Atef Abu Khater’s weight dropped to just 25kg (55lbs) before he died of malnutrition, his family says.
A Palestinian teenager with no previous health conditions has starved to death in Gaza after being hospitalised, medical officials and relatives say, as people in the besieged enclave desperately struggle to find food amid Israel’s continued blockade on aid.
Atef Abu Khater, 17, died on Saturday, a source at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City told media.
His weight had dropped from 70kg (154lbs) to just 25kg (55lbs) when he died, his family said – roughly what a nine-year-old child should weigh.
“We hear from his family members and others who knew him that he used to be a local sports champion. He ended up losing a lot of weight, becoming acutely malnourished, and ultimately dying,” media’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City.
“He was one of thousands of severe malnutrition cases throughout Gaza.”
Footage shared online and verified by media showed Abu Khater’s relatives saying goodbye. In it, the boy’s emaciated body could be seen in an open white body bag, his face turned away from the camera.
His cheekbones protruded in the absence of any fat, giving him a gaunt appearance. A relative could be seen running his finger along each bone on the boy’s ribcage, which is clearly visible due to malnutrition.
Journalist Wisam Shabat, who posted the video on his Instagram account, said Abu Khater arrived at the hospital in a very critical condition, suffering from severe complications due to lack of food and medical care, before he passed away.
The 17-year-old is among at least seven Palestinians who have died of malnutrition in the past 24 hours across Gaza, the director of al-Shifa Hospital told media.
At least 169 Palestinians, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the territory since Israel’s war began in October 2023, according to the latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.
UN and other humanitarian officials say Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries, though partially lifted in recent days, have left Palestinians starving and struggling to find enough food to feed their families.
Amid growing international condemnation of the crisis, Israel has said it is increasing aid deliveries to Palestinians, including via airdrops.
But humanitarian groups say airdrops are dangerous and inefficient, and they have called on Israel to open up all the crossings into Gaza to allow assistance to flow freely to Palestinians in need.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Saturday that “the manmade famine in Gaza has been largely shaped by the deliberate attempts to replace” UN aid systems with a contentious, US and Israeli-backed group called the GHF.
Israeli forces have routinely fired on Palestinians trying to get food at GHF-run distribution sites in Gaza, and the UN reported this week that more than 1,300 aid seekers have been killed since the group began operating in May.
Lazzarini also accused Israel of actively preventing the UN and other humanitarian groups from delivering lifesaving aid to Palestinians, in what he described as “a deliberate measure to collectively pressure and punish Palestinians for living in Gaza”.
“No time to waste anymore, a political decision must be made to unconditionally open the crossings”, the UNRWA chief said in a post on X.
Children ‘dying slowly’
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian families continue to search for food and other desperately needed supplies across Gaza.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, media’s Hind Khoudary said dozens of people, including infants, are “dying slowly due to forced starvation by Israel”.
“One of them is Misk al-Madhoun, a malnourished five-year-old whose parents have no way of feeding her. They say they are seeing her dying slowly every single day,” said Khoudary, adding that parents are doing all they possibly can for their children.
“We’ve met with mothers who are giving their babies water instead of milk because they do not have any other option,” she said.
“We’re also still seeing Palestinian parents walking very long distances in the heat daily to look for any hot meal kitchen or distribution point. Even if they go to the GHF sites, they risk being killed, wounded or coming home empty-handed.”
On Tuesday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, warned that the “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding in Gaza.
“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” it said in a report.
“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
