Gaza- Umm Yahya Al -Qishawi embraces one of her infants with a hand, and puts the other hand on a nursery in which her second baby is in the “Al -Aqsa Martyrs Hospital” in City Deir Al -Balah (middle SectorThe looks of love and attention are distributed between her twins from two sins, and her heart fails strongly anxiety over them, as a result of the deterioration of their health due to malnutrition.
The 38 -year -old mother is very concerned about her twin “Majid” and “Mounir”, who gave birth to them early a few days ago, and the doctors decided to put them in the nursery, because of their weight and suffering from malnutrition.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health warnings increase the anxiety of this mother, as normal nor therapeutic milk is available in the sector’s hospitals, as a result of the Israeli occupation preventing any milk shipment for nearly 4 months.
Dangerous birth
For many years, the mother of the infant has been suffering from childbearing problems, until she gave her eldest child Yahya 3 years ago, to discover during the war, as she says to Al -Jazeera Net, carrying her with this twin. Siege The famine stole my joy, it was a very difficult and harsh experience. “
Umm Yahya did not complete her eighth month in pregnancy, as she underwent an emergency caesarean section due to her suffering from acute malnutrition, and she put her twin with a weight that does not exceed a kilogram and a half kilograms for each of them, and this was called up to enter the nursery department.
On the fifth day, the health condition of one of the two infants has improved, while the other remained in the nursery, and Umm Yahya says, “I feel that my heart has been made for half of anxiety over both of them, and I do not know how I will manage my affairs with milk.”
The mother herself suffers from malnutrition, and she says that she cannot breastfeed her normal twins, and at the same time the milk is not available in pharmacies, and if it is available in some of them, its prices are very high and are not strengthened on them.
Umm Yahya and her family resides in the city of Deir Al -Balah since her forced displacement from her home in Al -Shuja’ia neighborhood (East of Gaza City) After the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Strip in October 7 2023. “The war has affected everyone, and our economic conditions are difficult, and we cannot provide a weekly milk packaging for my twin.”
Not far from the nursery department at the Al -Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Asma Abu Jumaa was standing next to her infant Youssef, who put it a few days ago, and he summoned his health and his lack of weight to enter the nursery as well.
The difficult period of pregnancy that Umm Youssef, 38, has left her effect on her baby, although she breastfed her naturally at first, but she was unable to continue this, because she also suffers from famine and there is no eggs, meat, chicken, and fruits in the sector that help breastfeeding to generate milk, and at the same time, artificial milk is not available in hospitals and pharmacies.
Umm Youssef – as she says to Al -Jazeera Net – went through the experience of pregnancy and childbirth 12 times before her recent experience during the war, which she considers the harshest, psychologically and physically, where fear and hunger, during which she suffered a decrease in the blood rate.
The Palestinian lady and her family live in the town of Al -Zawaida in the middle of the Strip, and their living conditions have worsened during the past months, because of the regularity of a charity action that is their main source of food supply.
As a result of the tight Israeli siege since last March 2, the closure of the crossings and the prevention of the introduction of humanitarian aid, most charitable food was out of service, the famine was widely spread and has been widespread with more than two million Palestinians in the sector.
Umm Youssef says that the economic situation of her family does not allow the purchase of scarce vegetables already in the markets and is sold at fictional prices, and she is very concerned about her infant and other brothers “and all children suffer from hunger and malnutrition.”
A real disaster
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have warned of an imminent health disaster that threatens the lives of thousands of cheeky children (newborns) and infants in the nursery departments, as a result of the depletion of ordinary and therapeutic milk of all kinds.
The head of the Children’s Children’s Hospital and Childbirth in the “Nasser Medical Complex”, Dr. Ahmed Al -Farra – to Al -Jazeera Net – says that government hospitals and private and international health institutions suffer from a complete lack of infant formula, whether normal or therapeutic, as a result of the occupation prohibiting its entry into the sector 4 months ago.
Al -Farra explained that the milk designated for the different stages of the child’s growth has become completely missing from the health sector, which threatens real dangers that may kill the lives of thousands of children, unless the competent international institutions and bodies are blowing to pressure Israel to open the crossings and enter the milk quickly and within a few hours.
These risks to premature births and infants increase with mothers suffering from malnutrition, and their inability to breastfeed, according to Dr. Al -Farra’s assertion.
The “Liberation Building” for children in Nasser Medical Complex receives the largest and only government in the city Khan Yunis (South of the Strip) About 10 cases per day for children with acute malnutrition.
“We cannot accommodate all daily cases due to severe overcrowding in the departments and the lack of possibilities to prevent the occupation of milk and medical and nutritional supplies,” says Al -Farra.
Official Palestinian data indicate that the number of victims of starvation and malnutrition among children, with their various age stages, has reached 60 cases so far.
According to the Al -Farra doctor, the child’s feeding shortage in his first three years not only leads to death or diseases, but also leaves permanent effects on mental and psychological development, which may accompany him for the rest of his life or for many years.
“Silent genocide”
Last Thursday, the “Rantisi Hospital” in Gaza City launched an urgent appeal to intervene in order to stop the catastrophe that threatens the lives of hundreds of children due to the complete interruption of milk. He said that he currently does not have any single milk can, despite receiving dozens of children who face malnutrition and poor absorption.
“Children constitute the largest percentage of potential victims in the next stage, due to the fragility of their bodies and their inability to withstand this suffocating food siege, which puts the crime of the siege and closing the crossings in the ranks of genocide.”
The government official added that “the children are left alone in the face of the slow death machine, without food, no medicine, no clean water, not even infant milk,” accusing Israel of committing what he called “a silent genocide against the children of Gaza using starvation and preventing milk.”