Gaza mother worries time running out for evacuation of malnourished daughter

Stroking the hair of her emaciated daughter on a hospital bed in Gaza City, Nasma Ayad fears time is running out for a medical evacuation of the malnourished eight-year-old to avoid the fate of her sister, who died last month.

“I feel I’m slowly losing my daughter, day after day — everything she’s suffering from is multiplying,” Ayad says.

With few medical supplies and limited food, treating malnourished Palestinian children with complicated conditions in war-shattered Gaza has become increasingly difficult, according to medical staff and humanitarian agencies.

Jana received treatment for malnutrition last year at an International Medical Corps clinic in the central town of Deir al-Balah after showing signs of weakness and delayed growth.

Though she improved, the frequent interruption of healthcare services and increasing scarcity of food, as Israeli forces who control all access to Gaza have kept up their offensive against Hamas terrorists, led to a relapse, Ayad says.

She weighs just 11 kilograms (24 pounds) and has trouble seeing, speaking or standing up.

“She started having an edema, which is fluid retention that makes the limbs and the body swell and store water because of the lack of protein and food,” says Suzan Marouf, a therapeutic nutritionist at Patient Friend’s Benevolent Society Hospital.

Jana’s sister, Joury, died on July 20. The child had kidney problems exacerbated by malnutrition, her mother said.