Aid groups are sounding the alarm over a spike in child malnutrition in war-torn Gaza, as Britain, France and Germany prepare to hold an emergency call Friday on the deepening humanitarian catastrophe.
Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, reported that 25% of children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics last week were malnourished – just a day after the United Nations warned that one in five children in Gaza City is going hungry.
With fears of mass starvation mounting, the three European powers are set to push for an urgent cease-fire and weigh steps toward Palestinian statehood.
"I will hold an emergency call with E3 partners tomorrow to discuss immediate action to stop the killing, get food to those in desperate need, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
The call comes after hopes of a new cease-fire in Gaza faded Thursday when Israel and the U.S. withdrew from indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff accused the Palestinian group of not "acting in good faith.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that France would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September, drawing a furious rebuke from Israel.
‘Mass starvation’ feared
More than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that "mass starvation” is spreading in Gaza.
Israel has rejected accusations that it is responsible for the deepening crisis, which the World Health Organization has called "man-made.”
Israel placed the Gaza Strip under an aid blockade in March, which it only partially eased two months later.
The limited flow of aid since then has been controlled by the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which replaced the long-standing U.N.-led distribution system.
Aid groups have refused to work with the new system, accusing it of serving Israeli military objectives.
The foundation’s model – requiring Gazans to travel long distances and wait in massive lines at one of four distribution points – has often turned deadly.
The U.N. says Israeli forces have killed more than 750 Palestinians near those centers since late May.
An AFP photographer witnessed bloodied patients, wounded while attempting to obtain humanitarian aid, being treated on the floor of Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on Thursday.
Israel has refused to return to the U.N.-led system, accusing it of enabling Hamas to divert aid for its own purposes.
Accusing Israel of the "weaponization of food,” MSF said: "Across screenings of children aged 6 months to 5 years old, and pregnant and breastfeeding women at MSF facilities last week, 25% were malnourished.”
The group said malnutrition cases had quadrupled since May 18 at its Gaza City clinic, which is now enrolling 25 new patients each day.
Aid groups and medical workers also warned that a lack of food is preventing the sick and wounded from recovering.
‘High risk of dying’
On Thursday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that one in five children in Gaza City are malnourished.
"Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don’t get the treatment they urgently need,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
He also warned that "UNRWA frontline health workers are surviving on one small meal a day – often just lentils, if at all.”
Lazzarini added that the agency has "the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies” ready to enter Gaza if Israel allows "unrestricted and uninterrupted” access to the territory.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,587 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, incursion on southern Israel, which triggered the war, killed 1,219 people.
Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still held in Gaza.