��������

LONDON: Palestinians being treated in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals are dying from their wounds because they are so malnourished, a British doctor working in the territory said.

Professor Nick Maynard, a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon, who is on his third stint volunteering in the territory since the war started, said he is seeing unprecedented levels of severe malnutrition.

“The malnutrition I’m seeing here is indescribably bad. It’s much, much worse now than a year ago,” Maynard, who is based at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, said.

UNICEF chief Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that acute malnutrition among children in Gaza had almost tripled after Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on food aid to the territory in March.

Maynard said malnutrition levels were directly contributing to preventable deaths among patients receiving surgery. He said those injured in Israel’s military attacks were dying because being malnourished prevents proper healing.

“The repairs that we carry out fall to pieces; patients get terrible infections and they die,” Maynard, who is volunteering with Medical Aid for Palestinians, said. “I have had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover, it’s distressing to see that and know that it is preventable and treatable.”

Maynard said babies in Nasser’s neonatal unit have been particularly affected, with four recent infant deaths blamed on malnutrition.

The surgeon said he had been reduced to tears by the state of the children he has seen. 

“I saw a seven-month-old who looked like a newborn,” Maynard said. “The expression ‘skin and bones’ doesn’t do it justice. We have almost no liquid or intravenous feeds — children are being given essentially 10 percent sugar water, which is not proper nutritional support.”

Maynard said he had even seen the effects of malnutrition in his Palestinian colleagues, who were barely recognizable from when he had worked with them a year ago. He said many had lost 20-30kg due to the food shortages.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza lead to widespread warnings that the territory could descend into a state of famine.

In her briefing to the security council, UNICEF’s Russell said that of the more than 113,000 children screened for malnutrition in June, almost 6,000 were found to be acutely malnourished — an 180 percent increase in acute malnutrition cases compared to February.

“Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition,” she said. 

Maynard, who is usually based at Oxford University Hospital, has been traveling to volunteer in Gaza with MAP for more than 10 years.

While on his current posting, he has witnessed the daily arrival of Palestinians who have been shot while trying to access food aid through distribution hubs set up by the new Israeli- and US-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“We have hundreds of trauma casualties coming in every day, it’s relentless,” he said. “This is not only from Israeli military airstrikes and attacks, but we are also treating multiple gunshot wounds every day.

“These are mainly from the militarized distribution points, where starving civilians are going to try and get food but then report getting targeted by Israeli soldiers or quadcopters.”

The surgeon said he had mostly been operating on boys aged 12 or 13 who had been sent to the aid hubs to get food for their families.

“A 12-year-old boy I was operating on died from his injuries on the operating table — he had been shot through the chest.”

Maynard called on the international community to force Israel to allow the full flow of food and aid into Gaza, and to end the “collective punishment” of the territory’s population.

“The enforced malnutrition and attacks on civilians we are witnessing will kill many more thousands of people if not stopped,” he said.

ANKARA: President Tayyip Erdogan risks losing support among nationalist Turkish voters in making peace with Kurdistan Workers Party militants, whose burning of weapons last week was dismissed by some as a stunt.

A backlash to Erdogan’s call on Saturday for wide parliamentary support for the process underlines the challenge he faces in balancing nationalist and Kurdish demands, with a failure to do so potentially jeopardizing the plan’s success.

Erdogan’s own future is also at stake: his term runs out in 2028 unless parliament backs the idea of early elections or a change in the constitution to extend a 22-year rule in which he has raised NATO member Turkiye’s profile on the world stage. He insists that personal political considerations play no role.

“The doors of a new powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” he said on Saturday of the symbolic initial handover of arms.

While his AKP party’s far-right nationalist coalition partner MHP drove the peace process, smaller nationalist parties have condemned it. They recalled his years condemning the pro-Kurdish DEM party as being tied to the 40-year PKK insurgency that the PKK now says is over.

Erdogan’s comments about “walking together” with DEM drew a cool response from the pro-Kurdish party itself, with DEM lawmaker Pervin Buldan saying there was no broad political alliance between it and the AKP.

AKP spokesperson Omer Celik reaffirmed the president’s nationalist credentials in response to a request for comment on his statement, saying the process “is not give-and-take, negotiation, or bargaining.”

Parliament is convening a commission tasked with deciding how to address Kurdish demands for more autonomy and the reintegration of fighters complying with the February disarmament call of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The nationalist opposition IYI Party is refusing to take part, with its leader Musavat Dervisoglu describing the peace process at the weekend as a betrayal after a conflict which has killed more than 40,000 people.

“We will not allow the Republic to be destroyed, we will not allow the Turkish homeland to be divided, we will not surrender to betrayal,” he said.

Umit Ozdag, head of the opposition Victory Party, also sought to stir nationalist passions, slamming the commission as a bid to legitimize the PKK and dismissing the event where 30 PKK members burned their guns as a “barbecue party.”

“You don’t just burn 30 rifles and call it a day. Weapons are surrendered, and PKK members interrogated one-by-one.”

A senior Turkish official said the gun burning was an “irreversible turning point.” It is part of a five-stage process culminating in legal reforms and social reconciliation by early 2026, according to another Turkish source.

NUMBER CRUNCHING
While those parties could not derail the peace process alone, Erdogan, a shrewed political operator, is likely to closely monitor public reaction as the commission starts its work.

A private June survey by the Konda pollster seen by Reuters showed that only 12 percent of respondents believe the PKK, designated as a terrorist group by Turkiye and its Western allies, has abandoned the insurgency that it launched in 1984.

It also showed potential candidates for the opposition CHP, now subject to a wide-ranging legal crackdown, beating Erdogan in head-to-head votes in an election.

Erdogan critics say the peace process is aimed at drawing Kurdish support for a new constitution that would both boost their rights and allow him to be a candidate in 2028. He says reform is needed because the constitution is outdated rather than for any personal reasons and he has not committed to running again.

It is unclear whether the commission will propose constitutional change, but such changes require the support of 400 MPs in the 600-seat assembly with the potential for a referendum if more than 360 MPs vote in favor. The AKP-MHP alliance has 319 seats, while DEM have 56.

Any move to hold early elections would also require 360 votes, but that — and the peace process itself — would depend on keeping DEM on board.

After meeting the justice minister on Wednesday, DEM’s Buldan said she had insisted that PKK disarmament proceed in lock-step with legal changes.

“The minister expressed commitment to ensuring the process proceeds legally and constitutionally,” she said, adding that there was no specific timeline for disarmament.