, his skin stretched over protruding ribs and a bandage where a drip had been inserted into his arm. Doctors said the cause of death was starvation.

He was among 15 people to starve to death in the last 24 hours in Gaza, according to doctors who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the enclave for months is now finally crashing down.

Yousef's family couldn't find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi.

"You can't get milk anywhere, and if you do find any it's $100 for a tub," he said, looking at his dead nephew.

Three of the other Palestinians who died of hunger over the last day were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

'60,000 pregnant women malnourished'

On Tuesday, men and boys carried sacks of flour past destroyed buildings and tarpaulins in Gaza City, grabbing what food they could from aid warehouses.

"We haven't eaten for five days," said Mohammed Jundia.

Israeli military statistics showed on Tuesday that an average of 146 trucks of aid per day had entered Gaza over the course of the war. The United States has said a minimum of 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza's population.

"Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can't provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages," said Khalil al-Deqran, a spokesperson for the health ministry.

Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anaemia, he said.

Baby formula in particular is in critically short supply, according to aid groups, doctors and residents.

The health ministry said at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, including 16 people living in tents in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any incident or artillery in the area at that time.

Aid distribution 'a matter of utmost importance'

At least 101 people are known to have died of hunger during the conflict, according to Palestinian officials, including 80 children, most of them in just the last few weeks.

Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, denies it is responsible for shortages of food. Gaza has seen its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March and then lifted that blockade in May with new measures it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.

Those measures center on distributing food via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The foundation, backed by the United States, has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality.

The UN has rejected the GHF aid distribution system as inherently unsafe, and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles needed to ensure that distribution succeeds.

Israel's military said it "views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance", and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community.

Israel has blamed the UN for failing to protect aid it says is stolen by Hamas and other militants. The fighters deny stealing it.

More than 800 people have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in mass shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near GHF distribution centers.

Norwegian Refugee Council: No aid supplies left, staff starving

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the largest independent aid organizations in Gaza, said its supplies were exhausted and some of its staff starving, and the group accused Israel of paralyzing its work.

"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," said Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council.

The council, which has 64 Palestinian and two international staff on the ground in Gaza, echoed comments on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA who said its staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion.

The NRC said that for the last 145 days, it has not been able to get tents, water, sanitation supplies, food and education materials into Gaza, where the UN has warned of a worsening hunger crisis.

"Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in… That's why we are so angry. Because our job is to help," Egeland said.

"Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyze our work," he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, said in a statement that Israel does not restrict aid trucks entering Gaza, but international organizations face challenges in collecting the trucks on the Gaza side of border crossings.

Israel is working with the groups to improve the system, COGAT said, adding that more than 4,500 aid trucks carrying food for the UN and international organizations have entered the enclave in the last two months.

Many truckloads were still waiting to be picked up. COGAT said 950 shipments were on the Gaza sides of "the Kerem Shalom Crossing in the southern side of the Strip, and the Zikim Crossing in the northern part, pending collection and distribution."

COGAT has accused Hamas of stealing food, which Hamas denies.

The NRC said its supplies of safe drinking water were running out due to dwindling fuel to run desalination plants. The water has reached 100,000 people in central and northern parts of Gaza in recent weeks.

More than 100 aid, rights groups call for action against hunger

More than 100 largely aid and rights groups on Wednesday called for governments to take action against hunger in Gaza, including by demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the lifting of all restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid.

In a statement signed by 111 organizations, including Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Refugees International, the groups warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave even as tons of food, clean water, medical supplies and other items sit untouched just outside Gaza as humanitarian organizations are blocked from accessing or delivering them.

"As the Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes," the statement said.

"The Government of Israel's restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death."

The organizations called for governments to demand that all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions be lifted, all land crossings be opened, access to everyone across Gaza to be ensured and for the rejection of military-controlled distribution and a restoration of a "principled, UN-led humanitarian response."

"States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million residents of the Palestinian enclave a "horror show".

"We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles," Guterres told the UN Security Council. "That system is being denied the conditions to function."

The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that images of civilians killed during the distribution of aid were "unbearable" and urged Israel to deliver on pledges to improve the situation.