Extract from ABC News
Medical staff said there has been a huge increase in admissions to intensive care for people suffering from malnutrition. (ABC News)
The intensive care ward of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was quiet.
The patients barely filled their beds, and struggled to muster the energy to cry out.
WARNING: This story contains details that may distress some readers.
Doctors and nurses moved from patient to patient, huddled over their tiny, emaciated bodies.
They are the innocent victims of the war in Gaza, born into the conflict and now fighting for their survival.
Among them is Suwa Al Ashour — five and a half months old, sucking on a bottle held by her grandmother.
"I'm terrified of losing my granddaughter, something as simple as milk could save her life," Reema Al Khalil Al Ashour told the ABC.
Baby Suwa is losing up to 200 grams in weight each day, according to doctors. (ABC News)
"She went from 2.4 kilograms to 4 kilograms, but soon after she became weak and started vomiting.
"As her condition worsened and she began losing weight again, we rushed her to the hospital."
This is the result of Israel's total humanitarian blockade of Gaza, now stretching into its third month.
It is a decision authorities said was designed to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining 59 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, but which humanitarians and doctors said was disproportionately affecting the war-ravaged strip's most vulnerable.
Doctors have told Reema and her family that baby Suwa is losing up to 200 grams in weight each day.
New mothers in Gaza struggle to breastfeed, without enough food of their own.
Their babies do not have access to enough milk and formula to fill the gap, and are starving.
"Children are dying because of the ongoing siege," Reema said.
"This little girl, like so many others, is at risk of dying simply because the essentials for survival are out of reach."
The hospital's staff fear the situation is getting worse.
"Lately, there is a huge increase in the admission to the hospital, especially in the intensive care unit due to malnutrition," paediatrician and Nasser's deputy director Dr Ahed Jaber Khalaf told the ABC.
"We admit to the hospital only the most severe cases, such as those involving inflammatory conditions, blood poisoning, or organ dysfunction, particularly kidney failure.
"We are short on medical supplies due to the siege, we suffer drug shortages, we can hardly help those children."
Doctors and humanitarian organisations said children had been the worst affected by Israel's blockade of aid. (ABC News)
Blockade enters a third month
Aid agencies said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been plain to see for months — long before the blockade came into force, making a devastating situation even worse.
Humanitarian agencies have warned the strip is now teetering on the brink of famine, with food kitchens forced to close and warehouses lying empty.
Earlier in the week, French President Emmanuel Macron criticised Israel.
"We're not going to have double standards when it comes to Gaza," he said.
"And so fighting a terrorist group like Hamas, yes — but not to respect any humanitarian rule and maintain the situation in Gaza, no.
"This situation is unacceptable."
Community kitchens closing in Gaza as Israeli blockade cuts food supply. (Eric Tlozek)
As the population suffers from a lack of access to food and aid, the Netanyahu government has given a green light to a new plan for Gaza.
Under that, there would be an expansion of the Israel Defense Force's (IDF) military campaign — something being viewed as the first step towards total and indefinite occupation of the strip.
Part of the plan is a new way to deliver aid to the population, using private contractors to distribute supplies to desperate Palestinians.
"There was enough supply inside Gaza, in storage, enough for several weeks, probably two months — we knew that, everybody knew that," Tamir Hayman, the executive director of Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said.
"But it's run out, so we are reaching the point that it's enough, that we need to restart."
Mr Hayman, who is a retired major general and former chief of the IDF's intelligence directorate, has argued Israel had "no alternative" but to try to find a new way to deliver aid, bypassing Hamas.
"If you don't have a credible mechanism and you just pour, just send logistics across the lines of the battlefield, it reaches the hands of Hamas and Hamas uses that to re-arm, to regroup, to sell it at enormous prices in order to get money that uses them as a salary," he said.
"So you need, on the one hand, to return back the humanitarian aid and the other hand to ensure that it won't get to the hands of Hamas.
"This is why the very complicated plan was designed, was planned. What's the potential of success? I don't know. It seems too complicated for Gaza."
Humanitarian agencies have roundly criticised the idea.
"It appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponise the aid," UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke said on Monday.
"We have warned against that for a very long time, that aid should be provided based on humanitarian need to whomever needs it."
Tamir Hayman said the latest Israeli plan to expand operations in Gaza wasn't "a full-scale reconquering". (ABC News: Hamish Harty)
Conquering Gaza, or not
The broader Israeli plan, for an expanded military mission in Gaza, has fuelled grave fears of total and indefinite occupation of the strip.
"To Hamas, I say one thing — the rules are going to change very soon," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told soldiers at a training base in southern Israel on Thursday.
"We are determined to achieve two goals: one — to defeat Hamas, to eliminate Hamas.
"The second thing, of course, at the same time — to free our hostages."
Israeli troops are stationed near the border with Gaza in southern Israel. (AP: Ariel Schalit)
Among the loudest and most controversial voices in the Netanyahu coalition cabinet, far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich gave a controversial assessment of the approach.
"We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip, we are no longer afraid of the word 'occupation'," he said.
"We are conquering Gaza, clearing it out, and taking control of every area we enter."
Tamir Hayman is not convinced the plan goes that far.
At least not yet.
"The current expansion of the manoeuvre … is not a full scale reconquering of Gaza, it is not that — it's more of the same, it's not a transformation, a dramatic transformation," he said.
"It may end up by us expanding, over weeks and months, and ending up reoccupying Gaza.
"But it creates some span, some time before that conduct, for the political and diplomatic effort [to continue]."
The Trump card in negotiations
Those efforts may, however, prove fruitless — as they have done to now.
Israel and Hamas have accused each other of frustrating negotiations for another ceasefire and hostage deal.
Hamas had offered to release all of the Israeli captives, in exchange for an end to the war.
Israel had demanded the militant group lay down their weapons, something Hamas viewed as a red line.
Since the Netanyahu government's blockade was imposed, and plans for an expanded military offensive were announced, Hamas has said there appears little point in continuing negotiations.
Mr Hayman said US President Donald Trump still had considerable power to alter the course of the war, and of the negotiations.
Donald Trump met with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in April. (AP: Mark Schiefelbein)
Israel would not be putting its expanded mission into action until after Mr Trump visited the Middle East next week.
"He recently surprised Israel by unilaterally stopping the war in Yemen, even though the Houthis are continuing firing towards Israel, totally surprising the Israeli security establishment," he said.
"It's the number one deterrence element of the Middle East right now — his unpredictability, everybody is deterred.
"Allies are more deterred than enemies."
Earlier this week, Mr Trump revealed another three of the 24 hostages believed to be alive had been killed in recent weeks.
The reservists say enough is enough
Israel's military efforts relies on reserve members across the country answering the call up when the nation is at war.
But the direction the war has taken has caused thousands to reconsider their positions.
Among them is Max Kresch, a combat medic turned campaigner.
"Refusal is legitimate," he told the ABC.
"And it's not refusing army service, it's not refusing military service, period.
"It's refusing to take part in this, in specifically what's happening here."
Max Kresch is a combat medic turned campaigner, who refuses to participate further in this war. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)
Mr Kresch served on the frontline in Israel's north for more than two months after October 7, facing the threat of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
After that, he made the decision not to return, sensing the Netanyahu government was twisting anger over the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas into an excuse to pursue its broader territorial and military ambitions in Gaza.
As a result, Mr Kresch's relationship with his then-girlfriend ended, and he felt ostracised from the broader Israeli community.
Since then, the number of reservists refusing the call up have grown considerably.
About 300 are signatories to Mr Kresch's organisation, which he said was about giving a platform to soldiers to speak out.
"[It's] the support network behind them of people who are able to say, 'good for you for speaking out', because they're going to get a lot of shit, they're gonna get a lot of toxicity from the poison machine, Netanyahu's poison machine," he said.
Thousands of others have signed public declarations against the war.
Some polling suggests at least 60 per cent of the population are against the war continuing.
There have been constant, large protests against the Israeli government and Benjamin Netanyahu. (Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
"As a soldier, like, as somebody who wore the uniform proudly in the past, now is the time that I need to speak up," Mr Kresch said.
"This is how I fight for what's right."
The consequences of refusing to answer being called up for duty differ, depending on the individual and the process.
The repercussions for Mr Kresch were reputational.
He said others have faced court martials, or fines of 2000 shekels ($870).
The IDF recently fired hundreds of reservists who had signed an open letter published in the nation's newspapers, critical of the war and saying a ceasefire should be prioritised if it meant getting the remaining hostages back.
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