As the suffocating blockade on the Gaza Strip continues, the specter of famine intensifies as one of the most devastating tools of genocide being used by the occupation against more than two million people.
In this context, medical sources announced on Wednesday the death of 10 citizens, including two children, due to starvation and malnutrition in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The same sources indicated that the total number of deaths caused by hunger and malnutrition has now reached 313, including 119 children.
They also pointed out that cases of malnutrition and starvation continue to arrive at hospitals in Gaza, where 900,000 children are currently suffering from hunger, 70,000 of whom have already entered the stage of clinical malnutrition.
The lives of diabetes and kidney patients are also in grave danger due to inadequate nutrition, with many suffering from severe health episodes as a result of the deliberate starvation being inflicted by the occupation on the people of Gaza.
The sources further reported that 17,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition. Hospitals are now dealing with patients experiencing extreme fatigue and memory loss due to severe hunger, while lacking the beds and medications necessary to treat the overwhelming number of severe malnutrition cases.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) had previously warned that the rate of malnutrition among children under five had doubled between March and June due to the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA’s health centers conducted nearly 74,000 screenings for children during that period, identifying 5,500 cases of severe acute malnutrition and more than 800 cases of critical acute malnutrition.
The continued rise in deaths caused by hunger and disease places what is happening in Gaza firmly within the legal and political definition of genocide, as starvation is being used as a weapon to annihilate an entire population in full view of the world, one of the most horrific forms of collective punishment witnessed in modern history.
