: [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: This report indicates that four and a half kilograms is about seven pounds. In fact, it is almost ten pounds.]
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
We're about to bring you a story about the deepening hunger crisis in Gaza. Listeners should know that you will hear children suffering in war. Grim images from Gaza show young mothers clutching their emaciated children, tiny with ribs protruding, hanging limp in their mothers' arms. Facing mounting international pressure, Israel's military has begun a daily 10-hour pause in fighting in some of Gaza's biggest population centers to deliver more food and aid. According to an official statement from the Jordanian government, some of that airdropped aid has reached Gaza. Doctors warn that the damage to Palestinian children after months of hunger may already be irreversible. NPR's Anas Baba has more from Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: In this tent by the sea, Hidaya Al Motawaq tries to offer what comfort she can to her youngest child, 1 1/2-year-old Mohammad.
HIDAYA AL-MOTAWAQ: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: She don't have anything. The child that - he weighs less than 4 1/2 kilograms. It's around seven pounds. His mother is feeding him water - only water. And she's, all of the time, trying to tell the world that the famine and the malnutrition is hitting severely in Gaza and spreading nonstop.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
BABA: Mohammad is nearly all bone, his eyes protruding, his spine so sharp and so defined, it seems it might poke through his thin skin. Mohammad's older sister is doing OK, but he's so young, his small body has not been able to withstand the hunger. All the hospitals in Gaza told his mother they had nothing left - no food, no milk to give her. So she cradles Mohammad, strokes his thinning hair, but what he needs is to eat. She no longer has breast milk because she's malnourished.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: This is just one family, and Gaza has about 1 million children. That's about half of the population.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
BABA: Israel says it's letting in food through its own distribution program, backed by the U.S. But the system does not reach many people and has been deadly for many Palestinians, with dozens of people this week alone killed by Israeli gunfire.
ANTONIO GUTERRES: Since May 27, United Nations has recorded over 1,000 Palestinians killed trying to access food.
BABA: That's Antonio Guterres, head of the United Nations. And now in Gaza, the U.N. says a third of people go multiple days without eating now. On Friday, Gaza health authorities say that nine people had died from malnutrition in the previous 24 hours alone. Dr. Mohammed Mansour is a senior nutrition manager with the International Rescue Committee in Gaza.
MOHAMMED MANSOUR: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: He says after 20 months of restricted food, he is seeing a severe shortage of significant nutrition elements in diets like iron, magnesium and calcium because no one can get meat, vegetables or fruit. He sees growing levels of stunting in children.
MANSOUR: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: That impacts the development of a child's heart, liver and circulatory system. Dr. Mansour knows in clinical detail how children's bodies are being destroyed by hunger because he sees it happening in his own two children.
MANSOUR: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: He says he asks himself every night whether his children will see the next morning. He says he feels helpless and unable to protect them. The United Nations says about 90,000 women and children are severely malnourished in Gaza and need immediate medical care this week. This war is scarring a generation of children, says Ahmed Al-Farra, a doctor who heads the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.
AHMED AL-FARRA: A generation of children who are below three years because the central nervous system is nearly composed in this three years.
BABA: If these children survive, Al-Farra worries they will suffer from neurological impairments brought by the starvation.
AL-FARRA: Like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, difficulty in school performance, in comprehension, speaking.
BABA: Salwa Shamali is 20 years old, which makes her one of the older siblings in her family here in Gaza. She spends all her time trying find ways to keep her young siblings alive.
SALWA SHAMALI: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: She says, "I care more about food and water. I don't care about the news. Half of our family are young children, and we think of them more." Shamali's days are dictated by the neverending search for food and water.
SHAMALI: (Non-English language spoken).
BABA: She says at 6 a.m., they can sometimes get water. And at 2 p.m., "my brothers try to get food from a local charity or school." At 6 p.m., her father ventures out but usually comes back with nothing.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
BABA: Hidaya Al-Motawaq's world is even smaller.
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
BABA: It's distant by the Mediterranean Sea, trying to keep 1 1/2-year-old Mohammad alive. And Al Motawaq was displaced here after her husband was killed in Israel's war in Gaza. She had lost her home, her livelihood, but she had her two children, and she wants to keep them both alive.
Anas Baba, NPR News, Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLEEPING SOUNDS' "PIANO WALTZ") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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