Islam Hajjaj feeds her 6-year-old malnourished daughter Najwa, at a shelter in central Gaza City, on May 11. Israel's total blockade of food and humanitarian aid has led to Palestinian children facing mass starvation.

(Warning: Distressing photos and graphic medical details throughout.)

Dr. Razan Al-Nahhas just returned to Chicago from a volunteering stint in Gaza, where for two months the emergency physician mostly treated visibly malnourished Palestinian children at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital ― an increasingly common sight since Israel began attacking the territory 19 months ago, and stopped all food and aid deliveries 70 days ago.

Al-Nahhas said she initially felt confused when she didn’t see improvement in the health of her paediatric patients within days, or even weeks, of treatment. The doctor recalled a 9-year-old girl who came in with lung injuries from an explosion, and was extubated days into being at the ICU.

“Anywhere else, she would have been out of the ICU within a few days. She was intubated and extubated and intubated and extubated, I think four or five times,” she told HuffPoston Thursday. “When I left [Gaza], she was still in the ICU. She had been there for almost three weeks. And this was a consistent theme I was experiencing with patients that I would see in the ER.”

The doctor realised that paediatric patients were not improving because they are severely malnourished and dehydrated ― lacking the carbohydrates for energy, the fats to reduce inflammation, and the protein to build and repair tissue, skin and muscles.

Al-Nahhas was hardly the only doctor to see how Gaza’s dire starvation crisis is helping fuel the genocide that health care workers, aid groups, world leaders and human rights organisationshave accused Israel of committing. Amid a decimated health care systemwhose hospitals are routinely under siege, doctors in Gaza are treating both victims of direct military attacks as well as the children and pregnant women whose wounds and recoveries are disproportionately impacted by food scarcity.

Suwar Ashur, 5 months, is being treated for malnutrition at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on May 1. Suwar is one of thousands of children experiencing malnutrition as a result of Israel's total blockade of food and humanitarian assistance.

For this story, HuffPost heard from more than a dozen health care workers ― most of whom are physicians ― who have either recently volunteered or are currently working in Gaza’s hospitals.

“I witnessed Gaza’s health care workers handle mass casualty incidents with competence and preparedness that surpasses the best trauma centers in this country,” said Dr. Brennan Bollman, who recently returned to the U.S. from volunteering in Gaza. “But they cannot heal people without supplies and medicines. And no matter how skilled they are in caring for the horrific wounds caused by bombs, the human body cannot heal without food.”

Ten weeks ago, Israel launched its blockade preventing all aid ― including food, water, shelter and medical supplies ― from entering the territory that has been destroyed to the point where the population of 2.3 million is forced to rely entirely on humanitarian assistance for their survival. Scenes documented by Palestinians on the ground show crowds tightly packed at food distribution centres, while difficult........

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