Geneva, March 5 (RHC)-- The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned about more child deaths in the Gaza Strip amid a widespread lack of food and access to safe water and medical services. In a post on its X account, UNRWA said that "children in the Gaza Strip are dying slowly before the eyes of the world."
The comment came following the deaths of 15 children as a result of dehydration and malnutrition in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. In a statement in Gaza City, Ashraf al-Qidra, the health ministry spokesperson in country, voiced concern over the "lives of 6 (other) children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea at the hospital's intensive care unit as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen and the weakness of medical capabilities."
Since October 7, at least 30,534 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and more than 71,920 injured as a result of the Israeli regime forces' continuous onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Israel has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
The United Nations also warned that child deaths will “rapidly increase” in Gaza if humanitarian aid deliveries do not immediately increase. Adele Khodr, regional director for the UN children’s aid organization, said in a statement that numerous reported child deaths in Gaza are “man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.”
She added: "The widespread lack of nutritious food, safe water and medical services, a direct consequence of the impediments to access and multiple dangers facing UN humanitarian operations, is impacting children and mothers."
She emphasized that people in Palestine are hungry, exhausted and traumatized and many of them are clinging to life. The UN official cautioned against the dire situation in northern Gaza, where fighting has gone on the longest and aid is less accessible.
Khodr noted that about 16 percent of children showed signs of malnutrition in a study in January. Since the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza in October, she said, UNICEF has been warning that the death toll in the Strip would "increase exponentially" if a humanitarian crisis emerged and was left to fester.
"The situation has only gotten worse, and as a result, last week, we warned that an explosion in child deaths was imminent if the burgeoning nutrition crisis wasn’t resolved," she pointed out.
“Now, the child deaths we feared are here and are likely to rapidly increase unless the war ends and obstacles to humanitarian relief are immediately resolved.”
The international charity organization "Save the Children" has sounded a strong alarm about the rising death toll and sufferings being exacted on children in the Gaza Strip. "Families can't find anything to feed their kids in #Gaza. They're being forced to forage for scraps of food left by rats & eating leaves out of desperation," the organization wrote on its X account.
The organization has warned that the risk of famine will increase so long as Israel continues to impede the entry of humanitarian aid.
