Unicef official in Gaza says wards full of ‘skeletal’ children

Hospital wards in Gaza are full of ‘skeletal’ children, a top UN official warned after witnessing starving youngsters die in front of their parents.

One of Unicef’s top officials confirmed that malnutrition in Gaza is widespread and said he had witnessed children “slipping away” under their mothers gaze during a tour of the enclave’s hospitals.

James Elder visited the Kamal Adwan hospital, in Beit Lahia, on Thursday, where he said he saw a dozen children suffering with the most severe and life-threatening levels of malnutrition and hunger.

Six-year-old Fadi Al-Zant is one of those children. Crippled with hunger and acutely malnourished, Fadi is skeletal, his ribs protruding under his paper-thin skin and his face gaunt as he lies limp in his hospital bed and helplessly calls for his “mama” to help him.

Fadi’s mother sobbed by his side. “I’ve had many brave women here hold my hand in tears. They’re exhausted. They’re just so desperate to protect their children, not just from the bombings, but now from starvation,” Mr Elder told the Telegraph on Friday.

“There were quite a few children like that in the ward. Many much younger babies...skeletal. I hate to say it, but I don’t know if some of them will be alive this morning.”

Mr Elder said that the ward he visited was “at capacity”, and filled with malnourished children.

According to Unicef, one in three children under the age of two in the north of the Strip currently suffering with acute malnutrition. Prior to Israel’s invasion, this figure stood at just 0.8 per cent for all children under five.

Mr Elder, who has worked for Unicef for two decades, said that there were many more children suffering who can’t access hospitals, most of which are closed or severely damaged.

Describing what he had seen in Gaza, he said: “There’s a sunken look of terror in the child’s eyes, one of fear and bewilderment and there’s an ominous look in a parent’s eyes when they realise that their child right in front of them is slipping away.”

The UN’s hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, warned on Monday that famine is “imminent” in the north of the Gaza Strip, with hundreds of thousands of people now facing “catastrophic” levels of hunger.

Mr Elder said it would be “too late” for many children by the time a famine is declared and said it was “indefensible” that the global community is waiting to act. 

“This [crisis] is entirely man made, it can therefore be fixed,” he said. “Flooding the Gaza strip with aid” was what was needed, he said.

Prior to entering the Strip, Mr Elder filmed himself next to “hundreds” of aid trucks held at the border by the Israelis. He said it was “outrageous” that supplies - including food, water and medicine - were being held so “desperately close to those who need them.”

So far, the UN has confirmed that at least 10 children have died as a result of starvation. These deaths were reported in the north of Gaza, where an estimated 300,000 people remain.

The Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry says 27 children have died of malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks. The ministry claims others have died in Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, also in the north, and in the southernmost city of Rafah. These claims have not been independently verified.

Al-Shifa hospital, the Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, has been under siege for five consecutive days. The Israeli military claimed on Thursday that they had killed over 50 armed Palestinians during “exchanges of fire” and said troops had detained over 500 suspects. 

Nearly all of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been forced to close because of the fighting. There are only 12 hospitals – six in the north and six south of Wadi Gaza – that remain only partially functional, facing critical shortages of electricity, medications, medical equipment, food, and personnel.

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