Says doctor on the ground a day after UN declares famine; Israeli strikes kill 37 more
Boys scrape the bottom of large pots to get some food at a charity kitchen in Gaza City yesterday, amid widespread hunger in the tiny Palestinian territory. Photo: AFP
Not long after US surgeon Mohammed Adeel Khaleel arrived at a Gaza City hospital in early August, a 17-year-old was brought in with gunshot wounds to both legs and one hand, sustained when he went to collect food at an aid site.
In the emergency room, Khaleel said he noted the ribs protruding from the teen's emaciated torso, an indication of severe malnutrition. When doctors at Al-Ahli Hospital stabilised the patient, he raised his heavily bandaged hand and pointed to his empty mouth, Khaleel said.
"The level of hunger is really what's heartbreaking. You know, we saw malnutrition before, back in November, already starting to happen. But now the level is just, it's beyond imagination," Khaleel, a spinal surgeon on his third volunteer stint in Gaza, said in an interview with the Associated Press.
On Friday, the UN classification system used to determine access to food officially declared famine in Gaza, saying a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are facing catastrophic famine conditions, which include starvation, destitution and death.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City -- known as Gaza governorate -- which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Hamas.
It was the first time the IPC had recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but limited data prevented any precise classification.
UN agencies and aid groups had warned for months of a looming famine in Gaza, where Israel has severely restricted aid and at times completely cut it off during its nearly two-year war with Hamas.
In the 24 hours following the famine announcement, eight people in Gaza died of malnutrition-related causes, bringing the overall toll of such deaths during the war to 281, according to Gaza's health ministry. A US medical nonprofit working in Gaza says one in six children under 5 is affected by acute malnutrition.
Israel has pressed ahead with plans to seize Gaza City despite an international outcry, saying that taking the territory's largest city is key to defeating Hamas.
Before the UN famine announcement, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday warned that "the gates of hell will open upon" Hamas leaders, specifically in Gaza City, "until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament."
Military chief Eyal Zamir said, "We are expanding operations in Gaza in the coming days".
According to Al Jazeera, at least 51 people, including four children, were killed in a series of Israeli strikes on Gaza since early hours yesterday. 16 people of them were aid seekers.
UN and nations, including Western ones, blamed Israel's policies for the famine and said the man-made catastrophe could have been prevented.
"It is a famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed," said U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. "Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel."
Israel dismissed the findings as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food.
The report was an "outright lie", said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, yesterday renewed its call on Israel to allow the agency to bring aid into Gaza to stop the ongoing famine.
"UNRWA's warehouses alone in Jordan and Egypt are full. There is enough food, medicines and hygiene supplies ready to fill 6,000 trucks," the agency said in a statement on X.
"Reverse the ongoing catastrophe -- flood Gaza with a massive scale-up of aid through the United Nations, including UNRWA."
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza yesterday welcomed the UN move despite its lateness.
"We emphasise that the engineering of starvation is one aspect of the chapters of genocide, which also include the systematic destruction of the health sector and other sectors, mass killing, and the policy of exterminating generations," the ministry wrote in a statement on Telegram.
It added that "hundreds" of people who have died could have been saved, while "the lives of thousands are at stake. The international community faces a real test; time calls for actions, not just statements, despite their importance."
While Israeli forces have continued their nonstop bombardment and ground assault on Gaza, they have also carried on near-daily deadly raids across the occupied West Bank.
Since October 7, 2023, at least 1,031 people, including 210 children, have been killed, and more than 9,684 have been wounded in the occupied West Bank in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers.
At least 18,500 people have also been detained.
