Jerusalem, Aug 23 (EFE).- At least eight people, among them two babies, have died in the Gaza Strip from hunger and malnutrition, medical sources said Saturday, as famine deepens after months of Israeli blockade on the entry of food and supplies.
The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed in a statement that “eight new deaths, including two children, were recorded in the last 24 hours due to famine and malnutrition,” bringing the toll to 281, 114 of them children, since the start of the Israeli military offensive.
Among the dead was five-month-old Ghadeer Brika, who died Friday at Naser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, from severe malnutrition. Ahmed, a doctor who treated her, confirmed the infant’s condition to EFE.
Ghadeer was born with atrophy and cerebral palsy, but the lack of food and nutritional supplements proved fatal.
“She died from lack of milk,” her father, Ashraf Brika, told the Palestinian agency Wafa, explaining that he tried in vain to find infant formula in the devastated enclave.
The child’s mother, Sahar Salim Brika, 31, is also suffering from malnutrition and was unable to breastfeed her daughter, the family said.
UN declares famine The United Nations announced Friday, for the first time in the Middle East, the formal declaration of famine in Gaza City and nearby areas, now affecting more than half a million people.
“It is a predictable and a preventable famine. A famine caused by cruelty, justified by revenge, enabled by indifference and sustained by complicity,” said Tom Fletcher, UN Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.
“It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war.”
Appeals for action In another statement, the Gaza Health Ministry urged the international community to move beyond declarations and act to stop what it called genocide.
“We emphasize that the instigation of famine is only one element in the chapters of genocide, which also includes the systematic destruction of the health sector and other sectors, mass killings, and the policy of generational eradication,” it warned.
“Hundreds of deaths could have been avoided, and the lives of thousands are at stake,” the ministry added. EFE
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