His tiny body crumpled on a cold metal table, 6-week-old Youssef al-Safadi's clothing was gently removed by the morgue worker inside Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital, revealing his protruding ribs and hollow stomach.
Youssef died Tuesday from malnutrition, according to his family. "We couldn’t provide any kind of milk for him — no formula, no supplements, no vitamins," his father, Adham al-Safadi, told NBC News’ crew on the ground. "And if you do find it, it will cost at least $100."
Doctors and aid groups have warned of a hunger crisis now reaching a climax in the besieged Palestinian enclave under Israeli military assault. Four children were among 15 people who died from severe malnutrition in just 24 hours, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry said Wednesday that another 10 people had died of malnutrition.
NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the figures.
More than a hundred aid organizations warned Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza, with aid workers among those suffering from the lack of adequate food. People are collapsing in the streets, the United Nations' humanitarian agency reported.
Israel lifted its blockade in late May but has since allowed only limited aid into the enclave, and Gaza’s population continues to faces dire shortages of basic necessities.
The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 1,000 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli forces while seeking food since the start of a new aid distribution system launched by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in late May. Most of those deaths have occurred near sites run by the controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed GHF, the U.N. human rights office said.
Israel did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment on the children reported dead from malnutrition in recent days. It did not respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report, but has previously said that its soldiers fire warning shots near aid sites. It maintains that it has allowed aid into Gaza, blaming the U.N. and Hamas for not ensuring its delivery.
The GHF disputed the statistics in the U.N. report and has emphasized the aid it has delivered while urging others to do more to distribute supplies.
'There's just no food'
Doctors inside Gaza say the mounting hunger crisis has overwhelmingly affected children and pregnant women.
American surgeon Ambereen Sleemi, who began treating patients at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis three weeks ago, said the neonatal intensive care unit was “full of babies that are malnourished that have struggled to get formula or get feeding.”
Sleemi added that she had seen malnutrition cases "everywhere," including in pregnant women, newborns and among the hospital staff.
Sleemi, who came to Gaza from New York through a nonprofit called Baitulmaal, said that in many cases the lack of nutrition had led to other health complications, including a surge in infection rates.
Elidalis Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering in Gaza, told NBC News that she had witnessed “an entire population” suffering from starvation because of the Israeli blockade.
“The signs are evident ... not just in the patients in the ICU,” she said, “but also the health workers themselves” who were showing severe malnutrition, temporal wasting, muscle waste and frailty.
“There’s just no food,” said Burgos, who is working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and volunteering with the medical NGO Glia. “There is just nothing getting in, hasn’t been getting in for months.”
Among the latest victims was Abdulrahman Al-Ghalban, 17, who had cerebral palsy since birth and depended on specialized nutritional milk, specific food and constant medical care, said Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital.
“He needed constant special nutrition but we had nothing,” his mother, Marwa Al-Ghalban, told NBC News. “We tried to feed him whatever we could find at home, but in his last days, he couldn’t eat at all.”
The growing crisis has led to desperate scenes at the few sites in Gaza able to offer food.
Crowds gathered Tuesday by the gates of a small charity kitchen in Gaza City, one of the few still operating in the enclave.
Children were seen clambering on top of one another, holding out pots and pans through the fence.
Riyad Sa’adat, a volunteer, told NBC News that the kitchen manages to cook about 15 pots of lentil soup every day.
“We have no vegetables, no rice, nothing else to offer — only lentil soup,” he said, “but it’s nowhere near enough for the massive crowds that come here.”
