Gaza’s hunger starvation
Gaza (dpa) — Six-year-old Adam often wakes up at night crying from hunger, his mother Sama Abu Dawud told dpa.
“I only want one thing – to give my children warm bread,” said the 29-year-old in Gaza.
She said her 14-year-old brother died three months ago as a result of starvation.
Doctors had told the family that his organs had failed due to malnutrition.
The account provided by the Palestinian woman, who lives in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza Strip, cannot be independently verified.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Wednesday against a deadly hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip, with the agency’s chief stressing that famine was “another killer” facing civilians.
Mohammed Judi, who used to weigh 84 kilograms, says he has lost around 30 kilograms since the start of the Gaza war following the Hamas attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
He now feels dizzy all the time, says the father of five.
Judi’s six-year-old daughter is gradually losing her hair due to malnutrition, he says. “We are dying quietly,” says the 37-year-old. dpa cannot verify his account.
Fight for relief supplies
An Israeli government spokesman admitted on Wednesday that there is indeed hunger in the Gaza Strip, but stressed that this was not Israel’s fault.
Instead, he blamed Palestinian extremist group Hamas, accusing it of trying to prevent the distribution of aid to the population and hijacking aid lorries and selling them on to traders at high prices to pay their fighters.
Many Gazans report that they are surviving on one meal a day, as the little food that’s sold at markets is very overpriced, making them dependent on aid deliveries of which they say too little reaches the strip.
Locals also told dpa about violence and chaos that broke out at aid distribution points.
Once new deliveries arrive, the news is shared mouth-to-mouth and via social media, they say.
Gazan Mohammed Salem reports of one time when men were pushed in the waiting crowd and a boy collapsed as a result. “People just stepped over him.”
Salem doesn’t know what happened to the boy, he says. Those who are weak or old are left empty-handed in the fight for relief supplies, according to the 41-year-old.
According to the UN Human Rights Office, more than 1,000 people have died so far while trying to get food, with 766 killed near the controversial distribution centres operated by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Some 288 people were killed “near UN and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys,” said spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan.
GHF aid not properly distributed, Gazans say
Hiba al-Chatib, 28, reports that a man recently elbowed her hard in the chest and then stole a box of food from her, an aid parcel received from GHF.
GHF drivers simply throw the parcels onto the ground and then drive away, with no one around to distribute the aid, says the young woman.
Other residents from the Gaza Strip have backed her account of this behaviour. The GHF did not respond when asked for comment.
“Not even animals would be treated like this,” says al-Chatib. The boxes distributed by GHF contain contain rice, chickpeas, milk powder, oil and tinned beans, among other items, she says, adding that one parcel is enough to feed her family of six for four days, though they only eat once a day.
“People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance every day, and we are seeing this escalate day by day,” said Ross Smith, director of emergency preparedness and response at WFP, in New York earlier this week.
“Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment,” the organization has said.
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