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Premature babies face serious health risks due to limited access to both breast milk and infant formula at the Patient Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza, on June 25, 2025. [Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea – Anadolu Agency]
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief Catherine Russell on Monday warned of a deepening nutrition crisis among infants in the Gaza Strip as humanitarian access remains severely restricted, Anadolu reports.
“Thousands of babies in Gaza lack proper nutrition as aid access remains severely hampered,” Russell wrote on X.
Highlighting the impact of Israel’s ongoing attacks on women and children, she said: “Many mothers have been killed or are too malnourished to breastfeed, leaving infants at risk of dying or with permanent health damage.”
“Every minute counts in saving their lives,” she added.
Despite international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has pursued a genocidal war on Gaza, killing more than 57,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
A newborn baby in an incubator struggles to survive following Israel’s blockade of food and medical aid in Gaza City, Gaza on March 11, 2025. (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death due to “depleted” reserves of baby formula.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, due to a shortage of medical-grade formula entering the strip.
Despite a recent policy change by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow “minimal aid” into the strip following a total blockade of food, water, shelter, and medication, it has proven far too little to keep hospitals running and keep people fed. It has proven especially deadly for children.
The AP report quotes Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatrics and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few functional medical facilities left in Gaza.
Last week, al-Farah warned that the hospital’s stock of milk was “completely depleted,” and that unless aid was delivered immediately, the babies would face “an avoidable disaster.” The widely publicized call was answered with the shipment of 20 boxes of formula from the U.S. aid group Rahma Worldwide.
Al-Farah said this was enough to meet the needs of 10 babies for two weeks, but warned that in the long run it would be far too little, especially with no guarantee of aid in the future.
“This is not enough at all,” he told the AP. “It solved the problem temporarily, but what we need is a permeant solution: Lift the siege.”
Many other hospitals reported shortages of formula that had not been answered, such as Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, which was completely out of stock.
Fortified milk has become increasingly necessary in Gaza due to the increasing number of premature births. In May, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that as a result of widespread hunger, 1 in 5 children is now born pre-term or underweight. That malnutrition has also left many new mothers unable to breastfeed.
Dr. Asaad Nawajha, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital, told Middle East Eye that the blockade has proven catastrophic for the health of both children and their mothers.
“This all goes back to the [harsh] conditions mothers endure amid this vicious war on the Gaza Strip,” Nawajha said. “Due to the lack of nutritious items entering the Gaza Strip, both mothers and children have been exposed to illnesses resulting from malnutrition.”
The Israeli government’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has insisted that the amount of aid allowed into Gaza is sufficient to provide for the population.
On June 22, COGAT announced that 430 aid trucks had been allowed to enter the strip during the preceding week. However, this is but a fraction of the more than 600 trucks per day that the United Nations is necessary to meet their needs.
Many people who have come to aid sites administered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to obtain the meager supplies available, have been met with deadly violence from the Israeli military.
Since May 27, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 injured by Israeli forces at these sites, according to the U.N. Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Gaza Media Office reports at least 19 fatal incidents at these GHF sites over the span of just one month.
Many of the victims have been children. According to a study released Thursday by the humanitarian group Save the Children, children have been killed at 10 of those 19 incidents.
“No child should be killed searching for food,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. “This is not a humanitarian operation—it’s a death trap.”
Vote Labour for Genocide.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Kingdom Services boss says retailers seeing ‘different sort of shoplifter’ with more theft by people ‘who just can’t afford food’
Food retailers have seen a “massive” increase in pensioner shoplifters over the last year, according to a leading store security firm, amid the rising cost of living.
John Nussbaum, director of service for retail at Kingdom Services Group, has said his staff were seeing a “different sort of shoplifter now” as the cost of living “pushes people to something they’ve never done before”.
Kingdom, which provides services for hundreds of stores across the country, including supermarkets, convenience stores and shopping malls, has received 20 to 30 reports of shoplifting a week from across the UK involving “people who just can’t afford to buy food”, Nussbaum said.
He told PA Media: “We’ve seen a massive increase in pensioners shoplifting, putting a jar of coffee in their bag and one in the trolley, that sort of thing.”
He estimated that 5% of all those caught shoplifting by Kingdom staff on a weekly basis were aged over 50.
“For us over the last 12 months, we’ve got this different level of crime now. We’re now experiencing something different – pensioners, people who don’t normally shoplift,” Nussbaum said, adding: “We’ve had instances of mothers caught shoplifting when they’re with their kids.
“We’re used to seeing the organised gangs, that’s the norm, but the types of people being caught now has changed.
