ECONOMYENXT – Clinics run by Médecins Sans Frontières in Gaza are beginning to overflow with malnourished kids and pregnant mothers who are severely as Israel food blockade starve the population, the medical charity said.
At MSF clinics, injured patients beg for food instead of medicine – their wounds failing to heal because of protein deficiency, the charity said calling for urgent unrestricted humanitarian access, a sustained flow of food and medical aid into Gaza, and the protection of civilians.
More than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and nearly 500 children with severe and moderate malnutrition are currently enrolled in ambulatory therapeutic feeding centres in two clinics in Gaza, the charity said.
“Patient enrolment in the MSF Gaza City clinic almost quadrupled in under two months, from 293 cases in May, up to 983 cases at the beginning of July,” MSF said.
In July, 326 were infants between six and 23 months old.
Critics have accused the government of Benjamin Nethaniyahu of carrying out systematic genocide of the Gaza population.
The existence of malnutrition in Gaza is the result of deliberate, calculated choices by the Israeli authorities, where food entry is restructured, the distribution is militarised, all while having destroyed the majority of local food production capacity, the MSF said.
A system-wide collapse is ongoing, with sewage contamination because infrastructure is destroyed, restrictions on fuel are limiting the production of clean water, and overcrowded camps undermining health and compromising people’s immunity.
“Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and poor water and sanitation services, many babies are being born prematurely,” Joanne Perry, MSF doctor said in the statement.
“Our neonatal intensive care unit [in Al-Helou hospital] is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator.
“Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilogrammes. The situation is beyond critical.”
Parents are also deliberately skipping meals to feed their children. Malnourished women, who do receive therapeutic food, end up giving their own treatment supplements to their children. (Colombo/Aug04/2025)
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