WHO deputy director: We are ‘breaking the bodies and minds’ of Gaza’s children

The minds and bodies of children in Gaza are being broken, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program says, following two months of a total ban on aid deliveries to Gaza and weeks of renewed strikes.

“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit,” Deputy Director General Michael Ryan tells reporters at the WHO’s headquarters.

“As a physician, I am angry. It is an abomination,” he says.

“The current level of malnutrition is causing a collapse in immunity,” Ryan says, warning that cases of pneumonia and meningitis in women and children could increase.

Israel halted all aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2 following the conclusion of the first phase of a since-collapsed ceasefire and hostage release deal. It has repeatedly said that it won’t lift the blockade until Hamas releases the remaining 59 captives.

Last week, the World Food Programme said it had run out of food stocks in the Strip, although Israel has denied that there is a hunger crisis in the enclave.

The United Nations warned this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza’s children was worsening.