• Dr. Mohammed Fadlalla says poor nutrition delaying wound healing, raising infection risks, straining staff

GENEVA 

A growing number of patients in Gaza are suffering complications from malnutrition that are delaying recovery and worsening outcomes, as the territory’s hunger crisis spirals under a prolonged blockade, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

"We're absolutely expecting a rise in malnutrition-related pathology and challenges of treating patients who are malnourished," Dr. Mohammed Fadlalla, MSF’s medical activity manager based in southern Gaza, told Anadolu. "We've already seen it. We've already experienced it, and the situation is only going to get worse as this blockade continues."

Fadlalla said malnutrition is severely affecting trauma recovery, particularly in surgical cases.

Patients with gunshot wounds, blast injuries, or shrapnel-related internal damage often undergo complex procedures, but their weakened nutritional state is preventing proper healing. In many cases, he noted, intestinal repairs fail days or even weeks after surgery, leading to dangerous complications such as bowel leaks and infections.

"We have patients coming in with large areas of burns on their skin, and these open wounds that develop are taking a lot longer to heal than they would because the skin and the tissue just don't have enough amount of nutrition, don't have enough building blocks to build itself back together," he said. "We're seeing it in increasing rates of infections because the body relies on a good nutritional status to be able to fight off infections."

"The body's natural immunity is based on having a robust nutritional status," he underlined.

Health workers also struggle to access food

The health system itself is stretched thin -- not only in treating patients but also in sustaining its own workers. "The hospital is struggling to offer the patients enough food while they're admitted, but it's even having difficulty in its doctors, its nurses, and its staff having enough food to be able to take care of the patients," said Fadlalla.

Similar remarks echoed by the UNRWA's (UN agency for Palestinian refugees) director of communications, Juliette Touma, on Tuesday as she said: "Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them UNRWA staff, are hungry."

Fadlalla described the broader food situation in Gaza as "extremely grim." Prices continue to rise, supplies are scarce, and even those with money often find empty markets. "Day by day, patients, people, staff, the public, is getting weaker, more tired, more frustrated, more disheartened."

He called for sustained humanitarian access and an end to delays in aid distribution. "What's urgently needed more than anything at this time is for a lot of aid trucks to be let in, and aid to be distributed in a way that's devoid of cruelty, and in a distribution that's widespread and continuous," he said.

Months of blockade and food scarcity, he warned, have depleted Gaza's population, and "to reverse that is not going to be a few days or a few weeks of adequate supply."

"It's going to have to be a sustained allowance of adequate numbers of food trucks filled with a variety of different types of nutrients," he concluded.

According to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, more than 1,000 starving civilians have been reported killed while attempting to access food since the end of May.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Sunday that Israel’s blockade, which has restricted the entry of humanitarian aid since October 2023, has led to the deaths of 86 Palestinians, including 76 children, due to hunger and malnutrition.

The ministry said 18 people died of starvation in just 24 hours, calling the situation a "silent massacre" unfolding under a prolonged siege.

Israel has killed more than 59,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, collapsed the health system, and led to severe food shortages.