The starvation of Gaza can be measured in the jutting ribs of a 6-year-old girl. In the twig-like thinness of her arms. In the pounds she and those around her have lost. In the two tomatoes, two green chili peppers and single cucumber a destitute child can buy to feed his family that day.
Until last week, Israel had blocked all food, fuel and medicine from entering the Gaza Strip for 80 days, attempting to pressure Hamas into releasing the Israeli hostages it still holds as negotiations over a cease-fire remain deadlocked.
With international alarm surging over its total blockade, Israel allowed in a drip of aid starting last week. That enabled some bakeries to reopen. But humanitarian officials said it did little to alleviate Gaza’s enormous needs and to stop the territory’s slide toward famine. Limited amounts of food began being distributed to residents on Tuesday under a much-criticized plan backed by Israel.
In northern Gaza, cut off by Israeli troops from the rest of the territory, hundreds of thousands of people are reduced to waiting for hours for charity-kitchen food that runs out too soon and to digging boreholes for water to drink, unsanitary though it might be.
There is never enough.
Najwa Hussein Hajjaj, 6, has lost 42 percent of her body weight in the last two months, going from about 34 pounds to 21 pounds. Najwa needs specially prepared meals because of an esophagus condition, but her family can barely find any food at all. Doctors have diagnosed her with severe malnutrition.
People struggle to find fuel for hospital generators, cars and cooking stoves. Families have resorted to burning wood or even trash. Here, Bashir Sami Ashour’s family cooked soup over an open fire in Gaza City, in the north.