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The Gaza Health Ministry has reported a heartbreaking tragedy: at least 15 children have lost their lives in the past few days due to malnutrition and dehydration at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City. These young lives were cut short by preventable suffering, highlighting the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave, a direct result of the genocidal actions of Israel, the US and its western allies.
Adele Khodr, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, issued a statement March 3 about acute malnutrition in Gaza, emphasizing the urgent need for intervention and support. The situation is critical, and the lives of six other children remain at risk in the hospital’s intensive care unit. Challenges such as the cessation of the electric generator, lack of oxygen, and limited medical capabilities have exacerbated this devastating situation.
“The child deaths we feared are here, as malnutrition ravages the Gaza Strip: said Khodr. There "are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all.
These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.
The widespread lack of nutritious food, clean water and medical services, a direct consequence of the impediments to access and multiple dangers facing UN humanitarian operations, is impacting children and mothers, hindering their ability to breastfeed their babies, especially in the Northern Gaza Strip. People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life" the statement continues.
“The sense of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors in realizing that lifesaving aid, just a few kilometres away, is being kept out of reach, must be as unbearable, but worse still are the anguished cries of those babies slowly perishing under the world’s gaze. The lives of thousands more babies and children depend on urgent action being taken now.”
Meanwhile, allies of Israel like the US and Germany continue to withhold funding from the UNRWA while suppling Israel with the funds and weaponry it needs to continue the genocidal slaughter, making them complicit in the genocide.