Gaza extermination: Hasan should have turned three. Instead, he starved to death

Two-year-old Hasan Barbakh died of starvation on 24 June, after months of prolonged malnutrition, dehydration, an enlarged liver, and acute blood toxicity.

He would have turned three the next day.

Hasan was just over a year old when Israel launched its genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip, cutting off every Palestinian in Gaza from the outside world.

Israeli displacement orders forced his family to move around like chess pieces. Not long after Israeli authorities imposed a total blockade in March, Hasan's health began to deteriorate. He lost 2kg in weight.

"From the first week of the siege, [his weight] began to drop daily, and his voice grew weaker," Hasan's mother, Amna, told a field researcher from Defence for Children International-Palestine, where I work as an advocacy officer. "I sensed he was slowly fading away."

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