AT least 15 Palestinians, including four children, have starved to death in a single day in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to health officials, bringing the total number of deaths from malnutrition since Israel’s war began to 101.
The announcement on Tuesday came as Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza, killing at least 81 people, and the United Nations described the situation in the enclave as a “horror show with a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times”.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the 15 starvation-related deaths over the past 24 hours included four children and that the overall toll of 101 included 80 children.
Most of the deaths have come in the last few weeks.
Among the children who died on Tuesday were six-week-old Yousef al-Safadi, who passed away at a hospital in northern Gaza City, and 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in another medical facility in southern Khan Younis, according to doctors.
Yousef’s uncle, Adham al-Safadi, told the Reuters news agency that the infant’s mother had not been able to breastfeed because she was not eating and the family could not find baby formula to feed him.
“You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do find any, it’s $100 for a tub,” al-Safadi told Reuters. “The mother can’t breastfeed. There’s no food and drinks, so there is no breastmilk. The baby died of malnutrition.”
The starvation crisis comes amid a nearly five-month blockade by Israel on food, fuel, water and other humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza.
Israel cut off all goods from entering the territory in March, but has allowed in a trickle of aid starting in May, mostly through the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
According to the UN, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians seeking food aid since the GHF began its operations, most of them near the group’s distribution points.
The 81 Palestinians killed on Tuesday include at least 31 aid seekers, according to medics in Gaza.
Fifteen others were killed in an Israeli attack on a building housing displaced people in northern Gaza City, according to a source at al-Shifa Hospital, while 13 more were killed and 50 others wounded in a strike on the nearby Shati refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking at the Security Council, highlighted the “horror show” for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave.
