Nasser Medical Complex: Gaza's children suffer from symptoms that have disappeared in the modern era.

Malnutrition among children in the Gaza Strip has reached levels that will continue to have serious health consequences even if the world is able to save their lives by bringing in food, drink, and baby formula.

The children's hospital at Nasser Medical Complex in the southern Gaza Strip is teeming with dozens of children facing death due to malnutrition and the lack of formula milk, the sole food source for infants under six months old.

With the increasing number of cases, hospital administrators have been forced to put children to sleep in the hallways and corridors, while thousands more are outside, finding nothing to prevent them from dying, according to hospital director Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra.

The lack of both types of infant formula poses a dilemma for infants under six months old. Not a single carton of milk remains in the Gaza Strip, and if it is available, it is often expired and costs up to $150, according to what Al-Farra confirmed in an interview with Al Jazeera.

general feeling of frustration

Nasser Hospital is trying to save as many of the children who have arrived as possible using the very small quantities of milk provided by donors and international organizations, while families abroad are seeking alternatives such as water, anise, and chamomile.

All doctors, including foreigners who recently arrived to inspect the situation, are deeply frustrated by the deteriorating conditions of the children, who are exhibiting symptoms no longer present in modern times, such as hair loss, fluid retention, and body atrophy.

Even if the world were able to save these children, Israel would have condemned an entire generation of Palestinians to chronic memory, intelligence, and weight loss, because a child's nervous system develops during the first three years of life, Al-Farra says.

Developing a child's nervous system requires a number of essential elements, such as magnesium, folic acid, and vitamins B, C, and D, all of which are no longer available to children in the Gaza Strip, causing their organs to gradually stop functioning.

Children in Gaza are not dying from chronic illnesses, as Israel claims. All those who have died in recent days, and those currently facing death, are suffering from no illness other than severe malnutrition, according to Al-Farra.

Currently, 11-year-old Seela Barbakh is being treated at Nasser Hospital. She weighs 3.5 kilograms, while her normal weight should be at least 10 kilograms. She is not suffering from any other illness.

Israel has completely banned the entry of baby formula since last March, prompting one family to feed their infant canned milk, resulting in emergency surgery to save him from choking.

Hospital staff are running out of food after the World Kitchen refused to provide them with food two weeks ago, meaning Israel is using "the dirtiest weapon in history: starvation" during this war, Al-Farra said.

The Nasser complex is treating approximately 30 children who have reached the stage of severe malnutrition, while 600,000 children under the age of 10 face starvation, including 60,000 children under the age of six months.

alarming reports

Children cannot tolerate a lack of food because their bodies lack muscle mass. Consequently, their organs begin to gradually shut down after six hours of deprivation. When the condition worsens, treatment requires specific protocols that are not available in hospitals in the Gaza Strip, which do not even have nutritional supplements.

Commenting on the situation, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday expressed its alarm at reports of children dying of starvation in Gaza, blaming the blockade as the cause.

Oxfam also said that diseases are spreading in Gaza, while Israel continues to deny people food and water, confirming that waterborne diseases in the Strip have increased by 150%.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced 10 deaths due to malnutrition in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 111 children. The Government Information Office reported 115 deaths due to food and water shortages.

In turn, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the Gaza Strip is experiencing deadly levels of malnutrition, a day after UN Secretary-General António Guterres asserted that what is happening now is unprecedented in modern times, and that famine is knocking on every door in Gaza.