Abdul Qader Al-Sarhi, 13, died of malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, located in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, the health center announced in a statement.
The authorities of the coastal enclave affirm that the number of deaths from this cause is actually much higher because they only count those who were admitted to hospitals.
Since the beginning of last month, the Rafah crossing, on the border with Egypt, has been closed after the ground offensive launched by the Israeli Army against the site and the city of the same name.
That crossing was Gaza’s only door to the world for more than seven months, both to evacuate the wounded and sick and to bring food, fuel and medicine into the territory.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned this week about the risk of fatal malnutrition and famine among the most vulnerable people in Gaza and insisted on the urgency of helping them.
That organization’s Geneva spokesman, Jens Laerke, noted that Gazans “are not receiving the amount they desperately need to avoid famine, to avoid all the kinds of horrors that we see.”
There is very, very little that is circulating at the moment, the official assured.
The World Health Organization recently revealed that 85 percent of children under five had not eaten for 24 hours at least once in the three days prior to a rapid survey on food insecurity.
The survey also found that 95 percent of children aged six to 23 months eat two or fewer different food groups per day.
ro/rob
