The Palestinian Ministry of Health has said hospitals in Gaza have recorded 15 deaths, including those of four children, in Gaza due to starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours amid Israel’s blockade on the Strip.
The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, has told Al Jazeera that women in Gaza are being targeted deliberately by Israel due to their ability to reproduce.
Alsalem said that while all Palestinians are being subjected to Israel’s “genocidal enterprise”, “women and girls are deliberately being targeted by Israel because they are Palestinian and because of the reproductive capacity”.
“Israel realises that […] Palestinian women and girls carry the promise of the continuity of Palestinian life, and therefore they are being deliberately killed, and they’re being deliberately exterminated,” the UN expert added.
Alsalem has recently published a report on the topic saying that Israeli actions in Gaza “are geared towards undermining the continuity of Palestinian life, to undermine Palestinian existence”.
“We see this through the increased rates of miscarriages among Palestinian women, the severe malnutrition… even pregnant and lactating women are unable to breastfeed,” she said.
That brings the total number of hunger-related deaths in the Strip to 101, including 80 children, since Israel launched its offensive on Gaza in October 2023.
