PALESTINIANS in the Gaza Strip are pleading for help as more people have starved to death under Israel’s unrelenting blockade of the coastal enclave.
The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on Friday that local hospitals recorded nine new malnutrition deaths in the previous 24 hours.
That brings the total number of such deaths to 122 since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, including at least 83 children.
“We urgently demand an immediate end to the famine, the opening of all crossings, and the entry of infant formula now, along with 500 aid trucks and 50 fuel trucks daily,” the Health Ministry said.
“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and other states complicit in this genocide—such as the UK, Germany, and France—as well as the international community at large, fully responsible for this historic crime.”
Sources at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, told Al Jazeera early on Saturday that a six-month-old infant also succumbed to starvation-related medical complications.
Starvation deaths have steadily increased in Gaza this week as Israel continues to maintain a strict blockade on the territory, preventing a steady flow of food, water, medicine and other supplies from reaching Palestinians.
The United Nations has warned that children are especially vulnerable as the crisis worsens.
Noor al-Shana, an independent journalist in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, told Al Jazeera that extreme hunger is affecting all aspects of life in the Strip.
She said she now struggles to find enough for one meal per day, while four of her relatives were killed while seeking food at aid distribution points run by the notorious Israel- and United States-backed GHF.
“The world is just saying ‘Free Palestine’ … We don’t want words, we want solutions,” she said.
“Enough, we are tired,” al-Shana added, fighting back tears. “We are suffocating. We are dying here.”
Separately, sources at hospitals in Gaza told Al Jazeera that at least 38 people were killed by Israeli attacks across the enclave since the early hours of Friday morning.
Of that, at least six Palestinians were killed while trying to collect food at aid distribution sites.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), on Friday reiterated criticism of the GHF, calling it a “cruel” politically driven effort that “takes more lives than it saves”.
