A Palestinian boy walks along a street dumped with garbage in Gaza City on February 24, 2024. Photo by AFP
Doha, Qatar: Amid sufferings brought on by unrelenting Israeli bombardment, the residents of Gaza are also facing malnutrition. A new UNICEF analysis indicated that there is a steep rise in malnutrition among children, pregnant, and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip.
A two-month-old child, named Mahmoud Fattouh died of malnutrition in Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after his family was unable to find milk and basic supplies. The child was rushed to the ICU due to acute malnutrition but did not survive.
Healthcare officials in Gaza also stated that signs of weakness and paleness are apparent in newborns because their mothers are malnourished, further stating that the absence of proper aid would lead to more deaths due to malnutrition.
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[11pm Doha Time] According to the latest data from the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization and the Palestinian government as of February 25, Israeli attacks have damaged:
• More than half of Gaza homes - 360,000 residential units have been destroyed or damaged
• 392 educational facilities
• 11 out of 35 hospitals are partially functioning
• 132 ground water wells damaged or destroyed
• 267 places of worship
[7:30pm Doha Time] Gaza’s iconic artist Fathi Ghabin passed away today after Israeli authorities prevented him from leaving the besieged coastal enclave for treatment abroad, reported Al Jazeera.
“Ghabin was at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah waiting to exit to Egypt to be treated there. All his paperwork was in order and he waited for two weeks but never received a permit to leave,” the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Culture said in a statement.
Hundreds of patients in need of dialysis and others with similar chronic illnesses have been unable to leave the Strip for treatment and have not been able to seek treatment in Gaza itself due to a lack of medical supplies, the ministry added.
An artwork by Gaza’s iconic artist Fathi Ghabin via @NourNaim88 on X
[6:56pm Doha Time] Hunger grips north Gaza
Dire food shortages sent hundreds of Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza on Sunday. Read more.
[3:35pm Doha Time] Gaza war kills atleast 29,692: Health Ministry
The health ministry in Gaza said Sunday that at least 29,692 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory.
The toll includes at least 86 fatalities in the past 24 hours, while 69,879 people have been injured since the conflict began on October 7, a ministry statement said.
[3pm Doha Time] A Gaza doctor’s fear: Displacement, detention or death
Even after four months of the most grueling and gruesome work of his life, the anesthesiologist wanted to stay at his post at Nasser Hospital last month when the Israeli tanks closed in.
But doctors, he fretted, face one of three fates in wartime Gaza: displacement, detention or death. Read more
[2pm Doha Time] Two injured people travel from al-Mawasi to Deir el-Balah for medical help: PRCS
The ambulance teams of the Palestine Red Crescent Society have provided first aid to two injured people and tranferred them to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
????The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance teams dealt with two injuries that arrived at the entrance of Deir al-Balah city after being injured by Israeli occupation gunfire in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis. They were provided with first aid and transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs… pic.twitter.com/zPXbQO0c5N
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) February 25, 2024
They travelled on a donkey cart to Deir el-Balah city after being shot and injured by the Israeli troops at the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis.
[1pm Doha Time] Rescuers continue to search for Palestinians trapped under rubble in north Gaza
Civil defence, paramedics, and volunteers continue their operations to rescue people under the rubble in Beit Lahiya, where three people were killed in a home, and in areas south of Gaza City, including the Zeitoun neighbourhood. There, another home was destroyed, killing three more people from one family and leaving others trapped under the rubble. The type of bombs that were used there flatten entire buildings, civil defence crew members on the ground tol Al Jazeera.
People walk in front of the Al-Faruk mosque, levelled by Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 25, 2024. (Photo by Mohammed Abed / AFP)
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, artillery shelling is ongoing, while attack drones and surveillance drones are in the air.
[12pm Doha Time] Displaced women from Beit Hanoon share tales of displacement and famine
Displaced women from Beit Hanoon in the north of the Gaza Strip who arrived in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, spoke about the exhaustion from being displaced multiple times and the stories of hunger threatening the inhabitants of the strip to Al Jazeera.
Adiba Mohamed Abdel-Razek Abu-Amsha said the Israeli troops stormed northern Gaza’s Remal school she and her family were sheltering in with tanks and bulldozers, and took her disabled husband, Mohamed Saleh Isa Abu-Amsha, in custody.
“They took my husband who was a prisoner in the Israeli jail for seven years, who was sick and crippled, who wore diapers since he left the Israeli jail,” she told Al Jazeera.
“We suffer a lot. It is not fair to face starvation and face lack of everything. Our life is a complete misery. We are far behind the pace of civilisation and we can’t achieve any progress in the future. The suffering of the Palestinian people is unprecedented. We live in misery and suffering since birth,” Abu-Amsha added.
Zarifa Ahmed Abdel-Hadi Hamed, 73-year-old from Beit Hanoon, said she has seen “so many wars but this one is the worst”.
“I have never witnessed the starvation like this … The last 45 years for the Palestinians are the worst in history and this war comes on top of everything else. We have never seen such humiliation … Death for us is much better than our current life,” she said.
[11am Doha Time] Palestinian official discusses challenges facing UNRWA with French counterpart
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) top official for refugee affairs has met with a French diplomat to discuss the financial challenges facing the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, Wafa has reported.
Ahmed Abu Houli, the head of the PLO’s Refugee Affairs Department, met French Deputy Consul Quentin Lopinot on Saturday to discuss UNRWA’s difficulties amid a funding freeze by more than a dozen countries, Wafa said.
“The presence of UNRWA and the continuation of its services in its areas of operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, constitute a factor of stability in the region and a lifeline for Palestinian refugees who depend mainly on its services and food and cash assistance,” Wafa quoted Abu Houli as saying.
Lopinot said his country continued to support UNRWA and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, according to Wafa.
France is one of at least 16 countries that suspended funding to UNRWA.
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[10:45am Doha Time] Hospital in northern Gaza treating newborns for malnutrition
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, says the facility has seen a steep rise in malnutrition cases among children, especially newborns.
“Signs of weakness and paleness are apparent on newborns because the mother is malnourished,” Abu Safiya says.
The hospital, in the northern Gaza Strip, has treated babies with advanced dehydration and other complications from malnutrition, he says.
“Unfortunately many kids have died in the past weeks.”
“If we don’t get the proper aid urgently, we will be losing more and more to malnutrition.”
Palestinians flee their homes following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 24, 2024. Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
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[10am Doha Time] ‘We have no water, no flour, and we are very tired’: northern Gaza residents cut off from aid
Oum Wajdi Salha, a resident of Jabalia, has described the search for food in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.
“We have no water, no flour and we are very tired because of hunger. Our backs and eyes hurt because of fire and smoke,” she said.
“We have become pale due to hunger and we can’t stand on our feet because of hunger and lack of food,” Salha added.
A man sits amid the destruction following overnight Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 23, 2024. Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
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[9:30am Doha Time] Baby dies after family unable to find milk in northern Gaza
A two-month-old child, named Mahmoud Fattouh, has died of malnutrition in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Wafa news agency is reporting, citing medical sources.
Baby Mahmud died after his family was unable to find milk and basic supplies.
A paramedic who helped Mahmud’s parents bring him to the hospital says, “We saw a woman carrying her baby, screaming for help. Her pale baby seemed to be taking his last breath.”
The paramedic says that they rushed Mahmud to the hospital where he was taken to the ICU with acute malnutrition but didn’t survive.
Gaza City is in the northern Gaza Strip, where almost no food has been delivered since the beginning of the year, and UNRWA and the WFP have both now suspended aid activities.
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[9am Doha Time] No milk for babies in Gaza: Paediatrician
Moaz Al Majida, a paediatrician in Gaza, says that nursing mothers are unable to lactate as their health worsens, affecting the health of their babies.
“Children are also eating food that lacks essential nutrients for their growth,” Al Majida added.
Earlier this week, a new analysis from UNICEF and other aid organisations said that “a steep rise in malnutrition among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza strip poses grave threats to their health”.
“The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,” said UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations, Ted Chaiban.
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[8:30am Doha Time] ‘Increased airstrikes in Rafah’ hurting ‘overstretched’ aid efforts: UNRWA
The latest situation report from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said that “increased airstrikes in Rafah have heightened fears for the already “overstretched humanitarian operations” in the southern Gaza city.
UNRWA also said that thousands of Palestinians are still fleeing to Rafah after weeks of “intense fighting in and around” neighbouring Khan Younis.
The report comes as Israeli forces have killed at least seven people, including a child, in an attack on central Rafah.
Rafah has become densely overcrowded with almost 1.5 million people sheltering there, according to UNRWA.
Rafah is also the only location through which aid trucks are entering the Gaza Strip but UNRWA says fewer than 35 trucks entered the besieged enclave on average per day last week.
On Friday, UNRWA spokesperson Adnan Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera that the agency is no longer able to provide assistance in northern Gaza.
