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palestinian red crescent society
Gaza Officials Report Hundreds of Recent Deaths From Starvation and Medicine Shortage
"Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day," said one nurse in Gaza. "Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day."
May 22, 2025
Palestinian officials said Thursday that at least 29 children and elders have starved to death over the past two days in Gaza, where more than 300 Palestinians have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medicine due to Israel's siege and bombing, which killed more than 50 people since dawn.
Palestinian Authority Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan's report of at least 29 starvation-related deaths among children and elderly people in the coastal enclave since Tuesday followed Wednesday's announcement by the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) that a total of 326 Palestinians have died of malnutrition and food and medicine shortages since Israel tightened its "complete siege" on March 2.
Among the victims are 26 dialysis-dependent kidney patients. Officials also reported 300 miscarriages during the same period. Most of Gaza's hospitals have been damaged or destroyed in what critics have called a systematic and genocidal attack on the strip's healthcare system.
"History will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The GMO voiced "grave concern and condemnation of the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as a result of the occupation's continued implementation of a systematic starvation policy and preventing the entry of food [and] medical supplies in addition to fuel for 80 consecutive days, in a clear and complete crime amounting to genocide."
"This is accompanied by a complete closure of all crossings, in flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and in full view of the international community," the agency added.
JUST IN | Palestinian Health Minister: 29 Have Died of Starvation in Gaza in Recent Days Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Majid Abu Ramadan says 29 people—mostly children and elderly—have died of starvation-related causes in Gaza in recent days, warning that thousands more are at risk.
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) May 22, 2025 at 7:02 AM
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also reported a sharp rise in starvation deaths in Gaza, documenting 26 fatalities including nine children in just 24 hours.
Israel has grudgingly allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza in recent days, under intense international pressure and acknowledgment by even some of its staunchest supporters—including U.S. President Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Jerusalem—that Gazans are starving.
However, experts say the 90 truckloads of aid that entered the strip on Thursday were but a fraction of the 500-600 trucks per day needed to sustain starving Palestinians there.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS)—which is still reeling from an Israeli massacre of its personnel in March—warned Thursday that allowing so few trucks into Gaza is an "invitation for killing" by desperate mobs.
U.S.-based Project HOPE, one of the few international humanitarian groups still operating medical clinics in Gaza, toldThe Guardian Thursday that "malnutrition among children, pregnant, and lactating women has surged amid the almost three-month aid blockade, with some clinics reporting up to 42% of pregnant women and 34% of lactating mothers being diagnosed as malnourished."
Ghadeer, a Project HOPE nurse in Gaza, said:
The number of malnutrition cases has skyrocketed. Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day. Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day. Many of the children we see haven't eaten real food in weeks—only the nutritional biscuits we distribute. They're losing weight, becoming withdrawn, and getting sick more easily. We are doing everything we can, but we're seeing the consequences of extreme hunger in an entire generation. Without more food and aid coming in, I fear for their future.
Israel's forced starvation of Gazans has drawn mounting criticism, including from Israelis like Yair Golan—a former lawmaker and senior general who said earlier this week that "a sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population."
In the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday renewed his call for an end to American armed aid to Israel, while asserting that "history will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The American online educator Rachel Accurso, popularly known as Ms. Rachel, also continued speaking out against the suffering inflicted upon Gaza's children. Holding one of her own children and showing a photo of Suwar Ashur, a 5-month-old Palestinian suffering from acute malnutrition, Accurso implored world leaders to "help this baby" in a video shared widely on social media Wednesday.
"Please look at her," she pleaded. "Please, please look at her. Just please look at her eyes for one minute."
American youtuber Rachel Anne Accurso, known as Ms. Rachel, expresses her deep sadness on the situation of the starving Gaza children, appealing to the world to save them, following UN report that 14,000 children are at risk of death. pic.twitter.com/yO5KoN2PN0
— Kuffiya (@Kuffiyateam) May 21, 2025
"If you just look at her, and if you just think about a baby you love, think about a baby you care so much for, there's no way that we all don't know that you can't kill 15,000 kids, and you can't be about to let 14,000 kids starve," Accurso added, referring to an earlier estimate of the number of children killed since October 2023 and last week's United Nations warning of imminent mass starvation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 16,500 Palestinian children have been killed in the strip since October 2023, including 916 infants.
"Whatever is keeping you from standing up for these kids, who don't have food and medical care and who have had amputations without anesthesia, whatever is keeping you from saying it, it's not greater than your humanity," Accurso added.
Meanwhile, Operation Gideon's Chariots—the Israel Defense Forces' campaign to conquer, indefinitely occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization—continued Thursday as the IDF issued fresh evacuation orders for people in the heavily bombed Beit Lahia and Jabalia areas in the far north of the strip. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
IDF bombing reportedly killed 52 people since dawn on Thursday, bringing the cumulative death toll from 593 days of bombardment, invasion, and siege to at least 53,762, with more than 122,000 others wounded and over 14,000 more missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel's annihilation of Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice
genocide case led by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and weaponized starvation.
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IDF Soldier Allegedly Stabs Wounded West Bank Airstrike Victim in Ambulance
The head of the local medical association called for a probe of the "flagrant violation of humanitarian law" committed against Palestinians injured by an Israeli drone strike that killed six people near Tulkarem.
Dec 27, 2023
Israeli troops on Wednesday allegedly stabbed and assaulted wounded Palestinian victims of an Israel Defense Forces drone strike that killed six people in a refugee camp near Tulkarem in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Dr. Radwan Blaibla, head of Tulkarem Medical Syndicate, toldAndalou Agency that Israeli troops forcibly stopped and boarded ambulances rushing Palestinians injured in the airstrike on Nur Shams refugee camp to a hospital in Tulkarem.
"One injured was stabbed in his neck by a soldier while in the ambulance, posing danger to his life," Blaibla said. "Two others were forcibly taken out from an ambulance and were subject to kicking and beating by the rifles' buttstocks on their injuries."
The Israeli soldiers allegedly told their victims: "We don't want you to reach the hospital. We will kill you before you get there."
Blaibla called the incident "a flagrant violation of humanitarian law" and urged the international community to hold Israel accountable.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society told Al Jazeera that occupation forces blocked ambulances from transporting airstrike victims to a hospital for at least an hour-and-a-half, during which time multiple people died of their injuries.
The Israeli drone strike on Nur Shams—which killed six Palestinian males including four members of one familiy and three teenagers—came after occupation ground forces invaded the camp early Wednesday morning. The airstrike was reportedly called in after Palestinian resistance fighters clashed with Israeli troops, including snipers posted on rooftops.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 311 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been killed and more than 3,300 others wounded by Israeli soldiers and settlers since October 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel and killed over 1,100 people.
Israel's retaliatory war on Gaza has left more than 80,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing. Israeli forces have been accused of genocide and war crimes including attacking medical workers and facilities in Gaza, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and paramedics.
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'We Are Being Killed Here, Please Do Something': Nurses and Doctors Plead for Gaza Cease-Fire
"We are nearly sure that we are alone now," said a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Gaza's largest hospital. "No one hears us."
Nov 12, 2023
Doctors and nurses in the Gaza Strip issued urgent pleas for a cease-fire as Israeli forces encircled and attacked the territory's largest hospital, trapping thousands of displaced people and threatening the lives of medical workers and patients.
One Doctors Without Borders nurse texted his colleagues from the basement of al-Shifa Hospital early Saturday, writing that "four or five families"—including his own—were sheltering there amid heavy bombardment and fighting around the facility.
"We are being killed here, please do something," the nurse wrote. "The shelling is so close, my kids are crying and screaming in fear."
The attacks on and around al-Shifa as well as the Israeli siege—which has cut off Gaza's electricity supply and prevented fuel from reaching the northern part of the enclave—have caused power outages at the hospital, endangering babies and other patients who are unable to evacuate. Al-Shifa's director said that two premature babies have died due to outages at the hospital's intensive care unit and pediatric ward.
Mohammed Obeid, a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at al-Shifa, said four patients in the hospital were wounded by sniper fire on Saturday and those who have tried to flee have been shot at and bombed.
"There is no electricity, actually there is no water, there is no food. Our team is exhausted," said Obeid. "We are nearly sure that we are alone now. No one hears us."
Other hospitals in northern Gaza, including al-Quds, have been forced to shut down completely due to a lack of fuel and other critical supplies. Across the strip, the majority of hospitals have ceased functioning.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society
said Saturday that "repeated appeals for urgent international assistance" at al-Quds have been unsuccessful, leaving the hospital to "fend for itself under ongoing Israeli bombardment, posing severe risks to medical staff, patients, and displaced civilians." Nearly 200 medics have been killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza since October 7.
The al-Rantisi pediatric hospital was reportedly surrounded by tanks on Saturday.
NBC News, which has journalists embedded with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), reported that "more than a dozen children with cancer or other serious blood disorders" were evacuated from al-Rantisi to hospitals in Egypt and Jordan "but more than 30 remain" in Gaza.
Israel's bombing has killed more than 4,500 children since it began last month following a deadly Hamas-led attack.
Targeting hospitals is a war crime under international law. Israel claims Hamas runs operations from inside and under Gaza's hospitals, an assertion that directors of the facilities have denied.
Last week, an IDF spokesperson said that "if we see Hamas terrorists firing from hospitals, we'll do what we need to do.
"Doctors should not have to beg for a cease-fire. Nurses should not have to beg for a cease-fire."
The Israeli military's intensifying assault on Gaza hospitals has been met with global horror. The World Health Organization
said Sunday that it has been unable to communicate with its contacts at al-Shifa and assumes they "joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought shelter on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area."
"WHO has grave concerns for the safety of the health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital. The number of inpatients is reportedly almost double its capacity, even after restricting services to lifesaving emergency care," the U.N. agency added. "WHO calls again for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering."
Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), echoed that call on Saturday.
"We urge the U.S., U.K., Canada, member states of the League of Arab States, member states of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, and the European Union who have repeatedly called for the respect of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to take action to ensure a cease-fire now," the group said in a
statement.
"The horrors unfolding before our eyes in Gaza clearly show that calls for restraint and adherence to IHL have gone unheeded," MSF added. "Working purposefully to reach a cease-fire is the most effective way to ensure the protection of civilians."
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
again rejected calls for a cease-fire during a televised address on Saturday, saying one would only be possible once Hamas releases all hostages. Before Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, Netanyahu reportedly rejected a proposed five-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of some hostages, including women and children.
The leadership of the U.S., Israel's top arms supplier, has also
refused to support a cease-fire despite pressure from the head of the United Nations, leading human rights organizations, Capitol Hill staffers, and members of Congress.
"Doctors should not have to beg for a cease-fire," U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) wrote on social media Saturday. "Nurses should not have to beg for a cease-fire."
"As a nurse, I cannot imagine the difficulty of taking care of patients while being bombed," added Bush, one of the leaders of a cease-fire resolution in the U.S. House. "It does not have to be like this. Where is the collective humanity?"
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