In war-ravaged Gaza, starving children fill hospital wards as famine looms
- Months of war have pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in besieged Gaza to the brink of famine
- Unicef says nearly 1 in 3 children under two years old in northern Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition
Six-year-old Fadi al-Zant is acutely malnourished, his ribs protruding under leathery skin, his eyes sunken as he lays in bed at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where famine is bearing down.
Fadi’s spindly legs can no longer support him enough to walk.
Photographs of Fadi from before the war show a smiling, healthy-looking child, standing in blue denims next to his taller twin with his hair brushed. A short video clip shows him dancing at a wedding with a little girl.
Fadi suffers from cystic fibrosis. Before the conflict, he was taking medicine that his family can no longer find and eating a carefully balanced variety of food no longer available in the Palestinian enclave, according to his mother Shimaa al-Zant.
“His condition is getting worse. He is getting weaker. He keeps losing his ability to do things,” she said in a video obtained by Reuters from a freelancer. “He can no longer stand. When I help him stand up, he falls straight away.”
More than five months into Israel’s ground and air campaign, launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, there are widespread shortages of food, medicines and clean water in Gaza, doctors and aid agencies say.