Enough food for first graders? Research spotlights how Gaza families struggled to feed children even before the war

AMMAN,

A new study published in The Lancet Global Health journal reveals that in the months leading up to the war in Gaza, most families there were struggling to feed their young children as they prepared for their first year of school.

The research by UNRWA underscores the marginal food and nutrition situation people in Gaza were facing before the outbreak of the war on 7 October 2023 and their vulnerability to its devastating effects.

It found that more than half of incoming first graders were not eating either a morning or evening meal each day, including two-thirds of children in the most food-insecure families.

“Gazan children were not nutritionally prepared to endure even the first few months of food shortages. Since then, we have seen alarming increases in malnutrition, disease, and death. What is most needed now is a ceasefire and lasting peace. Anything less will only lead to more suffering in Gaza,” said Dr. Akihiro Seita, Director of UNRWA’s Health Department and senior author of the study.

The study found that three out of four parents were worried about their families not having enough food, running out of food, eating low-quality meals, or needing to skip meals. Some 84 per cent of families relied on food aid, providing a critical lifeline, yet 4.5 per cent of children were still extremely thin.

The study also found that most children’s diets lacked nutritious foods such as meat, milk, eggs, vegetables, and fruit. This was especially true for 40 per cent of children in the most food-insecure households, a likely result of not being able to access these essential foods. Furthermore, nearly one in three children had anemia, likely because of a lack of foods rich in iron and other nutrients.

Masako Horino, a nutrition epidemiologist and the lead UNRWA investigator for the study, noted, “This survey unexpectedly became the last profile of children’s health and nutrition status before the conflict. While most children looked normal in size, many were slightly thin, anemic, and lacked daily access to a nutritious diet.”

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Notes to Editors

• UNRWA conducted the study from 8 July to 7 September 2023. The research involved assessments of 3,229 children registered to start first grade in Gaza. The majority of the children were standard first-grade age – 5 and 6 years – but the full age range in the research was 4-10 years.
• UNRWA is a leading education and health provider for Palestine Refugees across the region, under its longstanding mandate from the UN General Assembly. It transformed its schools in the Gaza Strip into emergency shelters for displaced people at the beginning of the war.
• Originally, the study was meant to help plan nutrition programmes for the upcoming school year, but formal education ceased in Gaza when the war began.
• In addition to the authors from UNWRA and Al-Quds University, Professor Keith West, Jr., from the Program in Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided analysis support and assisted in the drafting of the paper.

Background Information:

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency’s area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.

UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on.

UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.

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to displaced families in Gaza

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