Shuruq Ayyad shows off the protruding ribs of her 12-year-old daughter Rahaf at a school-turned-shelter in al-Rimal in central Gaza City on Sunday — AFP GAZA, May 04 (AP/AFP): At 9 months old, Khaled is barely 11 pounds (5 kilos) - half of what a healthy baby his age should be. And in Gaza's main pediatric hospital ward, as doctors try to save her son, Wedad Abdelaal can only watch.
After back-to-back emergency visits, the doctors decided to admit Khaled last weekend. For nearly a week, he was tube-fed and then given supplements and bottled milk, which is distributed every three hours or more. His mother, nervous and helpless, says that's not enough.
"I wish they would give it to us every hour. He waits for it impatiently ... but they too are short on supplies," Abdelaal says. " This border closure is destroying us."
The longer they stay in the hospital, the better Khaled will get. But Abdelaal is agonizing over her other children, back in their tent, with empty pots and nothing to eat as Israel's blockade of Gaza enters its third month, the longest since the war started.
Meanwhile, Israeli Cabinet ministers were set to meet on Sunday to vote on whether to intensify the country's military operations in the Gaza Strip, as the army began to call up thousands of reserve soldiers in preparation for an expanded assault, Israeli officials said.
Also Sunday, a missile launched by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen prompted air traffic at Israel's main Ben-Gurion Airport to halt, police said. The Israeli military said a projectile landed in the area of the airport, although it was not immediately clear if it was the missile or an interceptor of the country's missile defense system.
The plans to escalate fighting in Gaza more than 18 months after the war there erupted come as a humanitarian crisis in the territory deepens.
As part of its efforts to pressure the militant group Hamas to negotiate on Israel's terms for a new ceasefire, Israel in early March halted the entry of goods into Gaza. That has plunged the territory of 2.3 million people into what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis since the war began.
An eight-week-long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that brought a lull in fighting and freed Israeli hostages collapsed in March. Israel resumed its strikes on Gaza on March 18 and has captured swaths of the coastal enclave. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed, according to local health officials. At least six Israeli soldiers have been killed in the renewed fighting.
OIC condemns Israeli aggression
against Syrian territory
The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has strongly condemned the continued and escalating Israeli aggression against the Syrian territory.
The OIC denounced the Israeli airstrike in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace in Damascus, in flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic, said an OIC press release here today.
The General Secretariat reaffirmed the need to respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and called on the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, to put an end to these repeated Israeli aggressions, which threaten regional peace and security, it added.
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