UN: Malnutrition threatening pregnant women, newborns in Gaza
The United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, has issued a stern warning about the impact of malnutrition on Palestinian women and children in Gaza amid Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged territory.
“According to doctors, it has become increasingly common for premature and low-weight babies to be born in Gaza,” the UN body said in a Sunday post on X social media platform.
وفقا للأطباء، أصبح من الشائع ولادة أطفال مبتسرين ومنخفضي الوزن بشكل متزايد في #غزة
— UNFPA Arabic (@UNFPA_Arabic) July 21, 2024
ويشكل سوء التغذية خطرا كبيرا على النساء الحوامل والأطفال حديثي الولادة مما يؤدي إلى: ولادة أجنة ميتين، أطفال منخفضي الوزن، وأطفال يعانون الهزال وتأخر النمو.#وقف_إطلاق_النار هو الحل لإنقاذ حياتهم pic.twitter.com/keOkeJLZfZ
It added, “Malnutrition poses a great danger to pregnant women and newborns, leading to an increase in stillbirths, low-weight babies, and children suffering from wasting and delayed growth.”
The United Nations Population Fund then called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying it “is the solution to save their lives.”
The UNFPA’s warning came after the Government Media Office in Gaza earlier announced that 34 children had starved to death, while 3,500 others were at risk of death due to malnutrition and starvation.
In early July, a group of UN experts sounded the alarm about the Palestinian children in Gaza, saying they were losing their lives due to Israel’s “starvation campaign.”
“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 United Nations experts said in a statement.
They added that the regime's complete blockade on water, food, fuel and medicine delivery to Gaza has led to famine in the territory.
Last month, the World Health Organization said the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza has afflicted more than 8,000 children, who are under five years of age, with acute malnutrition.
The number includes “1,600 children with severe acute malnutrition,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the organization, said.
His remarks corroborated a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which said nearly 3,000 children were at risk of dying before the eyes of their families as they had been cut off from treatment for severe acute malnutrition in southern Gaza.
“Unless treatment can be quickly resumed for these 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, acquiring life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls who have been killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation,” the report added.
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