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The current conflict is threatening the nutritional status of infants, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, and other vulnerable groups, due to shock, stress and deprivation of food, water and other essential lifesaving services.
Health facilities across the State of Palestine (SoP) are overwhelmed, with nutrition and health services impacted by the intense hostilities and frequent power cuts. This threatens access to preventive and life-saving care for every child across the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on earth, 2.2 million people have been living under blockade for 16 years with restricted access to basic necessities.
Since the escalation of hostilities on 7 October, the delivery of fuel, food, water, medicine, and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza strip has been extremely limited, exacerbating an already fragile nutrition situation.
Prior to the current conflict, 64% of households in Gaza Strip were food insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity, with 124,500 young children living in food poverty. Now, as per the Food Security Cluster current estimations, 100% of Gaza population are food insecure. Additionally, before the hostilities began on 7th October, UNRWA reported that over 90% of the water in Gaza had been deemed unfit for human consumption, while the WASH cluster estimates a 94% reduction in the water supply.
In Gaza, food shortages stand to worsen as bakeries and other food producers are destroyed and those remaining are on the brink of running out of fuel, cutting off a critical food source for millions of people. Children under five are at particular risk to water and food shortages and, given the poor sanitation, they are at an increased risk of disease and very susceptible to diarrheal diseases, which would very rapidly put them at risk of death if not addressed immediately.
Additionally, the conflict has disrupted the supply chain, limiting access to essential medical and nutritional products, such as ready to use therapeutic food (RUTF). The current stock of essential nutrition supplies in Gaza is far too low, making it impossible to provide adequate management of malnutrition, with more than 337,000 children under 5 years and 155,858 pregnant and lactating women (PLW) unable to access essential prevention, early detection, and treatment of malnutrition services in Gaza.
Prior to the escalation of the conflict, the prevalence of under nutrition among children was already a public health issue, where:
• 30,000 children under 5 in Gaza were estimated to be stunted (a key indicator of protracted undernutrition). These stunted children may never attain their full potential in terms of physical growth, cognitive capacity, school performance and productivity later in life.
• 7,685 children under 5 suffered from life-threatening wasting – leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and in severe cases, death. More than half of these children were severely wasted and in need of life-saving treatment.
While the undernutrition levels detailed above were already of concern prior to 7 October, it is likely that wasting levels have drastically increased since, particularly among the youngest and most vulnerable children. However, the lack of safe humanitarian access into and around Gaza means getting a more accurate estimation of the gravity of the situation and the exact needs is a challenge. The rates of malnutrition and scale of the danger can unfold rapidly as water borne disease and / or other epidemics materialize, spreading quickly within densely populated shelters.
Nutrition support urgently needed to close current gaps:
• Approximately 134,823 children 0-23 months in Gaza are not receiving the cricitcal life-saving breastfeeding and age-appropriate complementary feeding practices, including micronutrient supplementation, that are critical for their growth and development.
• About 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza – 5,500 of whom are expected to deliver in the next month – are unable to obtain basic health and nutrition services. There are also an additional 105,800 breastfeeding mothers who are struggling to feed themselves and their babies.
• In Gaza, 1 in 3 women aged 15-49 years is anemic – approximately 50,000 women. Anemia in pregnancy can increase the risk of having a preterm birth and having a low birthweight child. If anemia is left untreated, women can face complications during pregnancy and children may experience developmental delays. Preterm birth is one of the main causes of infant mortality in developing countries.
Urgent Nutrition Priorities and Need
• Sustained, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to the affected populations.
• Sustain the provision of ongoing preventive and curative nutrition services in accessible areas, with a focus on positioning supplies and managing the increasing operational costs.
• Resume the provision of nutrition services in the most impacted areas once access and security conditions are conducive to safe movement.