As the war in Gaza continues into its fifth month, aid groups are warning there'll soon be an explosion of preventable child deaths because of malnutrition. Desperate families are now using animal food and cooking with weeds just to survive.
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00:00 Sitting in the ruins of their home in northern Gaza, the Nabhan family is about to have their
00:07 only food of the day.
00:10 "That is the bread we eat."
00:13 But it's not bread, it's actually animal food that's been ground up and clumped together.
00:20 "We cannot eat this. A donkey would not eat this. I bought it yesterday and I wanted to throw it away.
00:27 It's not edible. Take it, take it, look at how it is."
00:31 But this is the only food the family has as starvation reaches catastrophic levels in Gaza.
00:38 "There is no flour, no food. We search for one kilo of rice at the supermarket.
00:44 The children tour the supermarkets and they come back bare-handed saying 'there is no rice'."
00:50 What they can find is sticks and leaves, scavenged off the ground and used to make tea.
00:59 Since October 7, large areas of agricultural land have been destroyed
01:05 and Israel has imposed a partial siege on the enclave controlling the entry of essential aid such as food.
01:12 The UN says at least one in four households are now facing famine in Gaza
01:18 and children are most at risk.
01:21 "I hope that the war ends and the peace comes and that we will survive."
01:28 Here in northern Gaza is the worst affected area, largely cut off from any aid supplies.
01:37 Abu Zain Askar is picking weeds with his son.
01:42 His heavily pregnant wife will try to turn the weeds into a soup.
01:48 "The situation is very bad. We pretend it's a lentil soup, but we can't find lentils, we can't find onion, we can't find anything.
01:59 I fool the children as it's only water and some greens."
02:03 As the war drags on, the World Food Programme predicts there will be widespread famine conditions in Gaza by May
02:11 and aid agencies are warning there'll soon be an explosion of preventable child deaths due to severe malnutrition.
02:20 "There is no life. Life has stopped. We are done. We cannot live."
02:27 These children are trying to distract themselves from the hunger and the horror,
02:36 but they desperately hope for an end to the war.
02:40 "Hey!"
02:42 "The wind is blowing, the guitar is playing."
02:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]