One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished, UN aid agency says

The UN’s Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), one in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and the cases are increasing every day.

In a statement published on Thursday, UNRWA commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said to a colleague: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, bodies are walking.”

More than 100 international charities and the Human Rights Group also warned mass hunger – pressure on the action of governments.

Israel, who controls the entry of all materials to Gaza, says that there is no siege and accused Hamas for any malnutrition.

However, the UN warned that the level of aid to enter Gaza was “a drip” and that the hunger crisis in the region “has never been so terrible.

In a statement on Thursday, Lazzarini said, “More than 100 people, the majority of their children, died of hunger.”

Israel’s “Humanitarian partners to allow unlimited and uninterrupted humanitarian aid to Gaza to allow,” Most of our teams see, most of the children are weak, weak and the risk of death is high. “He said.

According to Lazzarini, UNRWA workers “fainted more and more hunger when you’re at work”, “When the ministers can’t find enough to eat, the whole human system collapses.”

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a large part of the Gaza population “died of hunger”.

“I don’t know what you say other than mass hunger – and human -making,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

40 -year -old Hanaa Almadhoun in Northern Gaza said that local markets are usually without food and other materials.

“If there is, if any, if there is an ordinary person, they come at exorbitant prices,” he said to the BBC.

He said it was expensive and difficult to secure flour and that people sell “gold and personal items” to meet it.

The mother of the three said, “Every new day brings a new challenge,” people looking for “something edible”.

“With my own eyes, I saw the children walking along the garbage in search of food scrap.”

While visiting the Israeli troops in Gaza on Wednesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog insisted that his country of “international law” provided humanitarian aid.

However, Tahani Shehada, an aid worker in Gaza, said people “trying to survive per hour”.

“Even simple things like cooking [and] Taking a shower was luxury, “he said.

“I have a baby. Eight months old. He doesn’t know what fresh fruit looks like,” he added.

After a two -month ceasefire, Israel stopped the delivery of aid to Gaza in early March. The blockade was partially alleviated after about two months, but the shortage of food, fuel and medication deteriorated.

Israel has established a new aid system with the US by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

According to the UN Human Rights Office, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army while trying to get food aid in the last two months.

He says that at least 766 was killed near the GHF’s four distribution centers in the Israeli military zones operated by US private security contractors.

288 people were killed near the UN and other aid convoys.

Israel accused Hamas of provoking the chaos near the aid areas. He says that their troops only made warnings and did not intentionally hit civilians.

The GHF says the UN uses “wrong” figures from the Ministry of Health operated by Hamas of Gaza.

Najah, a 19 -year -old widow who took refuge in a hospital in Gaza, said he was afraid that he would “be shot” if he travels to help the distribution area.

“I hope they bring us something to food and drink. We die of starvation without anything food and drink. We live in tents. We live in tents.”

Dr Aseel, a doctor who works with a British medical aid organization in Gaza, said that Gaza is not close to famine, but already “lived”.

“My husband went once [to an aid distribution point] And he was shot twice and then, and that was all. ”

“If we’re going to die of starvation, let it. The way to help is the way to death.”

A market seller in Gaza, Abu Alaa, said that he and his children go to bed every night “.

“We are not alive. We are dead. We beg the whole world to intervene and save us.”

Walaa Fathi, who was eight months pregnant with his third child, said Ghazans had “a disaster and a famine that no one can imagine.”

“I hope my baby stays in my womb and I don’t have to give birth in these difficult conditions,” he said to Deir Al-Balah.