Pediatrician Ahmmed Al-Farra and a 6-month old baby he is trying to save

Dr. Al-Farra is head of pediatrics and maternity in Gaza's Nasser Medical Complex. He says there are no functioning hospitals in the northern part of the Gaza strip, and his hospital has repeatedly been bombed. 

“We're seeing children with marasmus -- skin and bone," he said. "Some are just 40% of their expected weight. Severe malnutrition, no protein, no vitamins."

Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition.

Siwar Ashour, a child in Gaza, was born small, but was a relatively healthy baby six months ago, according to Al-Farra.

But today, she is acutely malnourished and fighting for her life in the Nasser Hospital. She is bound in plastic because she has lost so much weight that he can no longer regulate her body temperature. Six months old, she weighs just over 7 pounds. That is less than half the weight of an average American baby girl, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

"If she does not take the suitable formula of milk, unfortunately, she will not survive," Al-Farra said.

More information: ABC News

Hanya Aljamal, former English teacher

Hanya Aljamal used to teach English in the Gaza strip, but her school was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. Before the war, she was applying to American universities to study for a Master’s degree in international development. Her Gaza is a different world now, so much so that the Gaza she remembers feels like a fake memory. 

Aljamal works for a British for a British aid organization that runs a project for children in Gaza. She kept an audio diary for the BBC to give listeners a sense of what her life is like today. It starts on Tuesday, June 1.

In one entry, she says children came to the organization’s kitchen with empty pots, begging for food, but she and another staff member turned them away because their food was for people in the aid organization’s camps and they couldn’t feed everyone. 

In another, girls take part in a therapy session at which they talk about emotions – what makes them happy (“When you get really high marks on a test and you feel proud of yourself!”) and what makes them sad. One girl suddenly started crying. She had lost both parents.

One day that week, she watched five colorful kites flying in the air. "I like kites - they're like an active act of hope," she says. "Every kite is a couple of kids down there trying to have a normal childhood in the midst of all this."

More information: BBC