Gaza Strip’s GAZA CITY Cradling her wailing baby child in a tent near the Mediterranean Sea, Hidaya Al-Motawaq does her best to console him.”Khalas,” she whispers over and over. “Khalas, khalas.” That’s enough, enough.
At one and a half years old, Mohammad is almost entirely bone. His eyes and huge tummy bulge out. He appears to have a strong, well-defined spine that may pierce his thin skin.
Al-Motawaq, 30, claims that because she is undernourished, she is no longer able to provide him with breast milk.
Al-Motawaq, a widow, visited several hospitals in search of food or milk to give to Mohammad and her other kid, his five-year-old sister, but she claims she hasn’t been successful. Due to a shortage of food and medical supplies, Gaza’s only pediatric ward that treats malnutrition shuttered this month.
She therefore caresses Mohammad’s thinning hair and holds him in her arms all the while. She only needs to give him water, but he needs to eat. He is deteriorating before her very eyes.
This is only one family. Approximately one million children, or half of the population, live in Gaza. In the Gaza Strip, doctors and humanitarian workers warn that children like Muhammad are suffering from chronic malnutrition, which is irreversibly harming their health.
“This war is targeting a generation, a generation of children who are below three years, because the central nervous system is nearly composed in [these] two, three years,” says Dr. Ahmed Al-Farrah, pediatrician at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.
Israel has blocked the flow of food and other humanitarian goods into Gaza, causing the enclave to face catastrophic hunger, the UN has warned.
Israel’s military started a daily 10-hour fighting halt in several of Gaza’s largest population centers on Sunday in response to growing international criticism in order to transport more food and aid. Israel has ordered Palestinians to seek cover in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Al-Mawasi, and says it is halting military operations in these areas until further notice. Israel claims to be establishing safe paths for UN relief vehicles to transport medication and food throughout Gaza.
Israel also accuses Hamas of profiting from aid distribution and blames them for creating turmoil around aid delivery, as the government is under pressure from far-right parties to regulate food supply to Gaza.
One in five Gaza residents could starve, according to a May warning from U.N.-backed food security experts. More than 130 people have perished from what Gaza health officials refer to as “famine and malnutrition” since the conflict began in October 2023. Six persons lost their lives to these reasons in the last 24 hours alone, they said on Sunday.
According to the international framework set up for evaluating levels of hunger, famine cannot be officially proclaimed in Gaza unless several requirements are satisfied.
After months of starvation, doctors fear the harm done to Gaza’s children’s bodies is already irreparable.
“We see an increasing level of stunting,” says Dr. Mohammed Mansour, the International Rescue Committee’s senior nutrition manager in Gaza.
The U.N. food agency in Gaza warns that one in three people are going days without eating.According to the UN, around 100,000 women and children in Gaza are seriously undernourished and in urgent need of medical attention. According to the French abbreviation for the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, 25% of the pregnant women and children aged six months to five years that it has screened in Gaza suffer from malnutrition.
Farrah from Nasser Hospital is concerned that the very malnourished children in Gaza will experience neurological problems as a result of malnutrition, even if they survive. Among the potential negative consequences of hunger in young children, he lists “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, difficulty in school performance, difficulty in comprehension, difficulty in speaking.”
Mercy Corps vice president Kate Phillips-Barrasso told NPR’s All Things Considered last week that “things have gotten so far afield towards famine and really significant food insecurity that we may not even be able to turn this situation around if there were more aid going into Gaza, because it’s causing so much damage.”
Israel claims that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private organization supported by the United States, is distributing food through its own program. However, that method has been lethal for Palestinians; Israeli shooting killed scores of civilians last week alone as they attempted to obtain food.
“Our people die for nothing,” declares 34-year-old Saddam Abu Odai.
Since meat, vegetables, and fruit are almost impossible to get, Mansour of the IRC says that after 21 months of Israel’s changing restrictions on the amount and type of food that can enter Gaza, he is observing a shortage of important nutritional components in children’s diets, such as iron, magnesium, and calcium.
Lack of certain vitamins and minerals “impacts the development of a child’s heart, liver, and circulatory system,” he claims.
Being a medical expert and having witnessed it firsthand with his own two children, he is well-versed in the ways that hunger is destroying children’s bodies.
“I ask myself every night if I’ll see my kids the next day. He remarked, “I feel powerless and incapable of defending them. “No eggs, meat, milk or fruit we have not eaten them for six to seven months.”
Last week, negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a possible 60-day truce came to a halt, leaving Gazans in despair as more days passed without food.
“Every day costs us blood,” complains 44-year-old Dr. Tawfiq Abu Jarad, who is now living in a tent in Gaza City. “Despite my best efforts, I anticipate that famine will soon reach my tent because we need [a ceasefire].” We shall starve to death in two weeks.
Disagreements about the length of the truce and the extent of Israel’s military presence in Gaza have caused the negotiations to deadlock.
“Food and water are more important to me. The news doesn’t concern me. Salwa Shamali, 20, says, “We think of them more because half of our family is young.”
She is an eldest sibling in her family, and her days are governed by a strict routine that she follows to obtain food and water for her younger siblings.
Sometimes they can discover fresh water when they start their quest at six in the morning. Her brothers attempt to collect meals from a nearby school or charity about 2:00 p.m.
Her father goes to a local market at 6 p.m., but he frequently returns empty-handed.
Hidaya Al-Motawaq’s world the tent by the Mediterranean Sea is even smaller. However, she is still the mother of Muhammad and his sister. She also wants them both to survive.
This article was given by Abu Bakr Bashir from Sheffield, England. From Cairo, Ahmed Abuhamda made a contribution.
Copyright 2025 NPR
