On Thursday, two children died of hunger in Gaza as the World Health Organization (WHO) alerted that over 12,000 children under five are starving from acute malnutrition—the highest monthly number ever documented.
Four malnutrition-related deaths were reported that day by Gaza’s Health Ministry, bringing the total to 197, 96 of whom were children. Israel’s blockade and limited aid access since March have driven the enclave toward what the WHO calls a manmade famine.
According to Ibrahim al-Khalili of Al Jazeera, Gaza City was “apocalyptic,” with some people risking their lives for airdropped food, some of which lands amid battered buildings or aid centers marred with violence. One relocated Palestinian remarked, “It’s like a battle here. We come from far away and end up with nothing.”
Nasser Hospital confirmed the passing of a two-year-old girl in al-Mawasi, one of the few locations still served by medicine. Only 8,700 of the 290,000 kids under five needing immediate nutrition were reached by UNICEF and its collaborators.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, just 92 assistance trucks came on Wednesday—far short of the 500–600 needed daily. With extensive looting blocking aid from reaching people, it blamed Israel for generating “deliberate security chaos.”
MSF condemned the lethal aid hubs run by the US and Israeli-backed GHF, where over 1,300 Palestinians have allegedly been killed while accessing food. Reporting on the situation as “orchestrated killing and dehumanization,” MSF cited dozens of instances of civilians, including children, being shot approaching aid sites.
MSF’s clinics in al-Mawasi and al-Attar have treated over 70 children for gunshot wounds in the past seven weeks. “Rarely have we seen such systematic violence against unarmed civilians,” said the NGO.
Israeli airstrikes also continued across the Strip. At least 22 people were killed on Thursday, including five in Nuseirat refugee camp and six in a tent in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. A child was killed while trying to collect airdropped aid in Khan Younis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel plans to take full military control of Gaza. As of now, more than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began.
“War is one thing,” said an MSF patient. “But this kind of aid — it’s not saving us. It’s destroying us.”
