CHRIS HUGHES: 'Gaza's starving kids forced to eat animal feed and watch dogs feast on dead bodies'

At least 65,000 of Gaza’s starving children have been taken to suffering with severe malnutrition, local chiefs claim. It comes after five children were killed, among 60 adults who died from strikes just in the past 48 hours, sparking widespread fears of an escalation in the war.

On Tuesday a further 20 or more Palestinians died from Israeli airstrikes as the war against Hamas stepped up, sparking more death fears. The five killed were children hit by an Israeli strike on a City street on Monday and locals reported fresh attacks on targets within the enclave.

Heart-rending testimony from within Gaza, secured by Save the Children, shows the horrific reality of families facing the nightmare struggle of trying to feed their children.

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Malnutrition has become severe after almost two months of an Israeli aid blockade on the Strip, barring water, food and medical supplies. But children are increasingly forced to beg for food, risk being crushed at local-run food distribution stations within the stricken enclave - or resort to eating animal food.

One Gaza mother-of-four Samah has three daughters, aged seven, six, two and a six month baby boy, all of whom have witnessed the horrors of war. She is one of 50,000 pregnant women who gave birth during the conflict and her newborn faced starvation immediately. Samah’s north Gaza home is demolished. But her struggles have soared since blocked all aid into Gaza from March 2.

Her children have witnessed decomposed bodies being eaten by and as a result, they have nightmares, suffering from involuntary urination. Fortunately Save The Children recently gave her a baby kit distribution where she received products essential for her boy’s hygiene.

These include valuable basics such as wipes, diapers, face masks and nappy cream. But none of this can shield them from the conflict. She says: “Our life is not suitable for a human. The area where we live all of it is rubble. There is no water in the area. God only knows how we’re living there.

“Every morning I keep thinking I woke up from a bad dream, but it’s not a dream. It’s our reality.My children suffered a lot. They lived through horrors. It was terror after terror. And just when you think it can’t get worse, it got worse.

”My daughters became familiar with the sight of blood. They watched corpses being savagely eaten by dogs. They watched people lose their limbs. They still have nightmares.”

“Each time we were displaced, we had to leave things behind. We were literally running for our lives. The fear that my daughters lived through they were so scared, they’re now suffering from involuntary urination. We ate things in Gaza that no other human would eat. We ate animal feed, we ate barley.

“Our children ate this. It’s either that or we starve to death. Gaza is no place for any human to live, but we want to stay in our land, and we want to rebuild it.”

Mother-of-seven Mariem has six daughters aged 13, 12, 11, 6, 5, 3 and a baby boy born during the war. Her experience giving birth in the midst of the violence was so traumatic, she had a postpartum hemorrhage and needed seven pints of blood.

Her baby was malnourished two months after being born and she was able to access Save the Children’s nutrition programme so he received recovery treatment. Meriem also cares for her husband who is blind in one eye and unable to work as a result of being injured during the war.

They have been displaced repeatedly and, their home destroyed, they now live in a tent. The family has received a baby kit from Save the Children and she told the charity’s representative Shaima Al-Obaidi: “We had no food. We couldn’t find anything, and two months from when he was born, he became malnourished. I was watching all of my children wasting away and I was helpless. I couldn’t do anything for them.

“Every day was painful, every day was a struggle, every day I would fear that my children would die. Any mother would relate to this when you have children, they are your life, they’re everything. I would do anything for my children.

“I was displaced multiple times, and I was pregnant, and I had six small children. They had no stability, and it felt like every day, someone we knew had died. We are waiting our turn to die.

“We were escaping the bombs so we wouldn’t die, but I swear, death was on our doorstep wherever we went. We were starving. I cannot tell you what that feels like. You should consider me a woman who has a chain around her neck and I’m trying my best to breathe. I’m choking most of the time.”

The child severe malnutrition victims are among a total of around 1.1million children in Gaza suffering from daily hunger caused by food shortages. Gaza’s media office - the GMO - said: “Israel uses starvation and deprivation as a systematic weapon of war against civilians, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

“The blockade and the ongoing closure of crossings have led to a catastrophic deterioration in health conditions and the spread of severe malnutrition, especially among children and infants.” The GMO statement said: “We welcome the International Court of Justice’s confirmation that the Israeli occupation violates international law through its occupation of Palestinian territories and undermines the rights of our Palestinian people.”

War in Gaza has killed at least 52,365 Palestinians and wounded 117,905 others, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in Israel during Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. A study by the Associated Foreign Press counted 37 minors among the dead, including two babies.