Gaza death toll tops 60,000 amid rising famine, malnutrition

Gaza [Palestine], July 29 (ANI): At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, the enclave's Ministry of Health said on Tuesday, amid intensifying bombardment and worsening famine conditions, Al Jazeera reported.
According to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera, at least 62 more Palestinians, including 19 people seeking aid, were killed since dawn despite "pauses" announced to facilitate humanitarian deliveries.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said, "Local accounts indicate that Israel used booby-trapped robots, as well as tanks and drones, in what residents describe as one of the bloodiest nights in recent weeks."
"This is a sign of a possible imminent Israeli ground manoeuvre, although Israel has not yet confirmed the objectives of the attack," Abu Azzoum added.
The latest violence comes amid an unfolding famine crisis, with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, stating that famine thresholds have already been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
"Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point," the IPC report stated.
Food access has deteriorated sharply, with one in three residents going without food for days, the report noted. Between April and mid-July, more than 20,000 children were admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition, of which over 3,000 were severely affected.
The enclave's Health Ministry said on Monday that at least 147 people, including 88 children, have died from malnutrition since the war began. Al Jazeera added that starvation is impacting all sections of the population.
Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, said one million women and girls in Gaza face the "unthinkable choice" of starving or risking their lives in search of food. "This horror must end," Bahous posted on social media, urging for unhindered aid access, release of captives, and a permanent ceasefire.
Doctors in Gaza are witnessing extreme cases of starvation. "Medical staff at Gaza's hospitals are seeing babies severely malnourished 'without muscles and fat tissue, just the skin over the bone'," Ahmed al-Farra, director of paediatrics and maternity at Nasser Hospital, told Al Jazeera.
He added that malnutrition can severely impact brain development in infants. "Babies who have been malnourished will not have the required folic acid, B1 complex and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for the composition of the central nervous system," he said.
Al-Farra warned that this could impair reading, writing, and lead to depression and anxiety in later years.
Tanya Haj Hassan, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explained that even when food arrives, serious health complications remain.
"The reality is the problem doesn't end when the food arrives ... malnutrition impacts all aspects of the body's function," she told Al Jazeera.
"All of the cells in your body are altered by this. In the intestines, the cells die. That results in issues with absorption, with bacteria. Your pancreas struggles; absorbing fats is difficult."
She added, "Your heart cells become weak and thinned. The connections are impacted, the heart rate slows. These children often die of heart failure, even when they're being refed."
"They also have life-threatening shifts in salts... more prone to sepsis and shock," Hassan said, adding that symptoms include low blood pressure, hypothermia, fluid overload, infection, and vitamin deficiencies that affect vision and bones. (ANI)