Mahmoud Fattouh dies from starvation as UN warns of an ‘explosion’ in child deaths due to a lack of food and water.
A two-month-old Palestinian boy has died from starvation in northern Gaza, according to media reports, days after the United Nations warned of an “explosion” in child deaths due to Israel’s war on the besieged enclave.
The Shehab news agency said Mahmoud Fattouh died at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday.
Footage, verified by media, shows the emaciated infant gasping for breath in a hospital bed.
One of the paramedics who rushed the boy to the hospital says Mahmoud died from acute malnutrition.
“We saw a woman carrying her baby, screaming for help. Her pale baby seemed to be taking his last breath,” the paramedic says in the video.
“We rushed him to hospital and he was found to be suffering acute malnutrition. Medical staff rushed him into the ICU. The baby has not been fed any milk for days, as baby milk is totally absent in Gaza.”
Mahmoud’s death came as the Israeli government – which launched its assault on Gaza following attacks by Hamas fighters in October – continues to ignore global appeals to allow more aid into the besieged enclave.
The UN says some 2.3 million people in Gaza are now on the brink of famine.
The situation is particularly desperate in northern Gaza, which has been almost completely cut off from aid since late October.
Doctors there have reported a steep rise in malnutrition among children, especially newborns.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, described the health situation there as “beyond catastrophic”.
“Signs of weakness and paleness are apparent on newborns because the mother is malnourished,” Abu Safiya told media. “Unfortunately many kids have died in the past weeks … if we don’t get the proper aid urgently, we will be losing more and more to malnutrition.”
Despite the dire situation, UN agencies have not been able to help.
The World Food Programme tried to resume deliveries to northern Gaza last week but announced a suspension two days later, citing Israeli gunfire and a “collapse of civil order”. It said its teams witnessed “unprecedented levels of desperation” in the north, with hungry Palestinians mobbing trucks to get food.
“The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths, which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action, in a statement last week.
“We’ve been warning for weeks that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a nutrition crisis. If the conflict doesn’t end now, children’s nutrition will continue to plummet, leading to preventable deaths or health issues which will affect the children of Gaza for the rest of their lives and have potential intergenerational consequences,” he said.
Before the war, only 0.8 percent of children below five in Gaza were considered acutely malnourished, the UN said.
“Such a decline in a population’s nutritional status in three months is unprecedented globally.”
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