Families in northern Gaza ‘forced to survive on a less than a can of beans a day’
Families in northern Gaza are being forced to live on less than a can of fava beans a day, Oxfam has said, as senior UN officials described malnourished newborns so small that they weigh little more than a kilo.
More than 300,000 people are still believed to be trapped in the north of the besieged strip, which has seen the worst of Israel’s ferocious bombardment and where little to no aid has been getting in.
There, since January, families have been surviving on an average of 245 calories a day, according to Oxfam – less than 12 per cent of the average recommended daily calorie intake.
“Israel is making deliberate choices to starve civilians,” said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam’s international executive director.
“Imagine what it is like, not only to be trying to survive on 245 calories – day in, day out – but also having to watch your children or elderly relatives do the same.”
It comes as some aid agencies have said they will have to pull back from Gaza over concerns for the safety of their staff after Israeli forces admitted killing seven employees of food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) in a drone attack despite the fact that the aid workers were travelling in a deconflicted area. Israel has since promised to open two aid corridors.
WCK has served over 30 million meals inside Gaza, and its work has formed a major part of the response to the looming famine. The charity has had to suspend its operations over safety concerns in the wake of the fatal bombing.
Jamie McGoldrick, the UN coordinator for aid in the occupied Palestinian territory, who visited Gaza recently, said the pullback by aid agencies in response to the killing of the seven WCK aid workers – along with more than 190 others since October – had come at the “worst time” given the hunger crisis.
He said that right now a third of all children in Gaza under the age of two are malnourished.
“Food assistance to combat famine is desperately needed everywhere. It is a time of great hardship and suffering,” he told The Independent after returning from a visit to Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the only facilities in the war-ravaged north that is still treating newborns and children.
There he described visiting neonatal wards where there were multiple babies in a single incubator. He said he had seen skeletal toddlers, and newborn babies, “drowning” in their nappies, who weighed little more than a bag of sugar.
“Every single child was in a terrible condition – the dehydration, the emaciation was unimaginable. Some of the children were so skinny you could see their ribcages,” he said.
“There was a newborn who weighed just 1.2kg and was tiny inside his [nappy]. I saw his small spindly legs coming out of the bottom. His hand was no bigger than my thumb.”
Israel launched its heaviest bombardment yet of Gaza, along with a crippling siege, in retaliation for the 7 October massacre by Hamas on southern Israel, where militants killed at least 1,200 people and took another 240, including children, hostage.
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