By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-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 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).
A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”
Sex feels good, and can be an escape from the relentless nihilism knowing that a bomb could fall on their heads tomorrow, or a bullet from an IOF officer takes them out.
Then, you have to think about contraceptives. If those aren’t abundant, people won’t use them, so more kids. Same is true for abortion care, which I doubt many Palestinians have after Israel bombed most if not all of Gaza’s hospitals.
Very good points!