‘When the formula runs out, I sometimes have to feed her bread soaked in tea because there is no other alternative’
WHEN the Israelis are not burning Palestinian children alive or shooting precisely at their heads as some form of grotesque sport, they are starving them to death by restricting the entry of milk and infant formula, alongside a long list of prohibited food items, in the Gaza Strip.
“The shortage of infant formula poses a direct threat to the lives of infants and children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and directly affects their physical and mental development,” Ultra Palestine reported on Saturday.
Despite the supposed ceasefire, the Israelis have severely restricted humanitarian aid in the besieged enclave, making it extremely difficult for genocide survivors to secure adequate nutrition. Children and infants — forced by the Israelis and their Western enablers to grow up in catastrophic conditions in a devastated land on which at least six Hiroshimas’ worth of bombs have been dropped over the past 32 months — have been left to endure inhumane suffering that their fragile bodies are unable to bear.
“Six-year-old Yasser Arafat is one of dozens of children suffering because of this crisis,” the report said. “As a result, he has been hospitalised for the past six months at Al-Tahrir Hospital within Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, where he suffers from recurrent episodes of illness and severe acute malnutrition.”
The Israelis have been preventing medical evacuations for patients for whom treatment is not available in Gaza after they decimated the enclave’s medical infrastructure. Yasser’s mother, who has lost her husband and her other son during the genocide, hopes that a medical referral and subsequent evacuation will help her save his life:
Doctors suspect that Yasser has a genetic disorder, but the lack of specialised diagnostic testing in the Gaza Strip has prevented an accurate diagnosis. He has been waiting for five months for a medical referral that would allow him to complete the necessary tests outside Gaza.
Yasser’s mother, Iman, says her fears grow with each passing day, especially after she lost both her husband and her other child, who was nine years old when he died. Both passed away this year after developing the same symptoms that Yasser is now experiencing.
She explains that Yasser’s symptoms first appeared when he was five years old and included recurrent body swelling, shortness of breath, severe protein and calcium deficiency, repeated bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting, high fever, and a scaly skin rash covering different parts of his body.
Yasser suffers from severe malnutrition that has clearly affected his growth. Despite being six years old, he now weighs only 13 kilograms. Worse still, his condition continues to deteriorate over time because he is deprived of appropriate treatment and adequate nutrition.
Iman says doctors rely on the therapeutic milk formula F-100 to treat Yasser. It helps improve his nutritional status and reduce the swelling, but the limited supply threatens the stability of his health. Yasser consumes one can of therapeutic formula every three days.
His mother adds that Yasser’s condition improves temporarily whenever treatment and proper nutrition are available, only to relapse repeatedly because of shortages of medical supplies and food.
Now, all Iman hopes for is that a medical referral will be issued, allowing Yasser to travel to a country where he can undergo diagnostic testing and receive treatment that could save his life. Her greatest fear is that her son will join his father and brother if treatment continues to be delayed.
Endemic Malnutrition
The famine and the acute shortage of food in the Gaza Strip have taken a huge toll on expectant mothers. Deprived of adequate nutrition during their pregnancies, they have often given birth to underweight children, who have also faced other health complications.
Jouri al-Hawari is one such child. She was born underweight, weighing no more than two kilograms, after her mother carried her during the period of the Israeli-engineered famine in Gaza. Breastfeeding stopped when she was two months old because of health complications affecting her mother, leaving her entirely dependent on therapeutic and infant formula.
“Jouri has been hospitalised for the past two weeks after suffering repeated bouts of diarrhoea, vomiting, fever, and dehydration — complications made worse by the malnutrition from which she suffers,” the report added. “Although she is now nine months old, she weighs only four and a half kilograms, reflecting the severe impact of malnutrition on her growth.”
Her mother, Islam, says that the ongoing shortage of therapeutic formula and nutritional supplements deprives her daughter of her basic nutritional needs and delays both improvement in her condition and her chances of recovery.
“We rely entirely on the formula provided by hospitals,” Islam said, “but the available quantities have become extremely limited. When the formula runs out, I sometimes have to feed her bread soaked in tea because there is no other alternative.”
She added that Jouri also suffers from dehydration and requires a specialised diet and nutritional supplements to help her regain weight and improve her health. She must return to the hospital repeatedly because her condition continues to worsen.
Children at Risk
Israa al-Najjar, head of the Therapeutic Nutrition Department at Nasser Medical Complex, told Ultra Palestine that increasing numbers of children have become dependent on infant and therapeutic formula because many mothers are suffering from famine, displacement, and injuries, all of which have impaired their ability to breastfeed.
She warned that the shortage of infant formula poses a direct threat to the lives of infants and children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. It also directly affects their physical and cognitive development while increasing the risk of serious health complications.
She said that Stage 1 and Stage 2 infant formula are currently unavailable at the medical complex, while only limited quantities of therapeutic formula remain despite the growing number of children who need it.
Al-Najjar stressed that children’s nutritional needs extend beyond milk alone. They also require nutritional supplements, fruits, and vegetables, all of which have become out of reach for many families due to the continuing Israeli siege.
Only a fraction of the agreed-upon 600 aid trucks per day have been allowed into Gaza as part of the “ceasefire” agreement. The blockade has led to a severe shortage of food, medicines, and fuel as the struggles of genocide survivors refuse to subside.
The Israelis have killed more than 21,000 children since the start of the genocide against Gaza. Their illegal blockade continues to endanger more lives. — Palestine Will Be Free
