INTERVIEW - Malnutrition for Gaza's children triples: Doctors Without Borders

GENEVA / ISTANBUL

The medical charity group Doctors Without Borders has reported a dramatic surge in child malnutrition in the Gaza Strip.

Cases among children under 5 have tripled in recent weeks, as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave continues to escalate.

"Over the past few weeks, the number of admitted children under the age of 5 suffering from acute malnutrition has tripled," Enass Abu-Khalaf, the group’s communications chief in the Middle East and North Africa, told Anadolu. "One in every four children and pregnant women are suffering from malnutrition. On a daily basis, we admit around 25 malnutrition cases."

The numbers are coming in amid mounting evidence of an accelerating hunger crisis. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported Monday that 14 Palestinians, including two children, had died from hunger and malnutrition in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to at least 147 deaths since Oct. 7, 2023. Among the dead are at least 88 children.

The UN World Food Program echoed the alarm Tuesday, calling the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza not a “warning” but an urgent “call to action.”

The global hunger monitoring body said Gaza is facing “the worst-case scenario of famine” due to continued military operations, widespread displacement, and the collapse of access to food and basic services.

Abu-Khalaf said the situation in Gaza, where Doctors Without Frontiers has operated continuously for 25 years, is unprecedented.

“We have never seen a humanitarian catastrophe in the strip at this scale,” she said. “Power cuts, food cuts, systematic starvation, massive displacement, and incursions – civilians, including our staff, patients, and even babies, are being dragged into the battlefield every day.”

'Massacres on a daily basis'

She described Doctors Without Frontiers facilities being overwhelmed and under-equipped, particularly for neonatal care.

“We don’t have enough incubators. We don’t have formula for premature babies. Even our intensive care units are struggling,” she said.

Referring to a controversial US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution plan under which over 1,000 Gazans seeking aid have been killed, she added: “When it comes to food items, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is just an Israeli-American plan to execute massacres on a daily basis."

The medical charity’s repeated calls for a ceasefire and an end to the siege have gone unheeded, said Abu-Khalaf, criticizing world leaders for their inaction.

“This is a turning point in the history of humanitarian aid,” she said. “What is entering Gaza today is a drop in the ocean.”

Abu-Khalaf cited a recent incident in which a staff member’s young son was seriously injured in an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

“This genocide is attacking all the characteristics of Palestinian life,” said Abu-Khalaf. “The only way to change the situation is through an immediate and sustained ceasefire, lifting the siege, and respecting international humanitarian law.”