A quarter of children aged 6 months to 5 years and pregnant and breastfeeding women examined last week at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) facilities in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition, the NGO reported today.

“The deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war by the Israeli authorities has reached unprecedented levels, with patients and health professionals themselves suffering from hunger,” MSF warned in a statement.

Caroline Willeman, a program coordinator at MSF’s clinic in Gaza, explains that they are now registering “25 new patients suffering from malnutrition every day.”

At this clinic, the number of people suffering from malnutrition has quadrupled since May 18, and the rate of severe malnutrition in children under five has tripled in the last two weeks.

“This is a deliberate starvation caused by the Israeli authorities as part of the ongoing genocidal campaign. Starving, killing and injuring people desperately seeking help is unacceptable,” the NGO denounces.

Pressures on Israel over the humanitarian situation

Israel, whose offensive began the day after the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched a multi-pronged attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, is facing increasing international pressure over the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza. It somewhat eased in late May the complete blockade it had imposed since early March on the Palestinian enclave, causing very serious shortages of food, medicine and other essentials.

Israel, for its part, accuses Hamas of exploiting the suffering of civilians by stealing food distributed to resell at high prices or by shooting people waiting for help.

Attacks on food distribution centers as well

Meanwhile, MSF warns, “attacks continue at the food distribution centres of the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza (GHF), where hundreds of people are desperate for help.”

“What we are seeing is beyond description: an entire population is being deliberately cut off from food and water while Israeli forces commit daily massacres as people search for leftover aid in distribution centres,” said Amad Bazerol, MSF’s humanitarian response lead in Gaza.

“These food distributions are not humanitarian aid, they are war crimes committed openly and under the guise of compassion. Those who go to GHF food distributions know they have as much chance of receiving a bag of flour as they have of leaving with a bullet in the head,” said Dr. Mohamed Abu Mugaisib, MSF’s deputy medical services coordinator in Gaza.

Dozens injured

In addition to the wounded at GHF aid distribution centers, MSF teams are providing medical treatment to dozens of people injured by the Israeli army while waiting for trucks carrying flour to pass through.

On 20 July, MSF medical teams and Sheikh Radwan Clinic in northern Gaza treated 122 people injured by gunfire while waiting for flour distribution, and 46 people had already died on arrival.

On 3 July, an MSF employee was killed in a similar incident in Khan Younis.