“Keep your mind on the child, because if the child is spared, there is hope” says the verse from the song “Kapote tha rthun na tou poun” by Pavlos Sidiropoulos.
But in Gaza, many children have lost their lives in the war that has been raging for five months. And what didn’t die slowly and excruciatingly starve to death. An irrefutable witness to this reality is the camera with the minors standing, most of them boneless, in line for a plate of food.
The United Nations has warned that famine “is inevitable”. According to the Hamas Health Ministry, at least 15 children have died of starvation and dehydration in a single hospital.
The media has recorded haunting images of emaciated infants with emaciated faces and eyes that seem to sink into despair.
Over the weekend, World Health Organization workers were able to visit hospitals in northern Gaza for the first time since October, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday at X.
He said the workers found “severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, severe shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed.”
Across Gaza 90% of children aged 6-23 months and pregnant women face severe food poverty, according to a report published two weeks ago by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a network of nutrition NGOs led by UNICEF .
At least 90% of children under the age of five are affected by one or more infectious diseases, the report added.
Aid groups accuse Israel of blocking food trucks from entering Gaza.
“As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has a responsibility to ensure that the occupied population receives food and medical supplies,” the International Rescue Committee said in a statement to AFP.
“The deliberate use of starvation of civilians as a method of war, depriving them of items necessary for their survival, including the deliberate obstruction of relief supplies, as provided for in the Geneva Conventions, constitutes a war crime,” he points out.
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