Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on Tuesday that 15 more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza over 24 hours due to the US-backed Israeli blockade on the besieged territory.
Among the dead were four children, including six-week-old Yousef al-Safadi. Babies are especially vulnerable since malnourished mothers cannot produce breast milk, and Israel is impeding the import of baby formula.
Yousef’s family told Reuters that he died due to the lack of baby formula. “You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do find any, it’s $100 for a tub,” Yousef’s uncle, Adham al-Safadi, said while looking at his dead nephew at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Three other children were also starved to death by Israel over the past 24 hours, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in Khan Younis. Raheel Rosros, a 32-year-old woman with special needs, also died of starvation.
Rosros’s father, Muhammad, told Middle East Eye that she began suffering from malnutrition over a month ago and that she was unable to stomach the limited types of food that had been available. “From before the start of the war, she used to eat whatever she wanted, but she had lost everything she once used to ask for,” he said.
Muhammad said that he had another daughter who also had special needs and was previously killed in an Israeli bombing. He fears that his other children will also starve to death.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that a total of 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, have starved to death throughout the genocidal war. The rate of starvation deaths has significantly spiked over the past week.
Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza in March, cutting off the delivery of aid and all other goods. It wasn’t until May that it began allowing a trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory, which has come mainly through the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The GHF distribution sites have become death traps as Israeli forces have been gunning down unarmed civilians who are seeking aid.
The Health Ministry said on Tuesday that since the GHF began operating in Gaza, at least 1,026 aid seekers have been killed and more than 6,563 have been wounded. The majority of the casualties occurred near GHF sites, while others were killed while waiting for UN food trucks.
The Trump administration continues to back Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite the massacres of aid seekers and the Israeli-imposed starvation of children.
