The final days of Yazan Kafarna were heartbreaking. Afflicted with cerebral palsy, he had to endure a grueling Israeli war, reducing him to a skeleton and killing him through starvation.
Ten-year-old Yazan Kafarna stands as a vicious monument to the Israeli starvation and famine of the people of Gaza. He died on 4, March, 2024 in the Abu Yousef Al Najar hospital in Rafah, south Gaza after a long battle with starvation that reduced him to a skeletal form and forced his body to shutdown and take its last breath.
Yazan had cerebral palsy since birth and needed to be on a strict diet because his condition meant he had a problem of swallowing and digesting. All his food needed to be mashed and crushed. Right up 7th October and just after Israel started its war on Gaza things seemed to be relatively ok.
However, everything changed for the people of Gaza Strip after that fateful day because Israel, through its Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised it would cut electricity, food and water starting with north Gaza including Biet Hanoon where the Kafarna family lived.
Soon they had no choice but to leave their home because first, they, like the thousands of other people there, were ordered to move south by the Israeli army and second, the scarcity of supplies, meant food items like bread, vegetables and meat began to disappear from the markets.
And thus, the agony of displacement began for many including the Kafarna family. They had a double challenge because they needed to find the right kind of diet like banana, blended fruits and milk for Yazan to eat. On the way, they moved to Gaza city where supplies were dwindling, then to the Nuseirat Camp, and finally to Rafah where the Israeli army wanted them to go. There, 1.5 million people assembled in a city meant for 200,000.
Whilst moving around also, the family needed to find medicines for Yazan. So, the father spent most of his time scurrying to different hospitals but these were in the process of shutdown, closing as a result of Israeli bombardment and/or didn’t have the available care or treatment. In the Gaza Strip, there were 35 hospitals, but today there are only five, limp-operating, providing only primary care treatment.
The death of Yazan Kafarna set the social media going with many hashtags like #YazanKafarna, #AirDropFoodToGaza, #Justice4Palestine, #CeasefireNOW, #FreeGaza, H204GAZA and lots more. Everyone was talking about the eventual death, the starvation of the little handicapped boy who had to endure displacement through the barrel of the Israeli gun in an induced famine on Gaza.
Further, the whole world was talking about and uttering his name from the pinnacles of the United Nations led by the Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour to bloggers from Japan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia to south America, Europe and the United States. They commented in English, French, German, Japanese, Hindi, Russian and more.
One blogger said: “This is not Germany in the 1940’s nor Ukraine in the 1930’s, this is Gaza 2024. Perpetuated by Israeli occupiers who came from Germany & Ukraine! He lost his life due to the siege on Gaza and starvation war.”
The doctors said Yazan finally died from malnutrition and dehydration because the Israelis had sworn to cut off the water supplies as well. Dr Marwan Salem, food nutritionist, put a finer point on it, saying Yazan specifically died from severe starvation.
“My son’s health rapidly deteriorated and he lost weight until he became a skeleton,” Yazan’s mother said, sitting on the ground at Yousef Al Najjar Hospital in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
But Yazan is not the only one to suffer a terrible fate. At least 16 children have died from dehydration and malnutrition in northern Gaza amid the Israeli onslaught, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry as reported by TRT World.
There is an undeclared Israeli policy to starve the people of Gaza and to create famine. This policy has been practiced from the start, certainly after the temporary 10-day ceasefire that was agreed upon but ended last early December 2023 when Israel started again to bomb civilians, their homes and infrastructure in Gaza under the pretext of searching for the hostages that then stood at 138.
Since then, as well, 1000s of aid trucks were send by the UN and other countries but remained standing at the borders, in Rafah, Karem Abu Salem and Biet Hanoon (Erez) Crossings around Gaza with Israeli guards refusing to let them pass through under the pretext that they need to be searched.
UNRWA since stated 4 out of 5 people “most” starving in the world is found in Gaza and that 1 in 4 people in the Strip are in a state of acute hunger. The alarm bells have long been ringing by world bodies about the state of starvation which is accompanied by more disease and likely to lead to greater number of deaths among women, children and the infirm like it was the case with Yazan.
But he is only the tip of the deadly iceberg. Baby Hiba Ziadeh also died of dehydration and starvation. She reached such a critical stage that it was too late to save her. The baby milk did arrive in the end but her little body just gave up. This is the case all over Gaza.
Hiba and Yazan should strike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli politicians right in their faces for the Gaza genocide, right till the end of their time, but I dare say they could care less. The only hope now is enough pressure would be placed on them to stop the madness of killing through bombs, missiles, destruction, starvation and famine.
If they have a bone to pick for the killing of 1200 people on 7 October, it should be with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian resistance and leave civilians alone, but it might be too late now.
Dr Asmar is an Amman-based writer specializing on Middle East Affairs
