CNN
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Younis lies confused on a green mattress in Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, his long brown eyelashes draped softly over his pale, sunken face as he drifts in and out of sleep.
A 9-year-old Palestinian boy lay in his mother’s arms, clearly severely malnourished, weak and dehydrated, his blue jogging pants spilling out from his scrawny legs and his tiny rib cage sticking out from his fluffy orange T-shirt.
“I ask everyone with a conscience to help me find medical care for my son so he can return to a normal life,” his mother, Ghanima Juma, told CNN last week at the Khan Younis hospital. “We are losing him right before our eyes.”
The family was forced to flee the southern city of Rafah two months ago due to intensifying Israeli attacks. Now they are struggling to survive, living on the polluted coast of Asda, near the Al Mawashi tent camp, but they cannot find enough food, water or even shade to escape the Gaza heat.
“We have to keep moving from place to place because of war and invasion… life is hard,” her mother said. “We don’t even have a tent over our heads.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has overwhelmed the Gaza health system, leaving medical workers unable to treat malnourished children. Doctors told CNN they are unable to triage young patients with chronic illnesses compounded by severe hunger, and are being forced to turn away parents pleading for milk for their babies.
With Israel maintaining its blockade on the Gaza Strip and aid groups unable to bring in enough food, parents say they can only watch as their children starve to death. More than eight months of bombardment have destroyed infrastructure, devastated communities and left entire neighborhoods in ruins. Sanitation systems, already strained by water shortages caused by extreme heat, have been severely damaged, further reducing access to clean water, according to the UN.
A report released on Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC), which assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition, warned that almost the entire Gaza Strip faces famine within the next three months.
The UN food agency has previously warned that southern Gaza could soon experience the same “catastrophic levels of hunger” previously recorded in the north, where Israel focused its military offensive early in the war.
The government media agency reported on June 22 that at least 34 children in the Gaza Strip have already died from malnutrition. Restricted access to the Gaza Strip has hampered aid agencies’ efforts to thoroughly assess the crisis there, so the actual figure is likely much higher. The United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said earlier this month that more than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition.
Israel launched a military offensive into Gaza on October 7 after a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel left at least 1,200 people dead and more than 250 abducted.
According to Gaza health officials, Israeli attacks on Gaza have so far killed 37,658 Palestinians and injured 86,237.
While Younis languishes in her mother’s arms in south Gaza, children in the north have been battling food insecurity for much longer. In Jabaliya refugee camp, children weave through rubble-strewn streets and stand in line for water trucks, sweat streaming down their faces.
Dozens of Gazans crowd around for water while nearby aid workers hand out steaming pots of thick red soup.
Food and clean water are rare, and residents in the north told CNN they have recently resorted to drinking contaminated water, which does little to alleviate dehydration and only spreads infections.
CNN
Hassan Karash, pictured here on June 12 in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, said civilians were relying on meager water aid as rights groups warned of severe dehydration in the besieged area.
Israel claims there are “no limits” on the amount of aid entering Gaza, but truck screening, restrictions on land routes, and increased artillery bombardment mean that very little aid reaches the Strip. Even when aid does reach the besieged area, distribution is hampered by the risk that hungry Palestinians will break through convoys. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently warned that the absence of police authority in the disputed Gaza Strip has led to “total lawlessness.”
Earlier this year the United Nations warned that Israel was creating a “wholly man-made disaster” in Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected claims by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor that it had “used civilian starvation as a weapon of war.”
“The only water we have is what we got through aid. As a result, people are suffering unspeakably,” said a civilian named Hassan Karash. “We are sick, we have no power to transport water… The water pipes are broken. We have no water infrastructure.”
Local residents told CNN they have no running water and are relying on the little aid that comes into the area. UNRWA said last week that at least 67 percent of the water and sanitation facilities in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged in eight months of bombardment. All five sewage treatment plants in the Gaza Strip have been closed, according to the UN Environment Programme.
Omar Al-Qattah/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian children fill containers with water in the northern Gaza town of Jabariyeh on June 3. At least 67 percent of the water and sanitation facilities in the devastated Gaza Strip are destroyed or damaged, according to the United Nations.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has accused Israeli authorities of obstructing humanitarian access to northern Gaza: in the first three weeks of June, 36 trucks loaded with Israeli aid were allowed to reach Gaza, while 35 others were denied access, blocked or canceled for logistical, operational or security reasons.
The impact with the ground is visceral. At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, five-year-old Razan wears a gold ring on her finger, which is covered in red wounds. At the facility in central Gaza, Razan, a Palestinian girl, lies on a trolley, her grey eyes blurred with fatigue.
“After the war she has changed, she has become weak,” her aunt Um Razan Mihaytem told CNN, adding that her niece was malnourished and suffered from dermatitis. “We can’t find anything to give to her. Everything in the market is expensive or unavailable.”
Aid agencies and health workers say newborns and pregnant women in Gaza are most at risk of malnutrition and dehydration. Malnourished mothers are more likely to give birth prematurely and their babies die because they are too underweight.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, doctors were unable to save baby Amal’s life when she was just four days old.
CNN filmed Amal breathing heavily in an incubator, her tiny pink toes encased in plastic tubes, moments before she died after her mother Samahel gave birth to her two months early.
“The babies are dying. This is God’s decision but man has caused it,” Samahel’s father, Ahmed Maqat, told CNN after her death on Saturday. Samahel had gone months without sleep, food or drink during her pregnancy, Maqat said.
“Everyone in this bed today is at risk of dying. We are waiting for them to die, one by one,” he added, his voice trembling with grief. “We have no life.”
Ashraf Amra/Anadolu/Getty Images
Newborns at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balar, central Gaza, on June 22. Malnourished infants and pregnant women are more likely to give birth prematurely.
Dr. Ahmed Kalot, head of the incubator department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN that Samahel’s daughter was “just waiting to die” due to her poor health.
Many of the survivors are too dehydrated and malnourished to breastfeed their children, but health workers told CNN there are few alternatives, with lactose-free and soy milk for babies in short supply.
Another Palestinian hospitalized at Kamal Adwan Hospital told CNN that her son, who suffers from esophagitis, is unable to consume the soy milk he needs due to his condition. “He can barely sit,” she said of her 2-year-old son. “He can’t crawl, he can’t walk.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported earlier this month that about 250 patients are being treated for malnutrition at the hospital, but there are only two functioning stabilization centers for severely malnourished children in the Gaza Strip. Around 3,000 children who were being treated for acute malnutrition in the south before the escalation of military operations in Rafah are at risk.
Doctors say they are often unable to treat infants showing symptoms of malnutrition, including breathing difficulties, chest infections and severe dehydration, as medical supplies dwindle. As disease outbreaks soar in evacuation centers, a local pediatrician told CNN that malnourished patients with chronic illnesses and infections are less likely to recover. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, authorities have recorded more than 1.4 million cases of infectious diseases since October 7.
Omar Al-Qattah/AFP/Getty Images
Children ask for food aid in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on June 13. Relief agencies have accused Israeli authorities of blocking humanitarian access to the area amid severe food shortages.
As hunger worsens and parts of the enclave fall into widespread famine, aid groups have repeatedly called for a land corridor to the Gaza Strip, saying it would be the most effective way to deliver aid to the area. The U.S.-built floating platform was designed to bring in aid from the sea, but it has been plagued by problems ranging from poor sea conditions to issues distributing aid once it is transported overland, and has failed to make a meaningful difference to the crisis.
Returning to Khan Yunis, Ismail Madi told CNN last week how worried he was about his 4-year-old son, Ahmad, who is malnourished and suffers from jaundice.
“My son will not survive this,” he said. “I call on the US President Joe Biden to intervene,” Maddie added, “to save this child, who has absolutely nothing to do with any political conflict.”
But a few days later the boy died. With other young children to support, Maddie’s life as a parent is stressful.
“It’s very difficult to feed a family of 10 during these difficult times.”
