One in four children and pregnant women in Gaza are malnourished, according to the NGO Doctors Without Borders.
One in four children and pregnant women in Gaza are malnourished as a result of the "hunger policy" imposed by Israel, lamented Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which emphasized that the number of patients with symptoms of malnutrition being treated in its facilities is increasing.
Palestinian children wait for their food at a soup kitchen in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Photo: AFP
The deliberate use of starvation as a weapon by Israeli authorities in Gaza has reached "unprecedented levels, with patients and even health workers struggling to survive," the organization said in a statement.
At the NGO's clinic in Gaza City, the number of people treated for malnutrition has quadrupled since mid-May, while rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have tripled in the past two weeks alone, MSF added.
The deliberate use of starvation as a weapon by the Israeli authorities in Gaza has reached unprecedented levels.
" We are receiving 25 new patients every day suffering from malnutrition. We see the exhaustion and hunger among our own colleagues," Caroline Willemen, project coordinator at the MSF clinic in the Gaza capital, said in the statement.
Palestinians, mostly children, push for food in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Photo: AFP
The NGO noted that at the same time, hundreds of people desperately seeking aid continue to be attacked by Israeli forces and private security contractors at food distribution points run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by Israel.
"It's inconceivable that an entire population is being deliberately deprived of food and water while Israeli forces commit daily massacres as people fight over scraps of food at distribution points. Any semblance of humanity in Gaza has been annihilated in the ongoing genocide," said MSF's emergency response officer in Gaza, Amande Bazerolle.
In the two months since the foundation, linked to former US military and intelligence officials, began distributing food, more than 1,000 people have been killed and some 7,200 injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Palestinian women awaiting delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Photo: AFP
" These food distributions are not humanitarian aid, they are war crimes committed in broad daylight and presented to the world with compassionate language," said Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF's deputy medical coordinator in Gaza.
"Those who attend the foundation's food distributions know they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as of leaving with a bullet in their head," he said.
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