A Palestinian baby has died of starvation in Gaza as Israel maintains its blockade on aid supplies and fires on people forced to seek food at controversial United States-backed aid sites described as “death traps”.
The 35-day-old infant died of malnutrition at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. The unnamed infant was one of two people who succumbed to starvation in the facility on Saturday.
The deaths occurred as Gaza’s Ministry of Health warned that hospital emergency wards were overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of starving people, with officials saying that 17,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to pound the Strip, with medical sources reporting that at least 116 people were killed across the enclave since dawn, including 38 who were shot dead while seeking food from aid sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to “Israeli gunfire”.
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