Famine In Gaza Reaches Medical Workers

 

The spiraling famine in Gaza has reached the medical community trying to treat children for malnutrition and starvation.  CNN describes one scene:

"The ward treating malnourished children at Nasser Hospital where Dr. Saqer works is full of babies that are so skinny, they no longer look human.

The bones in their faces, spines and ribcages appear to be protruding from under their skin. Their long, thin limbs resemble limp noodles, barely moving.

A CNN video filmed on Friday shows many of them crying, but some are so weak they are no longer even capable of that. They just lie in their cots or on mattresses placed on the floor and observe the world around them with eyes that look enormous on their emaciated faces. Several have bloated stomachs – the tell-tale sign of malnutrition.

The mothers desperately trying to feed them are skinny themselves. They too look exhausted and terrified.

One of them, Yasmin Abu Sultan, spoke to CNN as she was trying to feed her daughter Mona with a syringe.

'She needs fruits. We need to feed her vegetables but there’s nothing … mothers used to breastfeed. We didn’t rely on formula, now most mothers depend on it due to lack of food. It’s impossible for women to breastfeed without food,' she said."

The UN World Food Program estimates that one-third of Palestinians are going without food for days at a time, with 100,000 women and children suffering severe malnutrition.  More than 1,000 have been killed by Israeli forces as they desperately tried to get food near aid sites in Gaza.  In the meantime, Israel continues air attacks on Gaza aimed at Hamas, but killing and injuring civilians in the process.

The Netanyahu government maintains that Hamas diverts humanitarian food and medicine as a justification for restricting food aid, but the U.S. government has determined that there is no evidence of widespread diversion of food aid by Hamas.  It's not surprising that the radical right-wing Netanyahu government has no regard for the lives of non-combatant civilians in Gaza, but allies of Israel are repulsed by their disregard for humanity.

(photo: Anadolu / Getty Images)