The head of children's rights organization Save the Children has described in shocking detail the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so physically weak they cannot even cry.
Addressing a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of this international charity, Inger Ashing, said that famine - which the UN said last week was occurring in Gaza - is not just a technical term.
"When there is not enough food, children suffer from acute malnutrition and then die slowly and painfully. This, put simply, is what famine is," Ashing said.
She then described what happens when children die of starvation, a process she said takes several weeks. The body, Ashing said, initially uses its own fat to survive, but when there is no more body fat, the body begins to consume itself, using muscle and vital organs.
"Yet, our clinics are almost silent. The children have no strength to speak or cry in agony. They lie, physically weak, dying" slowly, Ashing said.
She insisted that aid groups had been loudly warning of famine when Israel stopped food and other essentials from entering Gaza during the war.
"Everyone at this meeting has a moral and legal responsibility to act to stop this atrocity," Ashing said.
The UN officially declared a famine in Gaza last week, blaming what it called a systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.
The organization that monitors hunger, called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said famine is affecting 500,000 people in Gaza City and by the end of September the famine will spread to about two-thirds of the entire Palestinian territory./ REL
