By Palestine Chronicle Staff 
Palestinian children in Gaza are getting poisoned by the animal feed they are forced to eat due to Israeli starvation policy in the besieged Strip, Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday.
Anadolu cited Iman Abu Jalhoum, an intensive care unit doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, as saying that more children are likely to die due to food poisoning and malnutrition.
Dr. Abu Jalhoum told Anadoly that two children were hospitalized on Sunday after eating “animal feed consisting of barley, corn and straw.”
“The occupation administration is systematically implementing a policy of starvation. The health of children, mothers and the elderly who cannot be fed and cannot receive the necessary vitamins, is depreciating,” the Palestinian doctor told Anadolu, wondering: “How long will this hunger and siege continue?”
Israel has imposed a complete siege on Gaza and it does not allow water, food, medicine, fuel, and electricity to be delivered to the blockaded Strip.
The situation is particularly dramatic in the northern area, where food and drinkable water have run out and the Israeli occupation prevents humanitarian aid from entering.
According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right of Food, Michael Fakhri, Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians.
“There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Fakhri told the British newspaper The Guardian last month.
At least 15 children have died from malnutrition and dehydration at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday.
A sixteenth child died in the southern city of Rafah on Monday, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 30,631 Palestinians have been killed, and 72,042 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
(PC, Anadolu)
