Geneva (Union)
United Nations organizations reported yesterday that malnutrition rates among children in the northern Gaza Strip are “extremely aggravating,” and are about three times higher than in the southern Palestinian Strip, where more aid is available.
Richard Peppercorn, the World Health Organization's representative in Gaza and the West Bank, said that one out of every six children under two in the northern Gaza Strip suffers from acute malnutrition.
He added: “This was in January; “So the situation is likely to be worse today,” he said, referring to the month in which the data was recorded.
James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that malnutrition rates among children under five in northern Gaza are three times higher than those in Rafah in the south. Access to aid in the Gaza Strip has been very limited since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
Elder added that this situation reveals that “the arrival of even a small amount of aid makes a difference in saving lives.”
Medical sources in Gaza said last Sunday that at least 15 children died in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip during the past few days, due to malnutrition and dehydration.
Calls for Israel to make more efforts to address the humanitarian crisis increased after the killing of Palestinians who were gathering to obtain aid in Gaza last month.
The health authorities in Gaza revealed that 118 people were killed in that incident, and attributed the cause to gunfire by Israeli forces.
In addition to hunger, Elder said: There is an increasing risk of infectious diseases, as nine out of every ten children under the age of five, or about 220,000, have been infected with the disease in recent weeks.
He told reporters in Geneva: “This is the cycle that we are so afraid of: infectious diseases, food shortages, severe shortages of clean water, continuous bombing, and constant anxiety about launching an attack on Rafah, a city where children are sheltering.”
He added: “About three-quarters of a million children live in Rafah.”
Last month, Israel intensified its bombing of the city of Rafah, where estimates indicate that about 1.5 million people are crowded there, after most of them fled their homes in the north to escape the Israeli military attack.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that a quarter of the Strip's population, 576,000 people, is one step away from famine, about five months after the start of the Israeli attack.
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