By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -Malnutrition rates are rising in Gaza, emergency treatments to counter it are running out and hunger could have a lasting impact on “an entire generation”, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.
Israel has blockaded supplies into the enclave since early March, when it resumed its devastating military campaign against Hamas, and a global hunger monitor on Monday warned that half a million people there faced starvation.
WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Rik Peeperkorn said he had seen children who looked years younger than their age and visited a north Gaza hospital where over 20% of children screened suffered from acute malnutrition.
“What we see is an increasing trend in generalised acute malnutrition,” Peeperkorn told a press briefing by video link from Deir al-Balah. “I’ve seen a child that’s five years old, and you would say it was two-and-a-half.”
“Without enough nutritious food, clean water and access to healthcare, an entire generation will be permanently affected,” he said, warning of stunting and impaired cognitive development.
The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency Philippe Lazzarini told the BBC on Tuesday that he thought Israel was denying food and aid to civilians as a weapon of war.
Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas for causing hunger by stealing aid meant for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.
Israel is pressing its own U.S.-backed plan to get aid into Gaza which it says will cut out Hamas and distribute aid directly from what it calls neutral distribution sites.
The WHO criticised it in a statement late on Monday as “grossly inadequate” to meet the population’s immediate needs.
Due to the blockade, WHO only has enough stocks to treat 500 children with acute malnutrition, which is only a fraction of what is needed, Peeperkorn said.
Already, 55 children have died of acute malnutrition, he said, citing Gaza Health Ministry figures.
Peeperkorn said he had seen many children in hospitals with illnesses such as gastroenteritis and pneumonia which, due to their reduced immunity linked to hunger, could be fatal.
“You normally don’t die from starvation. You die from the diseases associated to that,” he said.
(Reporting by Emma Farge, editing by Rachel More, Alex Richardson, William Maclean)
