In Gaza City, hospital wards are crowded with emaciated children as a severe famine takes hold. Seven-month-old Mohammed weighs just 4kg, his ribs protruding, and he spends his days crying from hunger or gnawing at his fingers. His grandmother, Faiza Abdul Rahman, said the family often goes to bed without a single bite to eat.
The Patient's Friends Benevolent Society hospital has only two functioning paediatric teams left to treat up to 200 children daily. Dr Musab Farwana struggles to save them, then returns home to share insufficient meals with his own hungry family. He warned that years of malnourishment have weakened children's immunity, making them vulnerable to other diseases.
Over three days this week, 43 deaths from hunger were recorded, bringing the total to 111. Aid groups including MSF, Save the Children, and Oxfam warned that their own colleagues are wasting away. The World Health Organization's chief described the situation as 'mass-starvation' and 'man-made'.
Despite warnings of famine across nearly two years of war, food shipments have been choked off. Flour now costs more than 30 times its pre-war price. Faiza Abdul Rahman said, 'We faced hunger before, but never like this.'
