After almost three months of a total aid block in Gaza and intensified attacks by Israel, children suffer the most serious consequences, says a local doctor, from death and injuries to hunger.
A superior Palestinian pediatric doctor described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “incredible”, witnessing the children who died of hunger and preventable injuries, scenes he said he had studied in textbooks, but never imagined seeing in real life.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Dr. Ahmmed al-Farra, head of Pediatrics and Maternity at the Nasser Medical Complex of Gaza, said that hospitals are collapsing throughout the region.
There are no public hospitals operating in the north of the Strip and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, once the largest hospital in southern Gaza has been repeatedly attacked by Israeli air attacks.
The displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Younis, Gaza, in the middle of the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the area, on May 19, 2025.
ABDEL KAREEM HANA/AP
Al-Farra said many patients have died at the operating table due to the lack of essential equipment and medicines. “If a patient in northern Gaza has chest pain or is injured, he will lose his life,” Al-Farra said. “All hospitals there are: Shifa, Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian hospital. Destroyed or inoperable.”
It paints a devastating image of life in Gaza, more than 19 months after the war. “We are seeing children with marasmus, skin and bone,” he said. “Some are only 40% of their expected weight. Severe malnutrition, without protein, without vitamins.”
Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by protein energy deficiency, caused by an insufficient calorie intake that leads to severe fat loss and muscle loss, according to national health institutes. While it can happen in any person with severe malnutrition, it usually occurs in children.
Siwar Ashour, a child in Gaza, was born small, but was a relatively healthy baby six months ago, according to Al-Farra.
But today, he is very malnourished and struggle for his life at the Nasser hospital, said the doctor. Israel has repeatedly bombarded the installation, including attacks on Monday. Israel’s defense forces officials say they are pointing to terrorists who hide there.
Siwar is tied in plastic, according to Al-Farra. The doctor says that his weight loss is so severe that he can no longer regulate his own body temperature. And at 6 months, it weighs just over 7 pounds. That is less than half of the weight of an average American girl, according to disease control centers.
“If you don’t take the proper formula of milk, unfortunately, it will not survive,” Al-Farra said.
You can see a truck full of help at the crossing of Kerem Shalom between Israel and Gaza, on its Israeli side in this booklet image obtained by Reuters, on May 20, 2025.
Cogat Way Reuters
Almost 500,000 people in Gaza face catastrophic hunger, according to a report published by 17 UN agencies and NGOs. Israeli officials have played the agency’s figures and say their warnings have been wrong in the past.
Detailing the only option that their colleagues have in hospitals to fight severe malnutrition in children, Al-Farra said that Médecins Sin Frontières (MSF), or doctors without borders, has managed to provide small amounts of emergency babies formula, known as F-75 and F-100, to treat acute malnutrition in babies.
The doctor, however, said that children’s conditions often deteriorate again after being discharged from the hospital. “We give the children a little formula, F-75, F-100, of MSF, only in the hospital,” he explained. “Mejan a little better, and then we have to send them home, because we need the bed for the next child. But outside, there is no food, no milk or protein. They return a week later, worse than before.”
Al-Farra also highlighted the generalized hunger Palestinians of all ages and all areas of life in Gaza, now 11 weeks after the prohibition of Israel’s humanitarian aid that enters the strip. Even as a doctor with a relatively stable income, he said that he has left without fresh meat, chicken and fish for more than three months. “I have not had any chicken or meat protein in the last three months … if this is my reality, imagine what it is for people in the streets,” he said.
After repeated international warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel allowed five help trucks to enter the territory on Monday, according to COGAT, the Israeli coordinator of government activities in the territories. A senior Israeli official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the aid trucks contained flour, baby food, medical supplies and basic foods for central kitchens in Gaza.
Israel says they imposed the blockade of humanitarian aid on March 2 to press Hamas to free the remaining hostages. The temporary agreement of Alto El Fuego between Israel and Hamas ended on March 1. The high fire collapsed completely on March 18 when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza.
A Palestinian woman carries flat bread made with ground lentils during a flour shortage, in her shelter in the jabalia field for refugees in the strip of northern Gaza, on May 6, 2025.
Omar al-Qattaa/AFP through Getty Images
Israel on Sunday agreed to allow a “basic” amount of food in Gaza, saying that he did not want a “star crisis.”
Israel allowed 100 help trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday, said Jens Laerke, UN spokesman, Jens Laerke. But help has not yet been distributed in Gaza, said the UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, he said during his daily informative session of the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
The amount of aid was described as “a fall in the ocean” by the United Nations Deputy Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Aid Coordinator, UNOCHA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the decision to allow help occurred after the pressure of US legislators.
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist combatants entered Israel and killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. There are still 58 hostages in captives for Hamas, 20 of which it is presumed that they are alive. It is believed that Hamas is holding the bodies of four Americans.
The war has affected the Palestinians, with more than 53,000 killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, directed by Gaza. Although statistics do not distinguish between military and non -military casualties, women and children represent tens of thousands of this number, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Highlighting the serious situation of the survivors of the war in Gaza, especially children, Al-Farra requested immediate help from the strip. “We are not asking for miracles. We are asking for food, medicine,” he said. “They are not numbers on paper: they are human beings created by God. They have the right to survive.”
Lama Hasan, Samy Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Jordana Miller of ABC News contributed to this report
