Gaza’s Health Ministry on Sunday reported a significant spike in starvation deaths due to the Israeli blockade, saying that it recorded a total of 18 malnutrition-related deaths within 24 hours.
The Health Ministry said in another post on Telegram that it has recorded a total of 86 deaths due to hunger and malnutrition, including 10 adults and 70 children.
“This is a silent massacre, and the Ministry of Health holds the occupation and the international community responsible,” the ministry wrote. “We demand the immediate opening of the crossings to allow the entry of food and medicine.”
Mohammed Abu Afash, the director of Medical Relief in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that women and children in Gaza are “collapsing” due to malnutrition and hunger. He said that if more aid isn’t allowed in, the coming days will be “catastrophic.”
“We are heading into the unknown. Malnutrition among children has reached its highest levels,” Abu Afash added. The World Food Program also said on Sunday that nearly one in three Palestinians in Gaza are going days without receiving anything to eat.
Among the people who starved to death on Sunday were Razan Abu Zahe, a four-year-old girl, and a three-month-old baby, Yehia al-Najjar. Babies are particularly vulnerable as mothers suffering from malnutrition are unable to produce breast milk, and Israel has impeded the import of baby formula.
The latest starvation deaths came after Nick Maynard, a British surgeon currently working at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza, warned of “unprecedented malnutrition” in Gaza. He said many Palestinians wounded by Israeli attacks were not surviving surgery due to their malnourished state, and that medical staff were also suffering.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, told the Palestinian news agency WAFA on Sunday that medical staff were working without food for more than 24 hours. “We are facing an organized genocide by starvation,” he said.
