Palestinian minister reports 29 starvation-related deaths among Gazan children, elderly
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A Palestinian woman walking amid the destruction following Israeli strikes in the northern Gaza Strip on May 22.
PHOTO: AFP
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GENEVA – The Palestinian Health Minister said on May 22 that 29 children and elderly people had died from starvation-related deaths in Gaza in recent days and that many thousands more were at risk.
Food aid is expected to start reaching Gazans
“In the last couple of days, we lost 29 children,” Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan at first told reporters, describing them as “starvation-related deaths”. He later clarified that the total included elderly people as well as children.
Asked to react to earlier comments by the UN aid chief to the BBC that 14,000 babies could die without aid, he said: “The number 14,000 is very realistic – may be even underestimating (the scale).”
Israel imposed the blockade on all supplies in March, saying Hamas was seizing deliveries for its fighters – a charge the group denies. Earlier in May, a global hunger monitor said that half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation.
Mr Abu Ramadan said that only seven or eight hospitals out of Gaza’s 36 were partially functioning, and that more than 90 per cent of medical stocks were now at zero due to the blockade. “My information is that very few shipments went inside Gaza – 90 to 100 truck loads, and in the south and mid zones.”
Asked if there are any medical supplies among them, he said: “As far as I know... it’s only flour for bakeries.” REUTERS
