The “unthinkable” is underway in Gaza City, Unicef ​​warns

Tess Ingram, director of communication for UnicefThe Middle East and North African regional office recently spent nine days there, describing it as “a city of fear, theft and funeral”.

“The latest refuge for the northern families of the Gaza Strip is Quickly become a place where childhood cannot survive“She said, speaking of the enclave to New York journalists.

Children fight for survival ‘

Nearly a million people remain in Gaza City, where the collapse of essential services leaves its youngest and most vulnerable residents “fighting for survival” while famine spreads and helps barely.

Only 44 of the ambulatory nutrition treatment centers supported by UNICEF are always functional, which means that thousands of children suffering from malnutrition do not have access to these critical rescue lines.

Meanwhile, hospitals “are on their knees”. Only 11 still partially operate and only five have neonatal intensive care units, or USI.

“The 40 incubators between them operate up to 200%, which means that there are as much as 80 babies fighting for life in overcrowded machinesCompletely dependent on generators and medical supplies that can be dry at any time, “she said.

“Small bodies shredded by bursts of shells”

In Gaza City, Ms. Ingram has again met families who have been on the run, children who have been separated from their parents and mothers whose children died of hunger or who fear that their offspring be the next one.

“I spoke to children in hospital beds, their little bodies shredded by bursts of buses,” she said. “” The unthinkable is not looming. He’s already there. The climbing is underway. “”

Famine is “everywhere” in the city of Gaza

Famine was “wherever I looked in in the city of Gaza,” she said. “An hour in a nutritional clinic is enough to erase any question to find out if there is a famine,” she added.

In these clinics, waiting rooms are filled with parents in tears, “children fighting the double punch of disease and malnutrition”, mothers unable to breastfeed and “babies losing their vision, their hair and their strength to walk”.

As elsewhere in the enclave, whole families survive a bowl of lenses or rice per day of community kitchens. Parents often get along so that their children can have something to eat.

A sad meeting

Last week, Ms. Ingram visited a stabilization center that treats children Mal Nourris and was shocked to find a woman called Nesma and her daughter, Jana.

UNICEF had evacuated the girl for treatment in the south of Gaza over a year ago and she recovered. Jana and her mother then returned to Northern Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year to find the rest of their family

“Then, the blockade on aid, hunger returned, and this time the two children of Nesma deteriorated.” Her two -year -old daughter Jouri died of malnutrition last month and Jana “is barely hung”.

‘More children die of hunger’

Ingram said that children like Jana “returned to emergency services or relapse just a few weeks after completing the treatment of malnutrition due to the lack of food, safe water and other essential supplies” in the Gaza Strip.

She said that “without immediate access and increased to food and nutritional treatments, this recurring nightmare will deepen and more children are dying of hunger – a spell that is entirely avoidable.”

UNICEF continues to respond to the crisis and, in the past two weeks, has provided partners in the field with enough therapeutic food ready to use to support more than 3,000 children of acute malnutrition during the six -week treatment.

The agency has also provided additional foods to support more than 1,400 infants as well as high -energy cookies for more than 4,600 pregnant and breastfed women, among other people such as drinking water and the construction of temporary learning centers.

“Our team does everything in their power to help children, but we could do much more, reaching each child here, if our field operations were activated on a large scale and we were well funded,” she said.

Malnutrition numbers increase

UNICEF is looking for $ 716 million this year for its response to Gaza, where needs are immense and infantile malnutrition continues to increase. In February, just over 2,000 young people were admitted for treatment. In July, the number increased to 13,000 and in mid-August had already reached 7,200.

The agency continues to call Israel to review its commitment rules to ensure that children are protected and that Hamas and other armed groups disclose all remaining hostages, said Ms. Ingram.

She highlighted the need for Israel to allow sufficient help to enter, while humanitors must be able to reach families in complete safety where they are.

His final advocacy was for the international community, in particular the influenced states and stakeholders, to use their lever effect to end the war now: “Because the cost of inaction will be measured in the life of children buried in the rubble, wasted by hunger and silence before even having the chance to speak.”