Doctors warn that children in Gaza have suffered irreversible damage from starvation : NPR

:: [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: This report indicates that four and a half kilograms is about seven pounds. In fact, it is almost ten pounds.]

Ayesha Rascoe, host:

We are about to bring you a story on the crisis of hunger deepening in Gaza. Auditors should know that you will hear children suffering from war. Gaza’s sinister images show that young mothers grabbing their emaciated children, tiny with hibs that go beyond, suspended in their mother’s arms. Faced with international assembly pressure, the Israeli army began a daily break of 10 hours in fighting in some of the largest Gaza population centers to provide more food and help. According to an official declaration by the Jordanian government, part of this aircraft aid reached Gaza. Doctors warn that damage to Palestinian children after months of hunger can already be irreversible. Anas Baba of NPR has more Gaza City.

(Crying baby soundbit)

Anas Baba, Byline: In this tent by the sea, Hidaya Al Motawaq tries to offer the comfort she can to her youngest child, Mohammad, 1/2 / 2 years.

Hidaya al-Motawaq: (language not spoken).

(Crying baby soundbit)

Al-Motawaq: (language not spoken in English).

Baba: She has nothing. The child who – he weighs less than 4 1/2 kilograms. It is about seven pounds. His mother feeds water – only water. And it is, all the time, trying to tell the world that famine and malnutrition seriously strike in Gaza and propagate constantly.

(Crying baby soundbit)

Baba: Mohammad is almost all bone, his protruding eyes, his spine so sharp and so defined, it seems that it could cross his thin skin. Mohammad’s older sister is fine, but he is so young, her little body could not resist hunger. All the hospitals in Gaza told his mother that he had nothing left – no food, no milk to give her. So she rocks Mohammad, caresses her lightening hair, but what he needs is to eat. She no longer has breast milk because she is Mal Nourrie.

(Crying baby soundbit)

Al-Motawaq: (language not spoken in English).

Baba: It is only one family, and Gaza has about 1 million children. This represents about half of the population.

(Crying baby soundbit)

Baba: Israel says that he lets food in his own distribution program, supported by the United States, but the system does not reach many people and was fatal for many Palestinians, with dozens of people this week alone by Israeli shots.

Antonio Guterres: Since May 27, the United Nations has recorded more than 1,000 Palestinians killed while trying to access food.

Baba: It’s Antonio Guterres, United Nations. And now in Gaza, the UN says that a third of people spend several days without eating now. Friday, the Gaza health authorities say that nine people died of malnutrition in the previous 24 hours only. Dr. Mohammed Mansour is a senior nutrition director with the International Rescue Committee in Gaza.

Mohammed Mansour: (not spoken English language).

Baba: He says that after 20 months of restricted food, he sees a serious shortage of significant nutritional elements in diets such as iron, magnesium and calcium because no one can have meat, vegetables or fruits. He sees growing growth retardation in children.

Mansour: (language not spoken English).

Baba: This has an impact on the development of the heart, liver and the circulatory system of a child. Dr. Mansour knows in clinical detail how the children’s body is destroyed by hunger because he sees that this happens in his two children.

Mansour: (language not spoken English).

Baba: He says he wonders every night if his children will see the next morning. He says he feels helpless and unable to protect them. The United Nations says that around 90,000 women and children are seriously ill -fed in Gaza and need immediate medical care this week. This war hides a generation of children, explains Ahmed al-Farra, a doctor who runs the pediatric district of Nasser Hospital in the south of Gaza.

Ahmed al-Farra: A generation of children who are under three years old because the central nervous system is almost composed during these three years.

Baba: If these children survive, Al-Farra is worried, they will suffer from neurological deficiencies provided by famine.

Al-Farra: Like the hyperactivity disorder of the deficit in attention, the difficulty of school performance, understanding, speech.

Baba: Salwa Shamali is 20 years old, which makes her one of the older brothers and sisters of her family here in Gaza. She spends all her time trying to find ways to keep her young brothers and sisters alive.

Salwa Shamali: (language not spoken English).

Baba: She says: “I care more about food and water. I don’t care about the news. Half of our family are young children, and we think more about it.” Shamali days are dictated by the endless research of food and water.

Shamali: (not spoken English language).

Baba: She says at 6 am, they can sometimes have water. And at 2 pm, “my brothers try to get food from a charitable organization or a local school.” At 6 p.m., his father ventures but generally does not come back without anything.

(Crying baby soundbit)

Baba: The world of Hidaya al-Motawaq is even smaller.

Al-Motawaq: (language not spoken in English).

(Crying baby soundbit)

Baba: He is distant from the Mediterranean Sea, trying to keep Mohammad in Mohammad, 1 1/2,. And Al Motawaq was moved here after her husband was killed in the War of Israel in Gaza. She had lost her house, her livelihoods, but she had her two children, and she wants to keep them both life.

Anas Baba, NPR News, Gaza City.

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