Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly challenged the assertion that starvation is rampant in Gaza, most recently when he slammed a UN report on famine as “blood libel.” 

On the Haaretz Podcast, Yarden Michaeli takes listeners behind the scenes of his in-depth reporting with Nir Hasson on the scale of severe acute malnutrition in Gaza. As Israel continues to bar journalists from entering the Strip, Michaeli and Hasson virtually “toured” clinics and hospitals in Gaza – including the pediatric ward of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. Israel struck the hospital on Monday, killing multiple healthcare and media workers, including Moaz Abu Taha, the photographer who guided the Haaretz reporters through Nasser.

As Michaeli “toured” the wards of Nasser, he saw children who were “very thin, with weak, glazed eyes, clearly severely malnourished with markers of starvation, like changes to their hair color, missing spots of hair on their head, missing teeth and rashes on their skin.” 

The condition of children, he was told by experts, are the earliest signs of large-scale famine in a population. 

“The fact that the marks of starvation are already visible on adults in Gaza shows that this whole situation is in an advanced stage,” said Michaeli. “We're not at the beginning. We're far and deep into the process.”

Read more:

'Starvation Is Everywhere': Virtual Tours of Gaza Clinics Expose the Scale of the Horror

UN Says Over Half a Million Palestinians in Gaza Suffering From Famine; Netanyahu: 'Outright Lie'

Alex de Waal: 'Pasta Won't Help. Gaza Is on the Brink of an Exponential Surge in Starvation Deaths'

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