GAZA/CAIRO: In a makeshift tent on a Gazan beach, three-month-old Muntaha's grandmother grinds up chickpeas into the tiniest granules she can to form a paste to feed the infant, knowing it will cause her to cry in pain, in a desperate race to keep the baby from starving.
"If the baby could speak, she would scream at us, asking what we are putting into her stomach," her aunt, Abir Hamouda said.
Muntaha grimaced and squirmed as her grandmother fed her the paste with a syringe.
Muntaha's family is one of many in Gaza facing dire choices to try to feed babies, especially those below the age of six months who cannot process solid food.
Infant formula is scarce after a plummet in aid access to Gaza. Many women cannot breastfeed due to malnourishment, while other babies are separated from their mothers due to displacement, injury or, in Muntaha's case, death.
Her family says the baby's mother was hit by a bullet while pregnant, gave birth prematurely while unconscious in intensive care, and died a few weeks later. The director of the Shifa Hospital described such a case in a Facebook post on April 27, four days after Muntaha was born.
"I am terrified about the fate of the baby," said her grandmother, Nemah Hamouda. "We named her after her mother... hoping she can survive and live long, but we are so afraid, we hear children and adults die every day of hunger."
Muntaha now weighs about 3.5 kilogrammes, her family said, barely more than half of what a full-term baby her age would normally weigh. She suffers stomach problems like vomiting and diarrhoea after feeding.
Health officials, aid workers and Gazan families said many families are feeding infants herbs and tea boiled in water, or grinding up bread or sesame. Humanitarian agencies also reported cases of parents boiling leaves in water, eating animal feed and grinding sand into flour.
Feeding children solids too early can disrupt their nutrition, cause stomach problems and risk choking, paediatric health experts say.
"It's a desperate move to compensate for the lack of food," said Unicef spokesperson Salim Oweis. "When mothers can't breastfeed or provide proper infant formula they resort to grinding chickpeas, bread, rice, anything that they can get their hands on to feed their children... it is risking their health because these supplies are not made for infants to feed on."
Gaza's spiralling humanitarian crisis prompted the main world hunger monitoring body to say a worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding and immediate action is needed to avoid widespread death. Images of emaciated Palestinian children have shocked the world.
Gaza's health authorities have reported more and more people dying from hunger-related causes. The total so far stands at 154, among them 89 children, most of whom died in the last few weeks.
With the international furore over Gaza's ordeal growing, Israel announced steps to ease aid access. But the UN World Food Programme said it was still not getting the permissions it needed to deliver enough aid.
Humanitarian agencies say there is almost no infant formula left in Gaza. The cans available in the market cost over $100 - impossible to afford for families like Muntaha’s, whose father has been jobless since the war closed his falafel business and displaced the family from their home.
In the paediatric ward of Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir Al Balah, the infant formula supply is mostly depleted.
One mother showed how she poured thick tahini sesame paste into a bottle and mixed it with water. "I am using this instead of milk, to compensate her for milk, but she won't drink it," said Azhar Imad, 31, the mother of four-month-old Joury.
"I also make her fenugreek, anise, caraway, any kind of herbs (mixed with water)," she said, panicked as she described how instead of nourishing her child, these attempts were making her sick.
Medical staff at the hospital spoke of helplessness, watching on as children's health deteriorated with no way to safely feed them.
"Now, children are being fed either water or ground hard legumes, and this is harmful for children in Gaza," said doctor Khalil Daqran.
"If the hunger continues... within three or four days, if the child doesn't get access to milk immediately, then they will die," he said. - Reuters
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