FAMILIES IN GAZA have resorted to boiling grass and eating animal feed as Israel’s food, water and aid blockade on the region enters its eleventh week.

Doctors in the Gaza Strip are witnessing and recording the highest levels ever of malnutrition in the territory. Acute levels of malnourishment are being seen in children and in pregnant women.

Humanitarian and medical organisations held an emergency press briefing this afternoon to brief the world’s media on what they are witnessing in Gaza, which has been blockaded from receiving aid by Israel.

Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s head of policy for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, whose family are currently in Gaza, said: “People are eating animal feed. They’re boiling grass.”

“Families are slaughtering their horses – something unimaginable in our culture, something sacred – just to feed their children.

We’ve seen people catching turtles from sewage-contaminated shores to cook and survive.

“Even my own family in Gaza, my brother-in-law Hassan, told me the children are dizzy most of the day. This is not because they are sick, but because they’re hungry. This is how deep this has gone,” Khalidi said.

A man in Northern Gaza grounds lentils as a replacement for flour in order to make bread for his family, image taken on 11 May, Alamy Alamy

Mahmoud Isleem of French medical organisation Médecins du Monde’s (MDM) Palestine, which operates eight clinics in Gaza, said the level of malnutrition his organisation is seeing is unprecedented.

One in four children are now presenting to clinics with evidence of malnutrition, as of last month. Isleem said the levels of malnutrition his organisation has recorded in Gaza can be compared with countries which have been suffering from the issue for decades.

Photo of a baby suffering from malnutrition, taken in Gaza on 5 May. One in four children are presenting with malnutrition in Gaza. Alamy Alamy

On 2 March, Israel formally began a full-scale blockade on Gaza’s access to food, water, fuel, medicine and other key humanitarian aid supplies. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said this week that Gaza is at risk of a food crisis “or worse” by September.

There is now a “critical risk of famine”, according to the global hunger monitor’s latest report.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues. Israel plans to scale up a ‘full force’ offensive on Gaza in the coming days.

‘Total collapse of dignity’

Dr Mike Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergency programme, said in an emotional speech in Switzerland at the beginning of this month that the children of Gaza are “starving”.

Oxfam’s Khalidi said today that Israel’s actions represent a “total disregard for humanitarian norms”.

Photo taken today, 14 May, after continued Israeli bomb strikes resulted in the death of civilians, including children, in Northern Gaza. Alamy Alamy

“This isn’t just a crisis – it’s a collapse. It’s a collapse of basic survival. It’s a collapse of dignity. It’s a collapse of the international order,” Khalidi said.

We’ve called repeatedly for a permanent ceasefire, repeatedly for full and unimpeded access and repeatedly for respect of international law, yet what we’re seeing the opposite.”

Families eating ‘rancid’ food

Soraya Ali, Global Media Manager at international charity Save the Children, said Israel’s blockade on Gaza has reduced life in the territory to an “inhumane nightmare”.

She said families are forced to eat “rancid food” to avoid hunger, and the most basic medical care is not available as Israel’s blockade enters its 73rd day.

Ali said: “The humanitarian situation is the worst it has ever been. People continue to be displaced. They’re being bombed and killed by bombs. Starved.”

Trucks stopped at the border between Egypt and Gaza after 2 March after Israel launched its full blockade. Alamy, file Alamy, file

Doctors without Borders (MSF) today urged the UN and the EU to use their political and economic leverage to stop the “instrumentalisation of aid” by Israel.

“We are witnessing, in real time, the creation of conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza,” the medical aid agency said.

It added: “The obstruction of humanitarian aid is a direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2720, which calls for the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians.

Israel’s claims that aid is being diverted by Hamas “remain unverified and in no way justify such measures”, MSF said.

“As the occupying power, Israel must facilitate impartial humanitarian assistance for the population in need,” it added.

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