Malnourished mothers beg hospitals for milk to feed babies as Gaza famine declared

A Palestinian girl waits at a community kitchen before donated food is distributed in Gaza City. Picture: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Breastfeeding mothers are begging hospitals in Gaza for milk because they are too malnourished to produce their own, a doctor working on the frontline has said.

On Friday, UN-backed experts officially declared a famine in and around Gaza City, saying it is entirely man-made, and warning an immediate response is needed or avoidable deaths will soar.

Dr Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al Awda Hospital, told the Irish Examiner of what he and his team are encountering on the ground.

“Women are coming with children who need milk because there is no milk,” he said, adding that the babies can be as young as one or two weeks old.

“Sometimes the women coming, they are breastfeeding these children, so we give it to them. 

"But for children who are five or six months old, they also need milk, but we don’t have this milk.” 

Al Awda Hospital is a partner of Action Aid and runs a network of hospitals and clinics. One branch is near an aid distribution point run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“A place of death” is how he described this aid-point, saying people wait for food, but they are treated “like animals” instead.

Aid is the only option for many with the spiralling cost of any remaining food, but not enough is coming in, he said.

In a clinic run as an emergency department, “we can say 600 or 700 persons” are treated every day. 

An additional 800 patients are seen daily across the Al Awda network, including the nutrition clinic.

Throughout this, the staff are constantly at risk. Six have been killed already, and others have been taken captive.

“It’s dangerous, but we can’t leave our people behind us,” he said. 

“We have a strategy that if anyone needs health services, then Al Awda will not leave where we are needed.” 

Dr Salha said he cannot imagine what will happen if Israel goes ahead with plans to seize Gaza City, saying it is now “unbelievably crowded” with refugees and residents.

Palestinians struggle to receive donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip. Picture: Abdel Kareem Hana

Famine was declared in and around Gaza City on Thursday by the globally recognised Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

It found that three key thresholds for famine had been met, signalling a major escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Only four famines have been declared by the IPC since it was established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year.

“This famine is entirely man-made; it can be halted and reversed,” the report says. 

“The time for debate and hesitation has passed; starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. 

"There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed."

Israel rejected the findings, claiming there was no famine in Gaza and that the findings were based on “Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests”.