Acute malnutrition rising among Gaza’s young children, UN agencies warn

Gaza is facing an “apocalyptic” situation after major aid organisations ran out of food stocks in recent days, UN agencies working in the Palestinian territory have warned, two months after Israel began its total blockade on humanitarian aid.

The International Court of Justice is holding a week of hearings on Israel’s obligation to “ensure and facilitate” humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. 

Israel cut off the entry of aid to Gaza on 2 March and renewed its military campaign on 18 March in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages the militant group took in its 7 October 2023 attack.

It also banned cooperation with UNRWA’s activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, claiming it has been infiltrated by Hamas, which the UN agency strongly denies.

The UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) Middle East and North Africa Communications Manager Tess Ingram told Euronews that since this year, some 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified, of which 1,600 are severe. The data refers to children aged between six months and 5 years.

Malnutrition rising among Gaza’s children

The number of children in Gaza treated for acute malnutrition almost doubled over the course of a month, figures provided by UNICEF show, with 2,027 children admitted for treatment in February, amid the ceasefire, and 3,696 children in March. 

Acute malnutrition was almost nonexistent in Gaza before the Israel-Hamas war, which has been raging for 18 months, the UN has said.

Those under five years old are “most vulnerable” to malnutrition, Ingram said, due to “specific nutrition needs”. “Without adequate food supplies, we will see the numbers of malnourished children rise – and without treatment, severely malnourished children will get sicker and it will become life threatening.” 

UNICEF’s malnutrition prevention food stocks (such as supplies of multiple micronutrients) are “fully depleted,” according to Ingram, while malnutrition treatment food stocks “have been depleted to very limited levels”.

Severe acute malnutrition requires specific treatment, Ingram added, with long-term risks including lifelong impacts on children’s brain development.

Ingram added that a recent survey found that children under two found that 90% were eating two or less food groups, adding that these were breastmilk and grains. “It’s clearly not enough for a child’s growth or development – and it’s been sustained for many months. 

“On a visit to the north of Gaza in February, doctors told me: we never see fat babies anymore. They have low birth weight, are premature – because mothers aren’t getting the nutrients they need.” 

Families are facing desperate circumstances as remaining food supplies dwindle. Some try to afford “what little they can at markets”, but prices have risen astronomically.

A round of polio immunisation was suspended in April, Ingram said, both due to bombardments and the blockade, making matters worse.

There have been two rounds of polio immunisation campaigns since last year, but there remain tens of thousands of children who are unvaccinated or only partly vaccinated against polio, she said.

The mental health of children, as well as their carers, is at a breaking point, Ingram said. “I know of one 5-year-old girl who was orphaned and then was separated for a period from her grandmother, who had become her primary caregiver. She stopped speaking for months.”

‘Many families without even a single daily meal’

The NGO Mercy Corps also reported dire conditions on the ground. In a statement shared with Euronews, one of its team members in Gaza said: “The situation is extremely miserable and deteriorating rapidly, life is getting worse in every way.”

“Food is largely unavailable; only some canned goods, legumes, and overpriced local vegetables remain,” they said.

“People are surviving on whatever canned food or pasta they had stored, or paying unbearable prices for the little that’s left. The collapse of food systems has left many families without even a single daily meal.” 

Jonathan Fowler, senior communications manager at UNRWA, told Euronews that the situation in Gaza was “dystopian and apocalyptic”. “With every hour that goes by (under the blockade), more people fall into a higher risk category” of malnutrition.

“The forecast is of (more widespread) severe acute malnutrition. And we don’t have means to rein it in, because medicalised food is also not coming in at all,” he said, referring to food products used to treat the most serious forms of malnutrition, such as those provided by UNICEF.

UNRWA has run out of flour to supply the kitchens it runs. It distributed its remaining 250 emergency food parcels, containing dried and canned food for two weeks, at the end of last week, Fowler told Euronews. The World Food Programme also ran out of food stocks this week. 

“We’re moving in the direction of famine … We’re staring that risk in the face.”

A third of medicines are already out of stock, including those for diabetes, antimicrobial medicines and topical medicines, while another third is expected to run out within weeks, Fowler said. 

“Humanitarian organisations have assistance ready to get into Gaza,” he said. “This includes nearly 3,000 UNRWA trucks of lifesaving aid. WFP says more than 116,000 metric tonnes of food assistance – enough to feed one million people for up to four months – is ready to be brought into Gaza as soon as the crossings reopen.”

Fowler claimed that incidents of aid looting and “people storming convoys” which have taken place during the war declined during the ceasefire, as flows of humanitarian aid became more plentiful.

“If there’s a shortage, then the aid that comes in has value for those who can use it for reasons of criminality,” he said.

The Israeli government has repeatedly accused Hamas of controlling the aid flow and profiting from it, while allowing the Palestinians in the Strip to starve.

In late April, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the militant group should be stripped of all access to humanitarian aid meant for Gaza, which he claimed Israel was allocating despite the blockade.

“Whenever it becomes necessary to allow additional aid, it must be ensured that it does not pass through Hamas, which exploits humanitarian aid to maintain control over the civilian population and to profit at their expense — profits that fund and sustain terror infrastructure used to target IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians,” Katz said in a post on X.

Euronews contacted Israel’s Ministry of Defence, the Israel Defence Forces and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, none of whom provided a comment by the time of publication.