Amid Gaza famine, Palestinian girl struggles to survive

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Bones and skin are all that is left of seven-year-old Mai Abu Arar.
The Palestinian girl is one of tens of thousands of children facing malnutrition in Gaza as Israel’s man-made famine deepens with the Israeli military stepping up its assault on Gaza City.
Mai’s mother, Nadia Abu Arar, says her child was once lively and joyous, but she is now fighting for her life after drastically losing weight.

“The doctors told me that she isn’t suffering from any disease or from any past condition. They’re saying it’s all due to malnutrition and I haven’t seen any improvement in her situation at all,” Nadia told Al Jazeera.

Hunger has weakened Mai to the point that she can now only consume liquid food through a syringe.

Hisham Abu Al Oun, paediatric director at the Patient’s Friends Hospital in Gaza City, said Israel has been preventing the delivery of medicines to the enclave, which has made it challenging to treat patients suffering from malnutrition.

“Potassium chloride is the easiest medication that any doctor can prescribe. We don’t even have that. We have babies dying because we don’t have it. Sometimes supplies come in, but unfortunately, very little,” he said.

On Friday, a United Nations-backed hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), confirmed for the first time that more than half a million people are experiencing famine in northern Gaza.

At least 289 people, including 115 childre,n have died due to starvation in the enclave so far.

Israel has been imposing a suffocating blockade on Gaza, allowing only a small amount of food through airdrops and the United States-backed group GHF, forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to reach aid sites deep inside areas under control of the Israeli military.

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