‘Mother selling her kidney to feed her children': Palestinian nurse narrates horrors of hunger in Gaza

Malnutrition in Gaza has reached such desperate levels that a mother is now trying to sell her kidney to be able to feed her children, according to a Palestinian nurse.

As Israel continues its relentless attacks and crippling blockade on all essential supplies, the situation is “getting worse and worse,” Mohammed Samaana, who hails from Nablus, Palestine and works in NHS Belfast, told Anadolu.

“This morning a Palestinian woman was saying, and it is the first time I've heard this, that she is going to sell her kidney to feed her children, because there is no money, there is no income,” he said.

“Food is hard to come by and the only way to be able to feed her four children is (by) selling her kidney.”

Various aid groups and UN agencies have repeatedly warned of catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza owing to Israel's curbs on humanitarian aid.

Gaza's Health Ministry said last week that least 34 people, most of them children, have died of hunger, while the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that more than 50,000 children need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.

Samaana said there are still regular reports of more children dying “because Israel keeps denying humanitarian aid and is not allowing food or medicine into Gaza.”

Parents are most worried about their children, even though their own lives are at risk at every moment, he said.

“If they are still alive, if they were not killed by Israel bombing, they want to feed them by any means,” said Samaana.

“At some point, they were feeding them with bread made from animal feed. Now what this lady said highlights the seriousness of the situation.”

- ‘A lot of horror stories'

Samaana's efforts to highlight the brutality of Israel's deadly war on Gaza have earned him recognition in Northern Ireland, where he was recently honored with the Spirit of Feile award at the country's largest community arts festival.

“We get a lot of horror stories from Gaza,” Samaana said.

“Dead people not being able to be buried, still lying on a hospital mattress, not even a bed, for many days because nobody is able to get to them. A friend told me of his wife's nephews and niece, young children, being killed by Israeli bombing, and not being able to get to them because of the bombing.”

It should be clear to everybody that the “people of Gaza are facing genocide,” he asserted.

Apart from the bombs, Israel is also killing Palestinians “by denying them their medications,” he said.

“We're talking about 10,000 cancer patients not being able to get their treatment … The same thing can be said about kidney dialysis patients,” said the nurse.

“There was a woman crying out for help because her 5-year-old child has cancer and she needs to be out of Gaza to get cancer treatment but she can't … That's a death sentence for many people.”

Samaana said Israel has systematically targeted everything in Gaza, destroying more than 65% of its roads and over 85% of healthcare facilities, along with thousands of archaeological sites.

“It's an attack on the culture as well,” he said.

“It's a cultural genocide … It's an all-out attack, so that even if the war ends, this assault ends, there is nothing for people to live.”

The number of deaths is also much higher as the figures right now only have the bodies brought to hospitals, but those buried without being registered are not counted, he explained.

He said “about 10,000 people are missing” in Gaza, and they are assumed dead under the rubble.

- ‘Silence is complicity'

Samaana said the reluctance of Western nations in calling for a cease-fire stems from their complicity in Israel's “genocide.”

“What we are witnessing is what I would call silence, which is complicity,” he said.

“If you are silent when there is injustice, then you are complicit, you are participating in it. When you are (silent), it means endorsement, it means an approval of what's happening.”

He said countries like the US, Germany and others are not just silent, but “are actually actively participating in the genocide by arming Israel or financing it or providing political cover.”

“They're not even allowing people to speak out against the genocide,” he stressed, citing instances of people being sacked in the US, Britain, Germany, and other countries for raising a voice for Palestinians.

Samaana added that the US needs to understand that “peace comes from justice … (and) from implementing international law and UN resolutions.”

It “doesn't come from deploying more tanks, more bombs, more soldiers or fences. It comes from justice,” he said.

“And justice means giving the Palestinian people their basic human rights, their basic political rights, the right to self-determination, the right to independence and the right to … return to their homes.”