A pediatrician in Gaza for Al -Jazeera Net: The War of starvation is more severe than missile killing and bombs policy

Gaza- “It is a war of starvation and slow death,” says Dr. Lubna Al -Azziza, who speaks bitterly about daily cases of pregnant women, breastfeeding women, births and infants, who suffer from starvation and acute malnutrition, and stands helpless because of the lack of options in front of their pain and the inability to provide assistance to them.

Dr. Lubna, who is the mother of 3 children, the oldest of whom is 18 years old and the youngest is 11 years old, lives with them in her partially destroyed house as a result of an Israeli air strike, which also caused the destruction of her private medical clinic in the city of Deir Al -Balah in the central Gaza Strip, in the first month of the Israeli war raging since October 7, 2023.

Al -Azziza was working within the cadres of “Kamal Adwan Hospital” in the northern Gaza Strip, children’s medical, breastfeeding, and therapeutic nutritionist, and the consequences of the war and cut off the sector without reaching its work, and she says to Al -Jazeera Net, “I remained here in Deir Al -Balah, and the occupation destroyed my home and my clinic, and I went with my children the experience of bitter displacement.”

This doctor considers that the current period since the occupation tightens the siege and the closure of the crossings since the second of last March and the prevention of the introduction of humanitarian supplies from food and medicine, is the “most cruelty”, as the occupation added to the killing of missiles and bombs another means using the “starvation and deployment of diseases.”

A starvation war

“We, as doctors, suffer from extreme attrition and starvation,” notes, the doctor Al -Azziza, who was interviewed by Al -Jazeera Net, after the end of a busy working day that extended until after 8 pm in the “Free Medical Tent” that she runs on an area of the ruins of her destroyed house.

Al -Azziza appeared in a state of extreme fatigue, and she suffers from chest pain that diagnoses it as a result of malnutrition, and made a double effort to talk, and her long and arduous day has spent one meal that does not contain bread, as she does not have the flour (wheat flour) a few days ago.

The daily cases that frequent the medical tent for the visa increased, as a result of the serious throat of starvation, affecting the lives of nearly two million and 300 thousand people in the small coastal sector, and are especially affected by fragile groups of pregnant and lactating women and births.

“We inspect these cases and we are also starving and complain about malnutrition,” says Dr. Al -Azziza, who cried on this day as they had not crying before, on a mother who meant the clinic with her baby who gave birth to her only one month ago, and the milk dried up in her chest as a result of her malnutrition and cannot breastfeed it naturally, and she does not have money to buy delicious formula milk in the markets and its prices are doubled.

This case is one of the many similar cases with which the doctor, Al -Azziza, feels unable to help her, and bitterly talks about mothers resorting to water positioning or dissolving lentils in “industrial feeding” in order to silence their children, who are affected by health complications that call for the hospitals crowded from the last of them with malnutrition.

Free medical tent

In her free medical tent, the doctor, who called her “the friend of the child and the mother”, receives dozens of cases per day, including about 30 cases complaining of the implications of hunger and malnutrition by a moderate or severe degree.

The starvation had a serious impact on pregnant women, and as a result of which Al -Azziza indicated the high rates of early births, miscarriages, and the birth of births with very weak weights, as the suffering of a pregnant woman from malnutrition is largely and directly reflected in the health of the fetus inside the uterus.

And unless the nutrition of the infant improves after his birth, he suffers from intestinal, vomiting, diarrhea and dryness, and that is, “the newborn begins to eat himself and feed on the muscle mass, fats and protein inside his body,” according to the description of the doctor of the Aziza, and this leads to a significant decrease in weight until death, because the young body is unable to endure as an adult human body.

“How can the baby’s health improve and his mother do not find what you feed for in order to breastfeed it naturally, and artificial milk is not available in the markets, and in the event that it is available, its prices are fictional and the majority of mothers are strong to buy it.”

Doctor Al -Azziza remembers the condition of a pregnant woman who has seen her in the tent, and she described her treatment for her eating before or after eating, and if this woman cries warmly, and says, “We have nothing even bread to feed my children, so where do I get it in order to take the medicine?”.

With great influence, Al -Azziza says, “I cried for her crying, for I am a mother and felt it, the pain of impotence and lack of resourcefulness.”

Tragic

Doctor Al -Azziza is led by a team of volunteers, including doctors, nurses, and specialists in psychological support and therapeutic nutrition.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza estimates that the occupancy rate in the majority of the remaining government hospitals, which is still working with modest capabilities, is approximately 250%, as a result of the severe overcrowding of war wounded, famine and malnutrition.

“The reality in hospitals is very tragic, and the doctors work in complex conditions, and they move between cases and departments in an empty intestine, and some of them fell unconscious in the operating rooms of the severity of fatigue and hunger.”

And such free medical initiatives contribute to relieving pressure from the shoulders of these doctors, and leave them space to work with the most serious cases that require their admission to the hospital, adding Al -Azzaiza.

This doctor and her volunteer team were not satisfied with working in the scope of the tent only, and allocated days to organize field visits to the tents of the displaced, to inspect cases that cannot be reached to hospitals and health centers, but these visits are currently frozen, due to the tremendous pressure on the medical tent from cases caused by famine and malnutrition.

Continuously, the Al -Azziza works from nine in the morning until seven in the evening, and despite the severe fatigue and fatigue it faces, it is satisfied with this human charitable mission that she chose to carry, and says, “It is a professional, moral and national responsibility.”

It works in the central governorate of the sector – where the medical tent of the Aziza – a single and small government hospital is “Al -Aqsa Martyrs” in Deir Al -Balah, which, like other hospitals, faces the risk of collapse at any moment, as a result of the fuel crisis, and the weak capabilities and medicines.

As a result of the direct targeting of bombing, bombing and bulldozing, or because it was not possible to reach it within the scope of military operations for the occupation army, 22 hospitals out of 38 were out of service, in addition to the departure of dozens of primary health care centers, since the outbreak of the war.