I’m witnessing the deliberate starvation of Gaza’s children – why is the world letting it happen?
A
permanent ceasefire, the free and safe flow of aid, and the lifting of
the blockade are needed now – all could be achieved with political will
Nick Maynard is a volunteer surgeon at Nasser hospital
I’m writing this from Nasser hospital in southern Gaza,
where I’ve just finished operating on another severely malnourished
young teenager. A seven-month-old baby lies in our paediatric intensive
care unit, so tiny and malnourished that I initially mistook her for a
newborn. The phrase “skin and bones” doesn’t do justice to the way her
body has been ravaged. She is literally wasting away before our eyes
and, despite our best efforts, we are powerless to save her. We are
witnessing deliberate starvation in Gaza right now.
This is my third time in Gaza since December 2023 as a volunteer surgeon with Medical Aid for Palestinians. I experienced mass casualty events and raised the alarm about malnutrition back in January 2024.
But nothing has prepared me for the sheer horror I’m witnessing now:
the weaponisation of starvation against an entire population.
The
malnutrition crisis has become catastrophic since my last visit. Every
day I watch patients deteriorate and die, not from their injuries, but
because they are too malnourished to survive surgery. The surgical
repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible
infections, then they die. It is happening repeatedly, and it is
heartbreaking to watch. Four babies have died in the last few weeks in
this hospital – not from bombs or bullets, but from starvation.
Families
and staff do their best to try to bring in what they can, but there
simply isn’t enough food available in Gaza. For infants, we have
virtually no baby formula. Children are being given 10% dextrose (sugar
water), which has no nutritional value, and often their mothers are too
malnourished to breastfeed. When an international colleague tried to
bring baby formula into Gaza, Israeli authorities confiscated it.
Benjamin
Netanyahu’s approach is twofold: block food from entering Gaza while
leaving desperate civilians no choice but to visit militarised
distribution points to receive some limited supplies. Until May, Gaza
had more than 400 aid distribution sites where people could access food
safely. Now there are just four of these militarised zones in the south
where starving families are in constant danger of attack.
Palestinians mourn people killed while waiting for food near Rafah aid centre – video
I’m
hearing about dozens of trauma casualties flooding Gaza’s emergency
departments daily – many of them with gunshot wounds from these
militarised distribution points. I have operated on boys aged 12 to 15,
whose relatives say they were shot while trying to get food for their
families. Last week a 12-year-old died on the operating table, shot
through the abdomen at what can only be described as a death trap for
those seeking basic sustenance.
My colleagues
in the emergency department have also reported a disturbing pattern:
injuries concentrated on specific body parts on different days – heads,
legs, genitals – suggesting deliberate targeting of those body parts.
In recent days, I operated on two women who were shot by quadcopters
while sheltering in their tents near one of the locations, according to
the people who brought them in. One was breastfeeding her child when
she was hit; the second was pregnant. Thankfully, both have survived
their injuries so far. These women weren’t even seeking aid – they were
simply sheltering in areas that are supposedly “safe” but exposed to
indiscriminate fire from the IDF’s weaponised hunger apparatus.
It
is not just the patients here who are malnourished, but also healthcare
workers. When I first arrived, I barely recognised colleagues I had
worked with last year – some had lost 30kg. At lunchtime, some doctors
and nurses head towards the distribution sites, knowing they risk death
but having no choice if they want to feed their families.
Nasser hospital is the last major functioning hospital in southern Gaza, but we’re operating at breaking point, reeling from previous attacks
and overwhelmed by mass casualties, all while facing shortages of
everything. Netanyahu’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare
system has funnelled desperate medical needs into this single facility
while directly targeting healthcare workers and patients. Just this
week, one of our dear theatre nurses was killed in his tent along with
his three small children.
I
want to be clear – what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza is
barbaric and entirely preventable. I cannot believe we have come to a
point where the world is watching as the people of Gaza are forced to
endure starvation and gunfire, all while food and medical aid sits
across the border just miles away from them.
The
enforced malnutrition and attacks on civilians will kill thousands more
if not stopped immediately. Every day of inaction means more children
will die not just from bullets or bombs, but from hunger. A permanent
ceasefire, the free and safe flow of aid through the UN-led system, and
the lifting of the blockade are needed now – and all can be achieved
with political will.
The UK government’s
continued complicity in Israel’s atrocities is unconscionable, and I do
not want to spend another day operating on children who have been shot
and starved by a military our government supports. History will judge
not just those who committed these crimes, but those who stood by and
watched.
From inside Nasser hospital, I am telling you: this is deliberate. This is preventable. And this must stop now.