Today's Edition
GAZA (WAM, ALETIHAD)
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday that almost 3,000 children have been cut off from treatment for moderate and severe acute malnutrition in southern Gaza, putting them at risk of death.
The Gaza Strip is facing a severe malnutrition crisis among children, exacerbated by the collapse of treatment services. Currently, only two of the region’s three stabilisation centres for serious malnutrition are operational, UNICEF said, with new centres’ openings delayed due to ongoing military operations.
Treatment for acute malnutrition requires six to eight weeks of care and resources like therapeutic food and safe water, which are scarce, the statement added, noting that the situation is worsened by a significant reduction in water production and damage to infrastructure, increasing the risk of diseases among malnourished children.
In its statement, the UNICEF said: “While there has been a slight improvement in the delivery of food aid to the north, humanitarian access in the south has declined dramatically.”
UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr said: “Horrific images continue to emerge from Gaza of children dying before their families’ eyes due to the continued lack of food, nutrition supplies, and the destruction of healthcare services.”
“Unless treatment can be quickly resumed for these 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, acquiring life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls who have been killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation,” she added.
“Our warnings of mounting child deaths from a preventable combination of malnutrition, dehydration and disease should have mobilized immediate action to save children’s lives, and yet, this devastation continues,” Khodr said.
“With hospitals destroyed, treatments stopped and supplies scant, we are poising for more child suffering and deaths.”
Khodr added: “We need better operating conditions on the ground, with more safety and less restrictions. But ultimately, it is a ceasefire that children need most.”
