Dr Munir Al-Bursh, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, has revealed an unprecedented spread of anaemia among children in the Gaza Strip, announcing this week that 82% of children under the age of one are affected.
This is a deeply alarming figure that reflects the deteriorating health conditions caused by Israeli blockade and genocide.
Dr Al-Bursh emphasised that the Israeli occupation is working to engineer both genocide and health-based extermination, aiming to ‘erase Palestinian lineage’.
He warned that Israel seeks a generation born from a deformed womb to live a deformed life.
This spike in anaemia rates poses an ‘imminent threat’ to children’s survival and development, especially as Israel continues to block the entry of essential medications tied to childhood health programmes.
The deprivation, he noted, threatens to produce a generation with severe health deformities, with 156 cases of birth defects already recorded since the war began.
Dr Al-Bursh also reported a significant 40% drop in birth rates compared to pre-war levels, highlighting the catastrophic living and healthcare conditions, and the immense risks faced by both mothers and infants amid a crumbling health system.
These warnings come as Israel’s war on Gaza continues since October 7th, 2023, backed by US and European powers, leaving behind mass destruction, killing, starvation, displacement, and arrests, in blatant defiance of international appeals and International Court of Justice rulings demanding a halt to the genocide.
According to official Palestinian data, the war has resulted in over 239,000 casualties, mostly women and children, in addition to more than 11,000 missing persons, whose fates remain unknown.
Gaza is also suffering a famine that has claimed the lives of many children, alongside hundreds of thousands of displaced people and near-total destruction of towns and cities.
Health officials warn that the anaemia crisis is just one face of the broader healthcare collapse in Gaza, urging urgent international intervention to save what’s left before the catastrophe deepens and leaves a lasting impact on entire generations.
Meanwhile, senior Hamas official Abdul-Rahman Shadeed has warned that Palestinian prisoners are facing attempts to slowly execute them inside Israeli jails.
‘Assaulting prisoner Abdullah Barghouthi in Gilboa jail is part of a systematic abuse policy carried out by the (Israeli) prison administration under political directives,’ Shadeed said in a statement this week.
‘What is happening in Israeli jails reflects the threats made by extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to target the prisoners and their leaders,’ Shadeed added.
The Hamas official warned that the health of Barghouthi and other prisoners may deteriorate as they are deprived of receiving medical care, accusing Israeli jailers of attempting to break prisoners’ resilience.
Shadeed called on the international community and human rights groups to take urgent action to protect Palestinian prisoners against Israeli violations in jails.
In a related context, Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, said that the report released recently by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel documented 94 deaths of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails from the start of the genocidal war until August 2025, with four additional deaths announced later, bringing the total to 98, expressing his belief that the actual death toll is likely to exceed one hundred.
Zaghari explained that this number does not include prisoners who were shot prior to their arrest and later died in Israeli hospitals, nor does it account for dozens who were executed immediately after being detained.
Palestinian prisoner and Hamas leader Abdullah Barghouti has endured one of the harshest forms of physical and psychological torture since his arrest on March 5, 2003, in Israeli Gilboa Prison.
In a press statement, the Palestinian Prisoner Society reports that Barghouti, 53, is currently subjected to what amounts to ‘an attempt at slow execution’ targeting one of the most prominent leaders of the Palestinian Captive Movement, warning that he could die at any moment.
The statement revealed that for over 25 months, the prison administration has carried out systematic and repeated assaults against Barghouti.
Prison guards storm his cell day and night, accompanied by dogs, telling him they ‘missed beating him’ before three of them tie him down and violently beat him with batons, causing bleeding and deep wounds.
Fellow prisoners are forced to treat him using torn clothes and basic cleaning materials.
Barghouti, who is serving 67 life sentences, suffers from serious untreated injuries: Fractures in his right elbow and hand lasting over three months, a broken pinky finger on his left hand, two fractured ribs, torn tendons, and a significant weight loss of around 35 kilogrammes due to starvation and poor nutrition.
According to the statement, guards have also poured water on him before electrocuting him, and placed him in a cell infested with scabies, causing painful boils across his body.
He now sleeps on the floor in an attempt to avoid further infection.
Barghouti now has severe difficulty moving his hands, with one nearly paralysed, while Israeli prison authorities deny him any medical care, even painkillers, and prevent human rights organisations from contacting him.
The office affirmed that what Barghouti is enduring is part of an open war targeting the leadership of the Captive Movement, and that the level of abuse he faces goes beyond punishment; it is a deliberate attempt to kill him, demanding urgent international intervention.
The Israeli Knesset’s General Assembly last Monday approved a bill in its first reading that would allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners, forwarding it to the relevant committee for further votes.
Rights groups warn the law could be applied retroactively, placing hundreds of detainees at risk.
An Israeli human rights organisation, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), confirmed in a report that Israeli occupation authorities practise a systematic policy of killing, mistreatment, medical negligence, and concealment of causes of death inside prisons and detention centres against Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
The report revealed that 98 Palestinians died while in Israeli custody over the past two years, the highest number recorded to date, surpassing all previous estimates of prisoner deaths.
The tally includes 94 prisoners who were killed between October 7th, 2023 and August 2025, in addition to four others who died in October and November 2025.
The organisation stressed that the policy of enforced disappearance pursued by the Israeli army since the start of the war means that the real numbers may be much higher, noting that the report includes only the deaths that occurred inside detention facilities and does not account for seven documented cases of Palestinians who were executed by gunfire shortly after arrest.
The report is the most comprehensive to date on the deaths of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, as it draws on multiple sources, including official responses to Freedom of Information requests, autopsy reports attended by family-appointed doctors, and medical files of prisoners prior to their deaths.
It also relies on medical complaints handled by the organisation, testimonies from former prisoners and medical staff, as well as information from other human rights groups.
An appendix to the report contains detailed accounts of 76 fully verified deaths.
According to the report, 46 deaths occurred inside facilities run by the Israel Prison Service, including:
16 in Ketziot Prison (Negev),
7 in Megiddo Prison,
5 in Ofer Prison,
7 in Nitzan Prison (Ramla) and the IPS medical centre (Ramla Prison Clinic),
4 in Nafha Prison,
1 in Eshel Prison,
6 in Shin Bet (Shabak) interrogation centres (Kishon-Jalameh and Shikma-Ashkelon).
Meanwhile, 52 other prisoners, all from Gaza, were killed while held by the Israeli army, including:
29 in Sde Teiman military camp,
7 in military bases near the Gaza security barrier,
6 in Soroka Hospital after delayed transfer from detention centres,
2 in Ofer military camp,
1 in Anatot camp,
while the place of death of 8 prisoners remains unknown.
The report revealed a recurring pattern of severe violence and grave medical neglect inside detention centres.
A review of 10 autopsy reports showed signs of physical violence in nearly half of the cases, including head injuries, internal bleeding, and rib fractures.
Other reports documented cases of acute malnutrition, denial of insulin to diabetic patients, and the refusal of prison authorities to provide basic treatment to cancer patients or those suffering from life-threatening infections.
These findings are consistent with widespread reports over the past two years of starvation, dehydration, and exposure to extreme cold and heat in Israeli prisons and detention camps.
