Gaza / PNN /
"I carried a small can of baby formula in my bag. It wasn’t just powdered milk — it was a lifeline for a dying infant. I was about to enter Gaza, but Israel blocked me. They said the milk was ‘not authorised.’”
With these words, Dr Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian physician, recounts one of the starkest humanitarian paradoxes of our time: baby formula — a simple, everyday item — stranded at a military checkpoint, waiting for permission.
This week, two infants in Gaza died from starvation and a lack of baby formula. Medical teams warn of an imminent catastrophe that threatens the lives of at least 580 babies — most of them newborns — now suffering from severe malnutrition as the health system collapses under blockade.
Dr Ahmad, a member of a medical delegation working to deliver aid through the international group Avaaz, said he met with European officials to advocate for entry. “I brought with me the same can of formula that had been denied access into Gaza,” he said. “Some of them cried when they heard what my colleagues in Gaza’s hospitals are facing. But tears don’t save lives.”
A Crime at the Hospital Gates
For months, the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza have warned of dwindling essential supplies — especially baby formula. At al-Shifa Medical Complex, doctors report that some infants are being fed rice water or diluted tea in desperate attempts to keep them alive.
“Mothers are severely malnourished and cannot breastfeed. Doctors are rationing the last cans of formula. In some cases, babies are forced to share a single can over several days,” one physician said.
Hospitals-turned-shelters are now performing surgeries without anaesthesia, patients sleep on bare floors, and the cries of infants mix with the roar of airstrikes.
Emergency Appeal: Sign Before More Infants Are Added to the Death Tolls
As part of a global campaign launched by the advocacy group Avaaz, Dr Ahmad and a growing coalition of doctors and activists are calling for urgent international signatures on a petition demanding that Israeli authorities allow immediate entry of baby formula and life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“We must turn sympathy into action. Gaza’s children are not statistics — they are lives waiting for a drop of milk,” Dr Ahmad said. He noted that recent international pressure forced Israeli authorities to permit a limited quantity of formula through, but warned it is nowhere near enough to meet the urgent needs.
Avaaz: “Your Voice Can Save Lives”
Founded in 2007, Avaaz is a global civic organisation campaigning on human rights and humanitarian issues. Operating in 17 languages with over 40 million members, the group has been actively pressuring governments and UN agencies to act on the crisis in Gaza.
The organisation is urging world leaders to respond with tangible measures to stop the famine being driven by the blockade, and to deliver—not deny—the formula and aid needed to keep Gaza’s youngest alive.
