Two senior Israeli doctors have told The Times of Israel that children in Gaza are starving due to Israeli restrictions on aid, not because of pre-existing health problems they may have.
The doctors made the comments in response to backlash from Israeli officials and their supporters in the West over The New York Times publishing a photo of Mohammed al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old emaciated child in Gaza, without specifying that he had a pre-existing health problem.
Due to the backlash, The New York Times issued an editor’s note explaining that al-Mutawaq had a condition, and many Israeli supporters in the West expressed outrage. But the most vulnerable, including children with medical conditions, are always the first to starve when famine sets in. Doctors and hospitals in Gaza have also reported children dying of malnutrition who didn’t have pre-existing conditions.
“I’ve been a pediatrician for 20 years, and we never see kids looking like this, even very chronically ill children. When we do, we would suspect abuse and would contact the police,” Dr. Michal Feldon, a senior pediatric doctor and department head at an Israeli hospital, told The Times of Israel.
“Kids don’t look like that. He was starving and hungry despite whatever condition he has,” Feldon added.
Prof. Dan Turner, the head of a pediatric gastroenterology unit at a hospital in Jerusalem and Deputy Dean of the School of Medicine at the Hebrew University, made similar comments. “You categorically do not find kids looking like that in Israel or Western countries,” he said.
“Even patients with background diseases should not be malnourished like that. A patient like that would be admitted to hospital,” Turner added.
CNN reported that al-Mutawaq and his mother, Hidaya, are living in a tent in Gaza City. Hidaya said that her son weighed just 13 pounds, down from 20 pounds just a few months ago.
Starting in March, Israel imposed a total blockade on all goods entering Gaza and only allowed a trickle of aid to enter at the end of May, mainly through the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution sites have turned into death traps for desperate Palestinians. GHF sites are only located south of the Netzarim Corridor, meaning they can’t be accessed by the Mutawaq family.
Turner said that Mutawaq’s condition was likely due to the lack of specialized baby formula. “If you’re in north Gaza, you can only dream of getting formula to babies,” he said. “I have seen children with severe diseases for the last 20 years, and I don’t see children like that, and if I do it’s due to poor adherence to therapy and neglect.”
Turner criticized the Israeli policy of restricting aid, saying he does not believe that “limiting food to a population regardless of the war aims should be on the table for the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”
