THE Hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip has climbed “alarming” in recent weeks, health workers have warned, with an increasing number of children die of malnutrition While thousands of people through the Palestinian enclosure besieged suffer from a disastrous lack of adequate food.
“Even we, young people, can barely walk due to the lack of food,” said Walid Abu Mohsen, father of seven children from Khan Younis. He told the NBC News crew on the ground on Sunday of his relief after picking a bag of flour of the few trucks that arrived to relieve the rush crowd in the city. In another desperate corner of Gaza, images captured the deadly consequences after the scores were killed while waiting for supplies that could have let their family feed.
“Famine now strikes alarming and terrifying Gaza,” said Dr. Mohammed Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, in NBC News, while he warns that hospitals are “overwhelmed by waves of patients with malnutrition”.
He said that at least two children died in Al-Shifa only on Saturday.
Nineteen deaths have been recorded in Gaza due to malnutrition in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Ministry of Territory said on Monday. NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the figures.
They add to more than 70 deaths related to malnutrition since the start of the war, according to Salmiya, with more than 50 children who die from malnutrition Since Israel launched a blockade restricting aid to Gaza in early March, according to the World Health Organization.
Although this blockade was lifted in May, Israel has not only authorized limited help in the enclave, widely distributed by the controversial supported by the United States and Israel Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under a system that has seen Hundreds of Palestinians have killed by Israeli forces while making their way to collect food.
On Sunday, he seemed to mark the deadliest day of deaths related to aid to date, with more than 90 people reported killed as they were trying to reach food, said Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of field hospitals, at NBC News.
Most were killed while they were trying to reach aid through a crossing with Israel, said Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Department of Files of the Ministry of Health, said The Associated Press.
The incident did not seem directly linked to the distribution system operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – THE American controversial humanitarian organization and Israel This has been criticized by the United Nations and most humanitarian groups.
The World Food Program said in a statement on Sunday that a WFP convoy of 25 trucks had transported vital food supplies from the Zikim border point when it encountered “a large crowd of pending civilians”.
He said that when the convoy approached, the crowd was criticized by Israeli tanks, elite shooters and other shots, resulting in “the loss of countless lives”.
Israeli defense forces did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the incident.
The United Nations Human Rights Office, Ohchr, said earlier this month That nearly 900 people had been killed in the enclave trying to access food.
‘Worse that I have never seen’
In a press release on Sunday, GHF said that it had distributed more than 82 million meals thanks to its points of aid distribution points in the enclave since it started its operations in late May. But among a population of around 2.1 million people, this amount is equivalent to less than one meal per person and per day during the more than 50 days since the launch of its program.
Although other help efforts are also underway in the enclave, humanitarian experts have warned that not enough food reaches the Palestinians, while food prices on the local markets have skyrocketed in the middle of the shortage of goods.
Nearly 1 in 3 people in Gaza “do not eat for days at a time”, ” WFP warned Friday.
“The situation is worse than I have never seen it before,” said Deputy Executive Director of WFP and Operation Head Carl Skau told journalists in a briefing Earlier this month. Skau explained how some mothers had described urging their children not to play to avoid drainage of their energy given the lack of food.
A GHF spokesperson recognized in NBC News in an email on Monday that “there is not enough help in Gaza”.
“The GHF is the only organization to get help and which must change quickly, which we have been saying for weeks now,” they said.
A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comments from NBC News on Monday on concerns about the lack of adequate food that reaches families in Gaza.
Israel argued that there are hundreds of assistance trucks sitting inside Gaza awaiting distribution, the spokesperson for the Defense Forces of Israel, Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani Publish on x Sunday that there were more than 700 trucks in the enclave.
Before the war, around 500 trucks with aid entered the enclave daily, according to the British Red Cross. The humanitarian workers previously described the task of trying to distribute the aid to the enclave in the middle of the Israel offensive as a Logistics “nightmare”.
