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.”

  • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    24 hours ago

    No. I’m not suggesting that nobody in PaIestine a should ever have children ever again.

    In fact, I haven’t suggested anything.

    I’m questioning why people in G aza specifically, which is an active warzone with no food or water, where kids are targetted with violence, would bring babies there.

    I’m trying to gain insight into the situation and minds of the people there.

    Children are being slaughtered. As a human being, I personally wouldn’t want to add to that. But that’s just me. I may be ignorant to the thinking of the people there.

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      22 hours ago

      there is incredible amount of human suffering. it is weird to he asking that question amongst all of that suffering. What are you suggesting they do if they become pregnant and all hospitals are filled with bombed people? What would you do in that situation? How would you seek your abortion that is the objectively morally correct choice according to you?

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              19 hours ago

              I think Palestinian parents are not to blame for Israel being a baby killing ethnostate that’s trying to exterminate them.

              You are literally advocating for compliance with genocide. Palestinians giving up on life and ceasing reproduction is Israel’s goal.

              • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                19 hours ago

                I think Palestinian parents are not to blame for Israel being a baby killing ethnostate that’s trying to exterminate them.

                Agreed.

                I think there is still hope for the country. I never said otherwise. I never said PaIestine should comply. I never said the people of PaIastine are to blame for anything. People are projecting nonsense between my words and I’m exhausted with the lack of reading comprehension here, so this will be my last comment in this thread. I see now why .ml has the reputation that it does. I will see myself out.

          • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            20 hours ago

            I don’t want to see any more children born into a short life of suffering. I don’t see how that’s unempathetic.

            • Tangentism@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              18 hours ago

              Then do everything you can to stop the violent settler colonial state from continuing that suffering instead of victim blaming