Children are dying of starvation in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief says.
The UN warned last week that famine in Gaza was "almost inevitable".
A senior UN aid official warned that at least 576,000 people across the Gaza Strip - one quarter of the population - faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity and one in six children under the age of two in the north were suffering from acute malnutrition.
And the regional director of the UN's children's agency, Unicef, said "the child deaths we feared are here, as malnutrition ravages the Gaza Strip".
"These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable," Adele Khodr said in a statement on Sunday.
Read the entire article.
Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel Flash Update #135. March 8
On 6 March, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the names of 42 Palestinian patients scheduled to travel to Egypt through the Rafah Crossing for medical treatment. According to WHO, an estimated 8,000 patients need to be medically evacuated from Gaza, including over 6,000 trauma-related patients, and 2,000 patients with serious chronic conditions, such as cancer. Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, 12 are partially functioning, one is minimally functioning and 23 are non-functional. Two field hospitals are fully functional and the third is minimally functioning. Only 20 of 80 primary health care facilities in Gaza are now functional. The damage to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis during the Israeli military operation in February has rendered it non-functional; the Israeli military alleged that the hospital was used by Palestinian combatants for military purposes. Of the 27 UN attempts to reach Nasser hospital in February, only 12 missions were initially coordinated by the Israeli military and, of them, only six were facilitated, reaching their destination.
The access of Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) to northern Gaza hospitals has not been possible due to the security situation, there are no EMTs in the area. In February, only six of 24 planned missions to areas north of Wadi Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities. The low number of planned missions is primarily due to an operational pause, after a UN-coordinated food convoy was struck by Israeli naval fire on 5 February. On 1 March, WHO led two life-saving missions to northern Gaza, to provide essential fuel and medical supplies: on 1 March to Shifa hospital to deliver 19,000 litres of fuel and critical medical supplies; and on 3 March to Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, providing 19,500 litres of fuel for each hospital, in addition to essential medical supplies.
read the full report: Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #135
Five months into the ongoing hostilities in Gaza, the scarcity of food, water and medical care has left many struggling to survive, particularly pregnant women and new mothers. Photo by UNRWA
Thurs, 3/21 at noon ET--webinar from our friends at 1for3. Please try to attend
Dear Friends and Supporters,
I am writing to invite you to attend a great webinar we are holding on the topic of food and health in UN-run Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank on Thursday 21 March at 12 Noon.
The speakers will be my colleagues in Palestine who run our food and health programs. They are navigating a devastating Israeli closure of their economy, enduring increased military and settler violence, and ongoing apartheid laws while witnessing the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Despite these very real hurdles, the team in Palestine is building hydroponic gardens, training people to use them, integrating nutritious food with healing practices that address chronic illnesses, and promoting food sovereignty. I hope you can join.
You can get more details and register at: https://www.1for3.org/webinar-on-health
The webinar is part of our on-going fundraising campaign to support our partners working in food, water, health, and kindergarten education in the West Bank. I hope you will consider being a part of this important effort. Here is a link you can use to find out more and to donate: https://www.classy.org/campaign/support-palestinian-refugees-working-against-trauma-violence-and-scarcity/c563128.
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As always, thanks for your support and solidarity.
Nidal Al-Azraq – 1for3.org
