Almost 16% of children in Gaza already suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the WHO |

The deterioration in the nutritional status of the population of Gaza – particularly those in the north – in the four months since the war between Israel and Hamas began “is unprecedented globally.” This is the resounding message that the World Health Organization (WHO, in its Spanish acronym), the UN health agency, launched this Tuesday in Geneva, following visiting, in some cases for the first time since October 7, several hospitals in the north of the Strip. The rate of acute malnutrition—which causes irreparable emaciation or weight loss—of minors in the enclave has increased from 0.8% to 15.6% in this period. 90% of children and 95% of pregnant and lactating women face extreme food poverty. A dramatic report, released a few hours following another UN report was released that points to the probable sexual violence carried out by Hamas once morest the hostages, and illustrative of the hell that life has become in the Strip.

A WHO mission has managed to access two hospitals in northern Gaza, Al Shifa, where 50 children “suffer from severe acute malnutrition”, and Kamal Adwan, further north. According to Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, the pediatric unit of the latter center, which is “overflowing with patients” and which the mission was able to access for the first time since October 7, died. In the last few days 10 children due to hunger and dehydration. In another hospital center, Al Awda, the situation is “especially dire,” the senior UN official stressed, in an urgent call for humanitarian access to be facilitated.

Palestinian children wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, this Tuesday, March 5, in Rafah. Mohammed Salem (REUTERS)

According to Peeperkorn, most of the missions of the UN health agency in the north of the Strip were denied in January, while in February “none were facilitated”, because the protocol by which prior notification did not work. fighters the location of the aid. “The mechanism of deconfliction It must continue working so that help can reach those who need it,” the doctor insisted. Of the 16 aid missions requested in January, only three were approved, four were “prevented” and nine “denied,” according to the WHO representative.

Malnutrition – which causes irreparable wasting or morbid thinning in young children – was never the deadly threat in Gaza that it is now, as the enclave was largely self-sufficient in the production of fish and other foods, Peeperkorn has insisted. “Before the hostilities, wasting in the Gaza Strip was rare: only 0.8% of children under five years of age suffered from acute malnutrition,” she explained. “The (current) 15.6% wasting rate among children under two years of age in northern Gaza suggests a serious and rapid decline. “Such a decline in the nutritional status of a population in three months is unprecedented worldwide.”

The WHO official noted with concern that 90% of children under two years of age and 95% of pregnant and lactating women “face severe food poverty — meaning they have consumed two or fewer food groups.” [de los cinco considerados necesarios] on the previous day—and the foods they do have access to are those with the lowest nutritional value.”

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