‘70% of Burn Victims Are Children’

UNRWA: Children ‘Starving’ in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid

Date: 26 April 2025 - 21:25

News ID: ۱۳۸۸۵۵

GAZA (Dispatches) – The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says that children in the Gaza Strip are “starving” because of the Zionist regime’s aid blockade, Anadolu reports.
“#Gaza: children are starving. Israel continues to block the entry of food + other basics. A manmade & politically motivated starvation. Nearly 2 months of siege. Calls to bring in supplies are going unheeded,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.
His statement comes as the World Food Programme (WFP) announced it has distributed its last remaining food stocks to kitchens in Gaza.
The enclave risks running out of supplies within days, according to the UN agency.
Crossings have been sealed since March 2, blocking all aid for more than seven weeks — the longest closure in Gaza’s history.
The occupying regime resumed attacks in Gaza on March 18, ending a January truce. More than 51,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The occupying regime also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that “a burn injury is more than just a wound – it is a prolonged sentence of suffering, and this is even more so in Gaza, Palestine,” following over 19 months of attacks by the Zionist troops, causing the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
MSF said in a statement, “Many people have extensive burns covering large portions of their bodies – some people have as much as 40 percent of their total body surface burned,” due to “bomb explosions and improvised cooking methods.”
“As the Israeli authorities maintain the siege on Gaza, blocking access to basic aid, medical and life-saving supplies, many patients are left to endure excruciating pain with limited or no relief,” it added.
The organization stated that “since the Israeli forces resumed hostilities on 18 March, MSF teams have seen an increase in the number of patients with burn injuries – most of them children,” noting that “in April, in our clinic in Gaza City in the north of Gaza, MSF teams are seeing an average of over 100 patients with burns and injuries a day.”
“Since May 2024, MSF teams working in Nasser hospital have provided over 1,000 surgical operations to burn patients, 70 percent of which have been children, most under the age of five,” stated MSF, adding that the causes of the burns ranged from bomb blasts to boiling water or fuel used for cooking or heating in makeshift shelters.
MSF warned that “severe burns require complex and long-term care, including multiple surgeries, daily wound dressing changes, physiotherapy, pain management, psychological support, and a sterile environment to prevent infection. However, after 50 days of no supplies entering Gaza due to the blockade, MSF teams are running low on even basic painkillers, leaving patients without adequate pain relief. At the same time, since the beginning of the war, only very few surgeons in Gaza have the ability to manage complex burn care plastic surgery.”
It noted that since December 2024, the MSF teams working in their Gaza City clinic and field hospital in Deir al-Balah, as well as Nasser hospital, have provided over 6,518 burn dressings, but nearly half of the patients have not returned for follow-up care due to the collapse of services and it being almost impossible to reach the health centers.