SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The hunger crisis in Gaza has escalated in recent weeks. Under intense international pressure, Israel announced late yesterday that it would begin a daily 10-hour pause in fighting to allow the delivery of some food and aid. Gaza has been mostly sealed off from international journalists since Israel launched the war. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley was allowed rare access today by the Israeli military, the IDF, as the Israelis responded to international outrage over the earlier blocking of food aid. What our reporter saw was a far from clear picture.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: I've come into Gaza with the IDF. We've had an escort. We were brought in in trucks. We're wearing our gear - our flak jacket and our helmets. I can hear shooting, like, tank fire and small gunfire in the distance. This is a desolate place that feels like the end of the Earth. There's rotting oil, beans, baby formula, diapers just stacked up, rotting in the sun. There are birds picking at it. And this is the IDF's proof that the U.N. is letting the aid rot, but it just shows that aid is rotting. I don't know. It's very - it's a condemnation of humanity, if you ask me. It's just this desert wasteland with a hot wind blowing and rotting aid pasta over here.
DETROW: In Scotland this evening, President Trump was asked about the hunger crisis in Gaza.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Will I do more aid? Yeah. The U.S. is going to do more aid for Gaza, but we'd like to have other countries participate.
DETROW: It's unclear what that aid would look like or how and when it would be delivered. The United Nations says about 90,000 women and children are severely malnourished in Gaza and need immediate medical care this week. NPR's Anas Baba, who lives in Gaza City, sent us this report today. And listeners should know that you'll hear children suffering from war in this story.
MOHAMMAD: (Crying).
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: In this tent by the sea, Hidaya Al-Motawaq tries to offer what comfort she can to her youngest child, 1 1/2-year-old Mohammad.
HIDAYA AL-MOTAWAQ: (Speaking Arabic).
MOHAMMAD: (Crying).
BABA: She don't have anything. The child that - he weighs less than 4 1/2 kilograms. His mother is feeding him water, only water. And she's - all of the time - trying to tell the world that the famine and the malnutrition is hitting severely in Gaza and spreading nonstop.
MOHAMMAD: (Crying).
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Shushing).
BABA: Mohammad is nearly all bone, his eyes protruding, his spine so sharp and so defined, it seems it might poke through his thin skin. Mohammad's older sister is doing OK, but he's so young, his small body has not been able to withstand the hunger. All the hospitals in Gaza told his mother they had nothing left. No food, no milk to give her, so she cradles Mohammad, strokes his thinning hair, but what he needs is to eat. She no longer has breast milk because she's malnourished.
MOHAMMAD: (Crying).
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Speaking Arabic).
BABA: This is just one family, and Gaza has about 1 million children. That's about half of the population. Israel says it's letting in food through its own distribution program, backed by the U.S., but the system does not reach many people and has been deadly for many Palestinians, with dozens of people this week alone killed by Israeli gunfire. This war is scarring a generation of children, says Ahmed Al-Farrah, a doctor who heads the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in Southern Gaza.
AHMED AL-FARRAH: A generation of children who are below 3 years because the central nervous system is nearly composed in this three years.
BABA: If these children survive, Al-Farrah worries they will suffer from neurological impairments brought by the starvation.
AL-FARRAH: Like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, difficulty in school performance, in comprehension, speaking.
BABA: Salwa Shamali is 20 years old, which makes her one of the older siblings in her family here in Gaza. She spends all her time trying find ways to keep her young siblings alive.
SALWA SHAMALI: (Speaking Arabic).
BABA: She says, "I care more about food and water. I don't care about the news. Half of our family are young children, and we think of them more." Shamali's days are dictated by the never-ending search for food and water.
SHAMALI: (Speaking Arabic).
BABA: She says, at 6 a.m., they can sometimes get water. And at 2 p.m., my brothers try to get food from a local charity or school. At 6 p.m., her father ventures out but usually comes back with nothing.
MOHAMMAD: (Crying).
BABA: Hidaya Al-Motawaq's world is even smaller.
AL-MOTAWAQ: (Shushing).
BABA: It's this tent by the Mediterranean Sea, trying to keep 1 1/2-year-old Mohammad alive. Al-Motawaq was displaced here after her husband was killed in Israel's war in Gaza. She had lost her home, her livelihood. But she had her two children, and she wants to keep them both alive. Anas Baba, NPR News, Gaza City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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