Every day the Nasser hospital in Southern Gaza is receiving up to ten new cases of malnutrition.
Among the latest to arrive is seven-year-old Amal. Her name means ‘Hope’ and there was still a glimmer of that hope in her big brown eyes, as she told our cameraman how she longed to leave Gaza and get better.
In the space of just a few months Amal has lost more than half of her body weight, she now weighs just ten kilos. The average weight for a girl her age is 22 kilos. Her ribs and spine protrude from her emaciated frame; she is wasting away after months with only the bare minimum of food.
She showed us pictures of what she looked like at the start of the war, photos in which she beamed with health and happiness. In a weak, baby-like voice she said she longed to look like that again.
Her parents took her to the Nasser hospital hoping doctors could help but an aid blockade has left the staff there with little to offer. There is water to hydrate her, but no food formula or medicines to give her back some strength.
Amal’s father fears they will soon lose her. Since they arrived three other children in the same ward have died. He is terrified she won’t live to see the ceasefire that they are told could come next week.
Doctors says Amal is one of the worst cases of malnutrition they have seen. She has lost fifty percent of her body weight, the doctor treating her described her as ‘’just bone covered by skin’’.
There are an estimated seventy thousand children suffering from various degrees of starvation in Gaza, at the Nasser hospital alone, more than sixty children have died due to malnutrition.
Unless there is a breakthrough in talks and aid starts to make it through in the coming days, doctors say those numbers will start to rise.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
