“My daughter doesn’t get full from breastfeeding,” she said. “She keeps crying from hunger, and I can’t offer her anything. There’s no baby formula available, and if by chance we find it on the market, it’s outrageously expensive.”

Baby formula used to cost some $4.50 before October 2023. It has since fluctuated wildly in price, reaching as much as $66, before coming down again. A can of powder now fetches between $20–$25 when available.

Her daughter Aya, at four months old and just 3 kilograms, weighs less than half of what an average healthy baby is supposed to at that age.

Lina brought her to the hospital without diapers or milk. When staff asked what she fed her, they were shocked to learn that she had been preparing bottles of starch dissolved in water just to quiet the baby’s hunger. This caused Aya to suffer dangerously low blood sugar levels and acidosis — an increase in acidity in the blood.

“A child needs a healthy mother to be properly cared for,” Lina told The Electronic Intifada. “But we mothers are also exhausted by hunger. How can we care for our children when we ourselves are barely surviving? We’re not asking for miracles, we’re just asking for milk and food.”

Dr. Muhammad Baraka, 42, a pediatric nutrition specialist at Al-Rantisi Hospital, described the situation as catastrophic.

“A massive number of children with complications from malnutrition are coming to the clinic — something we’ve never seen before,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “This is the result of prolonged war and deprivation.”

With even a slice of bread a luxury, the vulnerable have been particularly affected.

“This [famine] has severely impacted children,” Baraka said. “It began with mild malnutrition, then moderate, then severe. Now we are seeing the most critical stage — with complications. What comes next is death.”

The children coming to Al-Rantisi Hospital are showing all the classic complications of malnutrition: skin issues, weakened immune systems, delayed mental awareness, heart and kidney problems, low blood sugar leading to seizures and electrolyte imbalances causing unconsciousness.

“These are conditions we used to read about in textbooks,” Baraka told The Electronic Intifada. “We are operating with the bare minimum and trying to save as many children as we can, but the mortality rate is high because the means to treat them are simply not available.”