Latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than birth weight

Ahmed Abu Halib and his wife Esraa Abu Halib, left, mourn over the body of their 5-month-old baby, Zainab, who died from malnutrition-related causes, according to the family and the hospital, during her funeral outside the Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis. (Pic credit: AP)

KHAN YOUNIS: A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her five-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest. The girl had weighed over 3kg when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2kg.A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in three weeks, according to the latest toll released by Gaza health ministry Saturday. Another 42 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the same period, it said.