In all the decades I’ve been studying this, I’ve never seen statistics as bad as they are in Gaza today. The population of Gaza is only two million people. But the intensity of suffering is something that is really without precedent in modern times.

–Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

Malnutrition has been widespread in Gaza at least since 2007, when the Israeli occupation  imposed a blockade of many basic goods and impoverished most of the population. In addition, multiple Israeli air wars over the years destroyed agricultural land and food systems. MECA began working in partnership with Ard El-Insan in 2017 after a visit to one of the kindergartens we supported revealed signs of insufficient nutrition among young children like fainting from anemia (iron deficiency).

Since the genocide began a year ago, child malnutrition in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. MECA and Ard El-Insan started a program to identify and treat children under five years old at two clinics in southern Gaza, where an enormous number of displaced people are now living.

As of mid-September, the program has reached nearly 5,000 children, providing vitamins and food supplements for those who are moderately and severely malnourished as well as education for over 2,000 caregivers in how to get the most nutrition out of the minimal food they are able to get.