'Let The Children Eat': Israel Is Starving Gaza To Death, Doctors And Experts Warn
HuffPost
Israel's continued blockade of food and humanitarian assistance has led to Palestinian children facing illness and death from severe acute malnutrition.
(Warning: Distressing photos and graphic medical details throughout.)
Dr. Razan Al-Nahhas just returned to Chicago from a volunteering stint in Gaza, where for two months the emergency physician mostly treated visibly malnourished Palestinian children at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital ― an increasingly common sight since Israel began attacking the territory 19 months ago, and stopped all food and aid deliveries 70 days ago.
Al-Nahhas said she initially felt confused when she didn’t see improvement in the health of her pediatric patients within days, or even weeks, of treatment. The doctor recalled a 9-year-old girl who came in with lung injuries from an explosion, and was extubated days into being at the ICU.
“Anywhere else, she would have been out of the ICU within a few days. She was intubated and extubated and intubated and extubated, I think four or five times,” she told HuffPost on Thursday. “When I left [Gaza], she was still in the ICU. She had been there for almost three weeks. And this was a consistent theme I was experiencing with patients that I would see in the ER.”
The doctor realized that pediatric patients were not improving because they are severely malnourished and dehydrated ― lacking the carbohydrates for energy, the fats to reduce inflammation, and the protein to build and repair tissue, skin and muscles.
